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““Our manure dragline keeps our rye in check and keeps it from getting too much growth, especially in the spring. This makes it easier to chemically terminate it afterwards.”
— Scott Healy, Cover Cropper, Hartford, S.D
In this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies podcast, brought to you by Montag Manufacturing, Scott Healy of Hartford, S.D., joins us for a discussion about his experience using a manure dragline to terminate cover crops. Healy also discusses the difference between oats and cereal rye as a cover crop on his farm, chopping corn silage and much more.
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The Cover Crop Strategies podcast series is brought to you by Montag Manufacturing.
Montag precision metering equipment is helping producers achieve their yield goals while saving on seed and input costs. For establishing cover crops, Montag’s family of seed platform equipment adapts to a variety of major brand delivery systems that will conserve seed and nutrients along with soil and water. Explore new options for your production and conservation goals with your Montag dealer, visit www.Montagmfg.com or call Montag at (712) 517-2775.
Full Transcript
Mackane Vogel:
Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategy Podcast, brought to you by Montag Manufacturing. I'm Mackane Vogel, assistant editor at Cover Crop Strategies. In today's episode of the podcast, Scott Healy of Hartford, South Dakota joins us for a discussion about using a manure dragline to terminate cover crops. Healy also discusses the difference between oats and cereal rye and the cover crop, shopping corn silage and much more.
Scott Healy:
So my name is Scott Healy. I'm from Southeastern South Dakota, around Sioux Falls. The operation that I work on is a multi-farm dairy operation. Farms that we grow crops for are somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 to 3200 cows per site. We've been doing cover crops behind basically corn silage here for going on, Lynn's been doing it for probably 10 to 12 years, and I've been helping him for the last three or four. And in the last three, four years, our main crop has been rye with some sort of a brassica mixed in. This last fall we did, we switched it up with a price of glyphosate and termination concerns. We switched to a oats barley mix with the brassica this last fall. So that's what we're doing.
Speaker 3:
So how many total acres do you think you're cover cropping per year?
Scott Healy:
It depends on year to year, but in the last three, four years, we've probably averaged somewhere in that 2500, 3000 acres of cover crop in the fall.
Speaker 3:
And then how are you planting the cover crop in the fall?
Scott Healy:
With either a no-till drill or an air seeder?
Speaker 3:
What types of tillage are you using for the corn silage?
Scott Healy:
Basically it gets draglined with a manure applicator in the fall or in the spring. And then we're either following that with a field cultivator or a vertical tail. And then we do have a few acres that we've been no-tilling, but our manure applicator just leaves too much disturbance in the field to really get a good smooth planter pass. So we got to knock them ridges down somehow.
Speaker 3:
And then, so you said this year new was the oats, adding the oats instead of the cereal rye for the cover crop?
Scott Healy:
Correct.
Speaker 3:
What do you think about the results of doing that compared to the cereal rye?
Scott Healy:
We had a pretty decent fall temperature-wise, but we were dry again, and so the oats and the barley struggled to get out of the ground. The first probably 500 acres that we planted got half to three quarters of an inch of rain on it, and that looks pretty good. The stuff that was planted a week later just never really got much for growth on it, because it was just the moisture wasn't there.
Speaker 3:
Okay. And what is your growing season, the dates of it in your area of South Dakota?
Scott Healy:
Oh, usually corn's going in about the 25th of April to the 15th of May, and then we're taking that corn back off about September 1st to the 20th.
Speaker 3:
To give everyone a little background, Cover Crops Strategies. Wrote an article last year about two dairy farmers from Ohio who used a manure dragline to terminate cover crops. The dragline acted like a roller crimper and somewhat flattened the rye. So I posted to a couple of Facebook groups asking if anyone else had done this, and that's how I found you, Scott. So can you tell us about your experience with using the dragline to terminate your cover crops?
Scott Healy:
So our drag line we're using has eight inch Dietrich sweeps on it. So it's not doing any sort of crimping. And from my experience, our dragline keeps our rye in check. It keeps it from really getting too much growth, especially in the spring. It just resists or it slows down that growth so that rye doesn't get quite as big. It's easier to kill chemically afterwards. But with what our setup is, we would not be able to kill the rye with our setup. And with our growing season, typically we're going in, if we're in the fall, it's anywhere from maybe a week behind planting the rye. At most, we're going to, in the years that we've been doing it the last three, four years with the rye, the way we've been doing it, at most we're going to have four to six inches of growth there.
If we come back in the spring, you're looking at maybe, depending on the field, depending on the conditions, we're out pretty early in the spring, really much really basically as soon as the ground thaws we're out trying to knife in manure. And so you're looking at rye, that's probably four to eight inches. And so, like I said, what I've noticed is in the fields where we don't pump manure, we struggle or we get concerned, because that rye starts to really get pretty big, that 10 to 12 inches in spots depending on the field, the moisture, the temperature, all that stuff plays into the growth of the rye. But we do get concerned that we're getting into that higher vegetative growth, to where it's hard to kill. But we're not anywhere as close to that rye starting to head out.
In our operation, it just seems like the fields where we're pumping manure on, I don't know if it's the massive influx of nutrients, or if it's the salt content of the manure, or what exactly it is, but it just definitely seems to inhibit that rye's growth and slow it down, which our main goal for putting in the rye in the first place is to get something established in that soil to protect that soil after we've taken the corn silage off.
The additional benefits, or that is like 100% the main goal, but I would say that secondary goals would be to obviously tie up some free nitrogen if it's there, tie up any sort of nutrients that we are at risk of leaching out, and then obviously helping with build some soil structure. And so getting that four to six inch dry seems to accomplish those goals. It's just a matter of, because we're a corn on corn system, trying to keep it from getting too big and too far away to where we have trouble killing it is the issue.
Speaker 3:
And so is it those Dietrich sweeps, that's what's not terminating but injuring the rye as they go through, or is it the fact that you're applying the manure that's slowing it down?
Scott Healy:
I think it's the fact that it's applying the manure. Where the sweeps are running, it'll take out maybe a two or three inch wide swath there. We're eight-inch sweeps on 20 inch centers. So there's not enough sweep there to actually truly kill the whole swath of the rye, and that's right, wrong or otherwise, that would defeat the purpose, if we turned the field block with our sweeps. So they're just lifting that soil, creating a small pocket down there, four to six inches below the surface and spiting that manure in there.
But like you say, just could be as simple as maybe the hose dragging across, but it seems to be pretty even across the field where it slows the growth down. And it's, to some extent, in these dry falls, it's surprising to me that it slows the growth down, because you would think that if you're dry and you add all that moisture from that liquid manure, that rye would take off with that bump of fertility and that bump of moisture there. But it really doesn't seem to, it kind of holds it, like I said, it puts it into almost like it goes dormant for a little bit, has to process all that salt, process all that fertilizer, or that fertility that's just been introduced to it and then it starts to grow again.
Speaker 3:
That's really interesting.
Scott Healy:
And like I say, it doesn't seem to matter. It doesn't seem to matter. Obviously, if we inject in the fall, call it the damage in the fall, if we inject in the spring, we see the damage in the spring. But really when you look at those fields side by side come 10 days in the spring after it's been injected, those fields will be pretty comparable. So it doesn't seem to really hurt it more one way or the other. What we've seen is if you're in there before that rye is probably, I'm going to call it two inches, then it really seems to affect it, it really. That rye might not ever, we're on seven and a half inch rows.
And if you go in before it's two inches tall, it might not ever canopy those rows. It'll still grow, but it might not ever canopy those rows. So it really messes it up if you're in there too early. But in our situation, 120 million gallons of manure to pump, so once they're ready to start knifing, they go where they can. So we try to plan and we try to lay things out as best as can to get that rye in there and get it seeded early so it gets some growth before the manure guys are coming after it, but sometimes it doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:
I was going to ask you that, how you go about planning, so you're getting the timing as close to perfect as possible.
Scott Healy:
Well, like you said, this year we ran a no-till, a 30-foot great plains no-till drill, and we ran a case 40-foot air seeder, and that was an investment we made this summer is that air seeder just to have more capacity instead of on our no-till drill, we're filling probably every 50, 60 acres. On the air seeder, we can go for sure a day when we're just putting in cover crop and just not have to fill, just get out there and run.
And so we've done what we're our goal is, and what we've been really focused on here the last two years is that when the silage cutters are going to the field that we've got the drill and now with the air seeder that we've got both of those units hooked up ready to go, that we've got seed on hand, and then if there's a guy available while we're chopping, we're getting somebody out in those units as soon as we get fields cut to get that seed in the ground as early as possible.
Because like I said, this year we caught two little rains while we were cutting silage, and the fields that were planted ahead of those rains had probably double the growth of the stuff that was planted a week later and didn't get the rain. So in our area, especially with the way that the last two, three years is dry as we've been, that is just if you don't have the seed out there, it can't absorb the moisture if it's sitting in the bag, even if you get the moisture, by the time you get it in the ground, the moisture may be gone.
So for us, that's the big thing as far as timing is just doing a better job of planning, do a better job of making sure that everything's ready to go before we start chopping silage. Because once we're into silage, trying to get equipment ready, trying to get equipment hooked up just becomes almost nearly impossible. So there's always something else broke down. Or if field's too far away and need extra truck drivers or whatever, it's a lot easier that if it's all hooked up, ready to go, you might be able to sneak somebody out of a truck to go plant for two, three hours. But if you've got to get everything ready to go, it ain't going to happen.
Mackane Vogel:
I'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor. Montag Manufacturing. Montag Precision Metering Equipment is helping producers achieve their yield goals while saving on seed and input costs. For establishing cover crops, Montag's family of seed platform equipment adapts to a variety of major brand delivery systems that will conserve seed and nutrients along with soil and water. Explore new options for your production and conservation goals with your Montag dealer. Visit montagmfg.com or call Montag at 712-517-2775. Now let's get back to the conversation.
Speaker 3:
So then when you're terminating the cover crop, what are you typically doing to terminate it?
Scott Healy:
Typically, glyphosate either like a week ahead of tillage planting, or we'll do our tillage, we'll do our planting, and then we'll wait five, six days and then go in and do glyphosate. We've done it both ways. Seems like sometimes if we get in there and we terminate it ahead, if we're a little bit too quick in with the tillage or the planter behind there, we end up with some that survives. On the flip side, if you go in there and you till and plant, if you get something that's covered by a marker, or a trash whipper, then it survives.
We've had pretty good luck the last year, just the last two years, just getting stuff killed, period. But prior to that, we had issues with killing it both ways. So I think some of that might be weather dependent, but I think part of it is too, is at times we were cheating our five to seven day windows and either going in too quick, with the tillage in the plant, or we were going in too quick after with the sprayer. And it needs that time to either suck that glyphosate to the root, or it needs that time to recover and start thinking about growing again before you go in there and hit it. That seems to be the best thing that we've had for success is just like you say, five to seven days.
Speaker 3:
And then, so for your 2023 season, did you get everything seeded for the cover crops, or do you still have some to do in the spring?
Scott Healy:
No, we won't seed anything in the spring. So if it doesn't get planted in the fall, it doesn't, we just hang onto that seed and it sits for the following fall. So we plant it. We do plant some of our rye. We plant at a double rate and we'll harvest that for forage and then we'll double crop it with sorghum that, and then we've got one neighbor that we're working with. We're trying something different this year to put rye in on a field right next to him so he can calve cows on it. And then we're going to put in probably a real short day corn on a 90 95 day corn, something like that behind that. That's the first year we've done it. So it's an ask of the farm owner, not very ideal conditions to calve in. It's a field right next to him, so I'm going to try and work with him a little bit, see how that works.
Speaker 3:
That should be an interesting experiment. Any other new things planned for 2023 in any area of your operation?
Scott Healy:
We made quite a few changes here this last year, so I think we're going to sit and ponder and see how they go.
Speaker 3:
Aside from the cow calving thing, what else new did you do this year?
Scott Healy:
We brought online three manure digesters, and so this will be the first year that we've got manure that has passed through digesters that we're applying on fields. So it'll be interesting to see how that, we've seen a little bit nutrient wise just changes in the manure. It's really, honestly, it's hard to tell if that is environmental from a dry summer, or if that's truly related to the digester. I think we had a little bit higher organic nitrogen, which I do think is part of the manure digester process. So it'd be interesting to just see how the fields perform with manure after it's been passed through those digesters. So
Speaker 3:
Is that the goal of the digesters, is to get that higher organic nitrogen?
Scott Healy:
No, the dairy's partnered with a California that wanted manure for to produce renewable natural gas for carbon credits is essentially what it was...
Mackane Vogel:
Thanks to Scott Healy for today's discussion. The full transcript and video of this episode are available@covercropstrategies.com/podcasts. Many thanks to Montag Manufacturing for helping to make this cover crop podcast series possible from all of us here at Cover Crop Strategies. I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening.
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