Wet cool spring of 2019 left many farmers cramming to get their crops planted.

Cover crops have their purposes

Wet cool spring of 2019 left many farmers cramming to get their crops planted. Many were unable to get all the crop planted on time and continued planting even after final planting dates lowering their level of insurance coverage.

Many fields were not planted at all and many acres applied to prevented planting acres. Some reports show close to 20 million acres in the United States were prevent plant acres. With 11 million prevented plant acres for corn and 4.5 million prevented plant acres for soybeans.

This created a problem never experienced by many farmers, what to do with these idle acres. Some used tillage to control weeds, some used tillage and chemicals to control weeds, others just used chemical control while many others planted cover crops. All of these weed control systems have costs associated with them.

There are other long-term benefits to planting cover crops beyond the dollars and cents.

1. Cover crops can improve organic matter in soil profile. Cover crops add organic matter to soil, which can enhance long-term productivity.

2. Cover crops can help with weed control. Cover crops help prevent contributions to weed seed bank, benefiting long-term weed management.

3. Cover crops can improve soil productivity. Cover crop helps prevent fallow syndrome which can improve yields the following year if left unmanaged. It expands the crop rotation for one year. Cover crops helps control or reduce soil erosion.

4. Cover crops are allowed to be harvest as forages after September 1 of this year which is helpful to livestock producers bottom line. These are just some of the benefits of cover crops, although it may be hard to calculate the economic value of them.

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The Minneota Mascot
Address: 201 N. Jefferson
Minneota, MN 56264

Phone:(507) 872-6492