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North Central Illinois | I have some mixed grass, clover, and alfalfa pasture that I am planning to rotate to organic corn next spring. It is less than 50% legume, so I will need additional nitrogen. My plan is to do a tilled fallow during the hot dry part of the summer to kill the sod since it has quite a few areas of quackgrass, then plant a cover crop that can be grazed this fall, or possibly in the spring. I would like to include a legume to produce additional N.
Here I am considering at the moment. Option 1 gets me the most feed, since I can graze it this fall. I could even drill rye into it around Nov. 1 after the cows are done grazing it. The other two choices would let me wait a little longer to terminate the existing sod though, and get additional grazing from that.
Option 1: Spring peas, oats, and brassica seeded in early August (I have done this without the peas in the past and been very satisfied with fall grazing on it). Can I expect a significant N credit from the peas for the subsequent corn crop?
Option 2: Crimson clover with a small amount of cereal rye seeded around Sept. 1st. I have had crimson clover overwinter before when I didn't intend for it to, but I have heard that it doesn't overwinter reliably here (just north of I-80).
Option 3: Hairy Vetch with a small amount of cereal rye seeded around Sept. 1st. | |
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Cover Crop Ahead of Next Year's Corn
