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southern MN | No companion cover works here in fall. But in spring, one good rain (common here) and you are fixing up the washouts in our clay.....
Some dairy have gone to planting oats or wheat, combine and bale straw, then plant the alfalfa or grass crop in early fall. We often get a nice late summer rain and works well in wetter clay ground. Gives you a full crop and a good pasture the next summer.
An alternative between you and the dealer is to plant with an oats cover crop, keep it light, and then mowing it for hay just before boot stage. That would give your sod a bit longer to establish. This is nice for an alfalfa crop 'here'.
However, grass crops tend to fill themselves in, I presume you have no intention of using it in 2014, and grass should recover and fill in by itself after the oats and straw harvest, so I would prefer running the oats cover rather than not. I would not want the bare weed covered spring seeding.
But your soil, your climate, makes a big difference don't know what's right for you.
Paul | |
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cover crop for new pasture
