Mackane Vogel here with this week’s Cover Crop Connection. No-Till Legend Steve Groff says regenerative agriculture allows him to have fun with cover crop mixes and build soil health at the same time. Here’s Groff, waist deep in his cover crop field, to tell you a little bit more about his cover crop mix of hairy vetch and black oats and his regenerative ag philosophy.

“I kind of like to grow mixes — actually grow mixes — because you can separate the seeds. The nice thing about growing mixes is, in this case here, this provides nitrogen for in this case, the grain to grow. So, I don’t need to add nitrogen. So, that’s a cost savings there. And you know, sometimes we will have some oilseed rape mixed in — the problem with that though, is it matures a little sooner and some of the seed starts falling out before we are able to harvest because it is kind of known to shatter though. That’s one thing I’ve been working with. We’ll mix some triticale in with this as well. I have a field up there where I have some triticale mixed in. The nice thing is, when you’re getting into, I’ll just say — regenerative agriculture — it’s just nice to not be tied into one method of growing stuff. It’s like, okay what’s growing well in this field this year? What can I plant this year?”

So all of those things come to mind and again — lower costs — I mean I hardly got anything into this stuff. I grow my own seed, so there’s very little seed cost. When you grow mixes like this you don’t need, generally you don’t need herbicide, you don’t need fertilizer. So, it’s kind of a fun way to farm, but you kind of have to be into that flexibility. I mean, if you want a cookie cutter way to farm — this is not for you. So, I don’t know. A lot of people say regenerative agriculture makes farming fun again and I think that, to me, is the fun part about it. So, that’s the space where I enjoy being and that’s the way I roll.”

Always lots to learn from a cover crop expert like Steve Groff. And as always, if you’d like to hear more cover crop tips, head to cover crop strategies dot com for the latest news, notes, videos, podcasts and all things cover crops.