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PROSPECT, TENNESSEE | To each his own.... I do understand how adding a cereal rye cover could lead to issues with tile plugging. I also realize with these issues comes benefits. In the first few years we cover cropped, we had tile underneath. We lost a lot of the cover crop to ponding water. In years to follow, the loss of covers became less and less. The ground seemed to drain better and not pond as bad. THEN.... we had a flooding event, with river overflowing. All of a sudden we had plugged tile!!! We found Root plugs handing from tile exits all over that farm, this was several weeks after burn down. Crops we planted, so only exits were checked. Basically they were still draining but through a "mop" of roots. We monitored tile that year with plans of finding the problem areas... We never noticed one.....
We also notice now, instead of a tile running a 1/4" stream for weeks, it runs 3/4" for days.... Basically, I think the covers made my heavy, poorly drained, clay based, soil more permeable, more forgiving, etc. This particular farm has been tiles since back in the early 1990's, cover cropped continuously since 2009, and we have less loss the water than we ever have had.
I feel if my cover crop roots go that deep my cash crop roots will also.... Once they decay and leave a path of less resistance, why wouldn't they??? | |
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John Phipps on agri talk? Not putting any cover crops in?
