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Last Year's Cover Crop
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grantatious
Posted 10/26/2016 07:22 (#5600606)
Subject: Last Year's Cover Crop


Russellville, KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYiqNl3jUFY

This is some drone footage of my first cereal rye & ryegrass mixture cover crop seeded in early October of 2015. This followed a 167 bu/ac corn crop in North Logan County, Kentucky.

The soil is a Zanesville B slope, which is a moderately well drained silt loam that is approximately 2.5 feet deep to the limiting fragipan horizon. Prior management of the soil was 3 years of no-till cropping (soybeans, soybeans, corn) that were preceded by many years of being cut for mixed grass hay. When I started cropping the field, I applied 3.5 tons of ag lime per acre to correct the pH.

The crop was drilled with a 10' Gaspardo no-till drill at a 45 degree angle relative to the corn rows with 56#/ac of cereal rye & 25#/ac of ryegrass.

This acreage was planted with this mixture to control erosion, with the intent to terminate the crop in the Spring when it reached boot-top height. Since the stand was excellent, and I needed hay, I decided to manage the cover crop for forage. The cover crop was fertilized with 150# of urea, 100# of DAP, and 100# of MOP and was cut for hay during the last week of April, making about 3.5 tons per acre (primarily cereal rye). After initial harvest, it was fertilized again with 120# of urea, 100# of DAP, and 100# of MOP. It was cut as hay once more (predominately ryegrass), making about 3.75 tons during the first week of June. Both hay crops were wrapped with Sunfilm to reduce storage losses. I followed hay harvest just a couple days later by seeding soybeans and fertilizing it again with an additional 50#/ac of DAP and 100#/ac of MOP.

Although I do not know the yield of the bean crop that followed yet, it appears that it should beat the county average yield by at least 10%. Thus far, I have been most impressed by the reduction of weed pressure, as this field was sprayed only with a single burndown application of Roundup. The reduction of erosion and the elimination of a second herbicide application after germination was enough incentive for me to want to use this mixture again.

This single year's experience does not reflect my typical management strategy, with the exception of 100% no-till and 100% cover crop, but it has been a valuable experience in learning exactly what this ground can do in spite of being considered "below average" for our county.

Due to being a small operation that is relatively well-equipped, we have found that we are able to take advantage of some small windows to do certain practices or treatments on our acreage.

Edited by grantatious 10/27/2016 14:55
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