Seems like planting green has exploded in popularity the past two years. Figured I'd post some after emergence pics, thoughts, and observations from various forms of my planting green and how it is used here. Everything is 15" rows and sprayed the day after planting.


This field has had a Rye cover for 5 straight years and is 20+ year notill. Could be closer to 30, but I can't say for sure. It's very mellow, has a nice worm population, and has been very forgiving at planting for quite some time. I have gotten away without a post pass in 2 of the last 5 years, and that is almost unheard of in the land of Missouri waterhemp. Might not be smart, but I'm going to gamble on it again if/when I can. Always interesting to see how the green planting works out each year, but it feels like everything on this piece of ground just keeps getting better and better as time goes on. Do occasionally fight emergence on the end rows here where the mat gets run down by the tractor, but these point rows look good this year. Planting conditions were near perfect. Basically use this field as a goal and attempt to get other farms near its "level".



 

This field was grazed at two pairs to the acre this spring and had liquid spread on it last fall that caused significant compaction. I believe the liquid slowed the rye growth as well. It does not have much topsoil left and grazing does leave the surface rougher than regular notill or a normal planting green cover. Probably costs me 1/2 to 3/4 a mph at planting. I'm constantly told by the chemical man you can't kill without a leaf. Rye is a different cat and the pictures kind of speak for themselves. I'm convinced being able to graze some rye every year in order to maintain, or increase, my herd numbers is going to be very important to the bottom line in the next few years. I'm told there is as much under the soil as there is above it when using rye, but I'm not sure how that turns out when you graze the top off.

This field was/is severely K challenged, but it's getting better each year and the soil is getting more forgiving as I'm able to work Rye in between crops every other year or so. I believe I saw a yield hit the first year after rye and before I was able to start increasing fertility rates. It obviously takes nutrients to grow these covers and I'm not sure where it's at on getting the cycle fired up and running regularly.  

 

Not emerged yet, but gives you an idea of what the full grown fields look like before they fall down. This one had a significant rain the day after planting, so who knows how that'll turn out. I have conventional till planted the same day for a comparison if either of them come out of the ground. 

This piece was very lightly grazed by bulls. They got ahead of it early, then it got away from them. Looked as if you stunted the rye chemically. 2-3 foot or so tall when the planter rolled. I probably liked planting into it the best this year, but I know I left dollars on the table by not grazing it heavier. Seems like it was the perfect blend of above ground cover for erosion protection and easier planting conditions though, so I hope to experiment with light grazing in the future.

Guess I wasn't the only one out scouting the beans today!


 

I think I still have a lot to learn about how to balance the scale between "profit" and "best use". There seems to be a lot of middle ground between grazing it into the ground for maximum profits and leaving it all stand. Perhaps rotating the cover crop treatment will end up just as important as the traditional crop rotation in the long term system.  Would love to hear from others who attempt to get more out of their cover crops than just "planting green".

Side note on my using covers over several years, the quail and rabbit populations have increased significantly on these farms