Our editors made the trip to Decatur, Ill., for the 2023 Farm Progress Show to get the latest info on all the newest cutting-edge technology and cover crop advancements. Check out our top picks below.

1. Unverferth Cover Crop Seeder

Unverferth’s new cover crop seeder allows for one-pass seeding and incorporates the seed into the soil for better seed-to-soil contact.

“It has a 32 and a half bushel hopper, and that drops down via our air delivery system to our deflectors,” says Andy Unverferth, director of marketing for Unverferth Manufacturing. “Then our deflectors spread the seed out evenly along the ground and our rolling baskets along the back work that seed into the soil.”

It also has an electric drive metering system and for users that want to apply at variable rate, there is an optional Raven ISOBUS rate controller.

2. Norm the AI Agronomist by Farmers Business Network

Farmers Business Network (FBN) is in the beta stages of experimentation with a tool it calls “Norm - AI Ag Advisor.” Norm acts as a digital agronomist that you can submit basic questions to and receive fast answers. Charles Baron, co-founder and chief product and marketing advisor for FBN says that cover crops and no-till have been popular topics of inquiry from many of the initial users.

“One of the common questions people ask about no-till is actually how to implement or switch to a no-till system,” Baron says. “Norm will help talk through some of the common steps and decipher information and research from around the internet to give you a concise, educational answer.”

Our editors asked Norm what the best fall cover crop is — an objectively open-ended question that could have many answers depending on region, spoil type and lots more. To its credit, Norm provided a 200 word compilation of 5 of the most common cover crop species and what makes each one ideal for different climates and soil types.
/ext/resources/images/2023/Norm-Screenshot.png

Norm’s full answer to our question of “What’s the best fall cover crop?”

3. Cover Crop+ by Montag

With the recent emergence of new cover crop varieties with smaller seed size, Cover Crop+ is a metering system that allows the operator to apply very low rates of seed with high levels of accuracy.

“Montag realized that there was a need for a unit that was specifically designed for cover crops,” says Montag’s director of sales and marketing, Roger Murdock. “We took a machine that we had already designed for doing cover crops and nutrients, but now the auger is designed to handle very small seeds.”

Murdock says even a crop like CoverCress, an oil seed that can have as many as 500,000 seeds to the pound, can now be accommodated by this new technology.
/ext/resources/images/2023/IMG_0268.jpg

Roger Murdock points out the smaller augers designed to handle very small seeds.

4. Syngenta’s Storen Corn Herbicide

Designed based on feedback from growers, Syngenta's newly registered corn herbicide, known as Storen, is meant to act as a powerful weed suppression tool especially for broadleaf and grass weeds that are common in corn. According to Scott Cully, R&D scientist at Syngenta, it can be used as part of a burndown program in no-till or in cover crops.

“It’s a robust product with 4 active ingredients,” Cully says. “You can also add atrazine to it, which is used a lot in no-till farming. But either way it is an excellent fit for no-till because you can put basically any burndown partner with it like glyphosate or paraquat or in certain situations you can even use it by itself just by putting an adjuvant with it.”

From a weed suppression standpoint, Cully also says that it works especially well to combat waterhemp, Palmer amaranth and giant ragweed.

“It offers season-long control of those weeds and it has a lot of flexibility in its application timing from pre-emergence all the way through 30-inch corn post-emergence.
/ext/resources/images/2023/Sygenta-Storen.jpg

Syngenta’s display of just a few of the weeds that Storen Herbicide works best to combat.

5. GTS North America

While not yet available, GTS North America displayed a new cover crop interseeder at this year’s Farm Progress Show known as the GTS Exattus, which will be going through the early stages of testing within the next year.

Check out the clip below to take a quick first look at the machine and see director of sales, Mike Miller introducing it. And be sure to stay tuned for more information on this new cover crop interseeder once it becomes available.

Related Content:

[Video] Unverferth Cover Crop Seeder Offers Efficient Way to Plant Covers,

Montag Manufacturing Announces Gen II 2208 Metering System,

[Podcast] LIVE from the Farm Progress Show: Cover Crop Equipment Spotlight