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ecmn | Everyone's fall is a little different. Since we have no fall up here cover crops go into corn at very early in the season. Cover crops go into soybeans when soybeans start to yellow.
If you have poorly drained soil that is a Mucky mess in the spring that is the ground that needs cover crops on. You have an infiltration problem not a water problem. Go do an infiltration test and see where you're at. And then dig up the soil and see what your structure looks like.
Cover crops that have grown for a month that are not overly tall still had a month of pumping carbon into the soil adding life to the soil a little bit of shallow root structure and plant matter to the top to reduce wind and water erosion. And the biggest thing that a fall cover crop can do is eliminate the primary tillage. That's your biggest long-term saving of a cover crop right there.
You could broadcast Rye ahead of snow or even in the snow in the spring it comes up and you could reduce chemicals. Or use the same herbicide program in soybeans and let the Rye help you have a potentially cleaner field. Have to still manage it for water. Same story several weeks of growth in the spring is several weeks of carbon being added to the soil. | |
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Fall Cover Crops Boost Soil Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi
