Advice from a Local Farmer

Written by Eric Lind, local farmer

Eric Lind is a cash grain farmer in Tustin, WI. He practices 100% no-till and cover crops. He offers some advice for other farmers who are considering trying cover crops for the first time or who may have dabbled in cover crops in the past.

1.) Know what you want to accomplish and make sure species and seeding rates are tailored to those goals.

Erosion control, grazing tonnage, weed control, nutrient cycling, N fixation, etc. Really though, just do something. After wheat, drilling in something that makes the field green for a purpose and keeps the weeds in check means you are accomplishing some goal and also not having to go out there and work or burn down late season weeds a time or two.

Erics goals: The fields I have in wheat this year are in wheat for easy installation of drainage tile and will be corn next year. I’ll be drilling cover crop as soon as I’m done tiling with the purpose of anchoring the soil, re-establishing good soil structure and getting some N credits. I’ll be using Cereal Rye, Annual Ryegrass, Oats, Peas, Clover, tillage radish.

Still working on the exact recipe at the moment, but may add a few other things for the sake of diversity and seeing how species I’ve never used before fare locally. Oats gets me a quick flash of growth on the surface to get in front of weeds and gain OM, Cereal rye and ryegrass have great roots for soil structure and adding OM you can’t see plus winter over, tillage radish breaks up compaction and pulls nutrients back up towards the surface and the peas/clover fix N. Bean fields are either immediately followed by Winter Wheat for next year’s harvest or a rye/ clover/whatever else will grow that late.

Corn fields get rye if we have to wait until after harvest, because that’s about all that’ll grow that late reliably and next year’s beans have no problems with going in good stands of rye (Soybeans planted into Cereal Rye is like apple pie and ice cream – It just works).

If we can get an aerial or highboy application opportunities by Labor Day, we may do that and add few other things for the corn ground that are more likely to be successful with broadcasting instead of waiting until after corn is off and only doing rye.

Eric planting into growth from the previous year in May 2022

2.) Don’t try to get crazy right out of the gate with exotic mixes just for the sake of doing it.

Think species we know grow locally- Rye, a quick growing clover like balansa, peas, oats (for quick ground cover this season), tillage radish. Some of the species we’re not used to seeing around here but are talked about for cover crops are hit-or-miss or require more effort to be successful.

Eric’s note: I don’t do any new/exotic species without it being in a mix with other known performers, so if that species doesn’t do well, I still have my old reliables taking care of business. I’m not afraid to try new things, but I’m not about to blindly put all my eggs in one basket.

3.) Get the seed in the ground if you can.

If you’re going to rely on broadcasting, try to time it before a rain to increase germination rate and consistency.

Eric’s note – I’ve been out with a tractor and 3 point spinner spreader in a bean field at the end of August racing a thunderstorm while I was trying to figure things out and got a great stand. Even with full canopy 30″ beans, with the tire width set properly, you could see some lodging, but I couldn’t really see a reduction in yield where the tractor passes were. It was a great learning tool and buying that farm store spreader was more than paid for using it in that one field vs hiring it out, but I’d struggle getting the farm done that way. That spreader still gets used yearly for something somewhere…

Other times broadcasting on dry ground with minimal rain in the forecast, the seed just laid there a while and eventually things grew. I sure am a fan of the consistency of how things come up when it is drilled though.

4.) Start small at a level you’re willing to learn (make a mistake).

Unless you have an experienced cover crop person that knows your personality, what kind of planter, drill, soil, manpower, etc. that can give you a detailed how-to where you can be confident you have the secret recipe for large scale success, you’re going to learn things along the way. How deep does your drill get on November 5th no-tilling? Probably doesn’t behave the same way as it does on May 5th. Your grand idea of planting winter peas 3″ deep on every acre going into corn next year to get all sorts of N might not actually happen and only being 1.5″ deep will probably give you lots of winterkill.

Eric’s note – For me, it is easier to say I’m going to try this new idea on one or two fields. It keeps expectations reasonable and if things don’t go as well as it looked in your head, you don’t have a big job not going well staring at you.

By the way, the experts around here say winter peas need to go in after Halloween and need to be that deep and a drill won’t get there and a planter is the only way to get that deep. I’m going to try it anyway since I think I can get there with our drill that’ll already be hooked up while the planter is buried in the back of the shed and the planter tractor is busy on the grain cart. I’m just going to try drilling strips into one field. If it grows and I see my corn respond in those strips next year, game on for large scale in 2023. If it doesn’t work, well- I’m only out a few hours of my time and a couple of bags of seed.

The image on the left shows growth of Eric’s cover crop mix in wheat stubble that was planted mid-August 2021. The photo was taken on 9/03/2021. The photo on the right is the same field on 9/28/2021.

5.) Remember that it is a different workload and process than tillage.

Eric’s note – It isn’t harder, it’s just different and different can be a challenge until you get comfortable with it. A couple of years ago when it was super wet during spring planting, just as things would dry up enough to get back in the fields, I’d get the planter in the field. Things would be firm from the no-till and having good soil structure and I’d get some acres planted. The neighbor across the fence would be out with the field cultivator breakup up recently formed crust/clods (he and I were in the same clay/clay-loam soil types) after a pounding rain would ruin what historically we’d call a perfect seedbed.

By the time he was done getting that seedbed re-established, I was long done planting similar acres as he was working up, another rain came and ruined his seedbed all over again. That corn did much better financially than the two prevent plant fields I had (by the way, that neighbor didn’t get much of those repeatedly worked fields planted).

This was my first year waiting until after planting to terminate and I was nervous about how the planter would handle it, but being able to just go plant as soon as things dried out enough to not “mud it in” then burn it down whenever I could get the sprayer across without making a mess sure worked well for me that year.