Michigan State Univ. extension educator Dan Hudson published the following about cover crops. To view the entire presentation, click here:
Here are the main points, both about the benefits of cover crops and that of annual ryegrass and crimson clover:
Reasons for Cover Crops - Farmer Perspective
Strong
• Improve yield or profit
• Fix/scavenge nitrogen
• Improve soil quality
– OM, structure, bio
• Control weeds
• Reduce erosion
• Low risk
• SECONDARY USE
– Low cost livestock
maintenance/gain
Benefits
• Resource efficiency
– Aeration tillage, manure application and
cover crop seeding in one pass. Saves 2
gal/acre fuel, 0.35 h/acre labor.
• Soil quality benefits
– Reduce tillage and traffic, organic inputs,
sequester carbon, increase soil organic
matter.
• Other benefits
– Conserves crop residue and improves
infiltration, reduces over land flow.
– Stabilize soil and contaminants, recycles
nutrients.
Annual ryegrass
• Scavenging N
• Vigorous
• Covers ground well
by fall
• Fits well with
manure
• Forage
• Cost of seed
• Slower to start
• Less forgiving
– Seed placement
– Soil conditions
• Variable wintersurvival
• What to do in the
spring
Crimson Clover
• N fixation
• Works well with
annual ryegrass
• Availability
• Winter-hardiness?
• Compared to red
clover?
• Quite sensitive to
seed placement
Dan Hudson
Extension Educator, MSUE
hudsond7@msu.edu
(517)676-7291
Tags: all cover crops, capturing nitrogen, crimson clover, Dan Hudson, erosion control, macropores, Michigan State University Extension, nitrogen-friendly cover crop help reduce the cost for fertilizer., No-Till, organic matter, ryegrass cover crop, sequesters available nitrogen
Some weeks ago, the West Coast ag magazine Capital Press posted this article about Oregon-grown annual ryegrass and a new partner in Midwest cover crop acreage: crimson clover:
Capital Press, Salem, Oregon (by Mitch Lies)
They aren’t synonymous with salt and pepper, but apparently annual ryegrass and crimson clover are combining to provide good benefits to Midwest corn and soybean growers.
And if the Midwest overseeding market increases as expected, the combination could provide Oregon growers with an opportunity to dramatically increase crimson clover acreage in coming years.
Already Midwest growers are purchasing upwards of 10 million pounds a year of annual ryegrass seed. Add to the mix a 20 to 40 percent blend of crimson clover seed, and Midwest sales easily could displace a sizable percentage of the state’s 4 million- to 6 million-pound annual production of crimson clover seed, said Bryan Ostlund, administrator of the Oregon Ryegrass Growers Seed Commission.
That leaves open the door for imports or additional Oregon production to meet the increased demand, said John McCulley, administrator of the Oregon Clover Seed Commission.
With the Midwest cover crop market expected to top 30 million pounds in the next five years, the demand for more crimson seed could be substantial.
Interest in crimson clover was sparked two years ago when Midwest researchers discovered the crop added benefits to annual ryegrass.
“It brings nitrogen to the table,” Ostlund said.
When used as a cover crop, annual ryegrass is shown to expand root passage for corn and soybeans, increase water infiltration, boost soil organic matter, stabilize soil and suppress soybean cyst nematodes. Add the nitrogen-fixing capacity of clover to the mix, and the allure of the cover crop could be even greater, Ostlund said.
Preliminary research also is showing that crimson clover could help annual ryegrass survive the Midwest’s cold winters.
When combined, Ostlund said, the two crops provide benefits that are greater than the sum of their parts.
“Give us a couple of years of looking at the winter survivability, and there could be a ready market back there for crimson clover,” Ostlund said.
Crimson, one of four clovers produced at any capacity in Oregon, makes up about half Oregon’s annual production of clover seed.
Grown primarily in Washington and Yamhill counties, it is used as a forage crop and a cover crop. It makes up between one-third and one-half the 12 million pounds of clover seed produced annually in Oregon.
Tags: all cover crops, annual ryegrass as a cover crop, capturing nitrogen, crimson clover, erosion control, No-Till, No-Till farming, sequesters available nitrogen, soil compaction, water infiltration
Dormant seeding, or “frost seeding,” - a cover crop is much less common than seeding in late summer, after harvest. But Michigan grower Larry Bonnell shared his dormant seeding success with No-Till Farmer magazine this week. He is talking about annual ryegrass. Here’s an excerpt, which you can access by logging on to No-Till Farmer.
“I have (previously) spread grain rye (cereal rye…not annual ryegrass) into corn stubble as late as November with excellent results. This year, I went and broadcast 20 pounds of annual rye (grass) into corn stubble on March 1 with the snow melting. Here in the last week of April, it’s 4 inches tall. I’m going to no-till soybeans into that corn stubble on May 1. (Larry used glyphosate to kill the cover crop before - or shortly after - planting the beans.)
“I’m starting to see the added benefits of no-till after 10 years. My organic matter has risen from 1.7 to 3.2 in a very short time. Cover crops are the biggest thing that has helped.
“I quit baling wheat straw and blow it out the back. I then no-till annual rye into the stubble. On my soil test, I have 35-plus pounds of nitrogen for my corn and I’m cutting nitrogen rates a little.”
As Larry said…cover crops increase organic matter quickly. What he didn’t say, however, is that cover crops dramatically reduce the time it takes. If it takes 10 years of no-till to make that difference in organic matter, a cover crop of annual ryegrass can cut that time in half or two-thirds.
The other benefit, as Larry pointed out, is that cover crops often reduce the amount of nitrogen, because crops like annual ryegrass are nitrogen scavengers…pulling available nutrients out of the soil and manure (if used)…and then release it for use by beans and corn later on in the spring.
Tags: all cover crops, Annual ryegrass, burndown, capturing nitrogen, cover crop, dormant seeding, nitrogen, nitrogen-friendly cover crop help reduce the cost for fertilizer., No-Till Farmer, ryegrass cover crop, spring planting
Last fall, me and a couple of others planted annual ryegrass as a cover crop in small, no-till test plots about 40 miles NW of Indianapolis, with the idea of testing, this spring, what the Nitrogen content would be in the top growth, as well as the Nitrogen/carbon ratio. The idea is to quantify how much nutrient uptake occurs over the months annual ryegrass is wintering over. Experience tells us that about 50% to 75% of the nitrogen is available to commodity crops after the annual ryegrass is burned down in the spring.
We added no nitrogen when we planted the annual ryegrass, thus whatever content it attained came from the available nutrients in the soil.
We took a cutting just before killing the cover crop with glyphosate, then air-dried the vegetation before sending it to a lab for analysis. The results should be back in a couple of weeks and I’ll report on the findings then.
Obviously, a cover crop adds carbon content to the soil, simply because of the root mass and residual vegetation. Cover crops attract and feed earthworms and microorganisms, which accelerate the process of creating healthier, flufffy soil with higher carbon content (organic matter) and improved water infiltration.
From others’ experience, annual ryegrass can sequester anywhere from 50 to 70 lbs. of nitrogen per acre. Having a better handle on this will allow growers to cut back on nitrogen supplementation, and that’s more likely the longer a cover crop is part of your no-till rotation.
This project is part of a much larger Conservation Innovation Grant being directed and organized through the Conservation Tillage Information Center.
Tags: Annual ryegrass, capturing nitrogen, carbon sequestration, Conservation Innovation Grant, Conservation Tillage Information Center, cover crop, CTIC, Dan Towery, No-Till, sequesters available nitrogen, water infiltration
Roger Wenning, a Greensburg, IN farmer and cover crop advocate recently held a field day to measure root depth of annual ryegrass planted as a cover crop at various dates last fall and winter.
Wenning is one of 40 or so “Innovators” featured in a report by Dr. Joel Gruver, Western Illinois University professor. That report is available on the Midwest Cover Crop Council Website, if you click on , Innovator Profiles and follow the link at the bottom to see individual profiles. His profile is on page 44.
Last fall, Wenning seeded annual ryegrass onto small no-till plots in August (25th), September (10th and 25th), once in October, once in November and then did a frost seeding in February of this year. For the earliest applications, Wenning applied the ryegrass seed into standing corn and soybeans. Otherwise, the seeding was done after harvest.
Planting date: Depth of annual ryegrass roots in April, 2010:
Aug. 25 48 inches
Sept. 10 48 inches
Sept. 25 36 inches
October 24 inches
November 16 inches
Feb. 2010 12 inches
“We live in one of the harder areas of the Midwest, in terms of winterkill issues,” Wenning said. “With the snow cover we had last winter, any kind of annual ryegrass seed would have worked well, even Gulf.” In previous years, the severity of the weather (lack of snow, severe wind chill, multiple freeze and thaw cycles) has played havoc on some varieties, prompting lots of variety testing and plant breeding to build more hardiness into annual ryegrass.
He talked about a peculiarity with growth of annual ryegrass last fall, in the plots seeded by plane. “The ryegrass coverage in beans was good but the corn was spotty. I’m thinking maybe shade was a factor. Those fields had 200 bu/ac yield and the rows were lined up east to west. So the foliage might have been too dense for the sun to penetrate, especially with the alignment of the fields as they were.”
Tags: Aerial seeding, all cover crops, annual ryegrass as a cover crop, crop yield, deep rooting, frost seeding, No-Till, No-Till corn and soybean, No-Till farming, winterkill
This post came from “Go Green Toolshed,” a blog on the virtues and mechanics of organic farming. It seemed particularly on target with this segment talking about benefits of no-till farming and its relationship to the carbon dioxide cycle:
The land-based carbon cycle works as plants take CO2 out of the atmosphere and convert it to organic material by photosynthesis. The oxygen in the molecule is released back into the air and the carbon becomes part of the plant’s structure and eventually the soil. Plowing churns up this organic matter and introduces oxygen which expedites its decay. That is, the exposed carbon recombines with oxygen and is released into the atmosphere as CO2, a principle greenhouse gas. The organic farming practice of no-till greatly reduces this large-scale break-up of soil by cutting small slits that are just large enough to accommodate the planting of seeds, thereby conserving the amount of carbon stored in the earth.
Cover crops like annual ryegrass are beneficial because they keep something green in the soil all year round, preventing erosion and building organic matter, the major source of soil-based carbon. It is on this vegetative matter that earthworms and bacteria feed. The roots of annual ryegrass penetrate deep into the soil profile during the winter and spring, breaking natural and man-made compaction. Annual ryegrass also takes up nitrogen and stores it in its leaves, for use when cash crops are then planted.
Normally, in big corn and soybean operations, the cover crop is killed in the spring, before the main crop is planted. Annual ryegrass needs to be controlled in this way so as to avoid it’s re-seeding naturally and becoming a management issue.
When killed, the annual ryegrass roots become added organic matter and a source of new carbon. Corn and soybean roots follow the channels established by the annual ryegrass roots, thus promoting much deeper soil nutrients and moisture for crops…a benefit especially in dry summer weather.
Tags: agriculture sequestration of carbon, all cover crops, annual ryegrass as a cover crop, burndown, carbon sequestration, deep rooting, No-Till, No-Till farming, organic farming, organic matter, sequesters available nitrogen, soil compaction
