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SW South Dakota | Thank you for starting this discussion. I've been thinking about cover crops to keep from chem fallow.
I am fond of sorghum sudan myself, but I haven't sprayed it off and planted wheat into it. It has good roots that mellow the soil.
A few years ago we tried some Japanese millet. We put it in fields we were throwing together to get larger fields. We planted it with intentions of combining it to get some seed to plant more. It got hailed flat about mid August. We chem fallowed that ground last year and planted wheat in it last fall. This year at harvest you could tell where the line was that the Japanese millet was planted. It yielded consistently 20 bushel better than what had been in wheat the same year. There were spots that ran 60+ bu/acre without any fertilizer, going to 80 bu/acre in low spots.
Something that worked for me last year was not spraying the first time until the end of May. It looked terrible but we had great moisture in the fall to plant even though we had a dry summer. At planting I've been using Pre-Pare and have excellent results controlling cheat grass. This spring the wheat was clean so didn't spray it. At harvest we were starting to get a few wild sunflowers but they were still clean otherwise. The problem with using Pre-Pare is restrictions on what else you can plant the following year. | |
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High Plains cover crop in fallow
