The soil health benefits of having a perennial forage in the crop rotation are better than any cover crop, because its living roots are in the soil for much longer. Hay prices have been strong over the last couple of years, and there is always a market for high-quality hay. Read more in this article from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs.

Florida vegetable farmers who grow cover crops as a green manure between their cash crops anecdotally tout the health benefits, but a two-year study by University of Florida has provided the research to back it up. In a Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE) On-Farm Research Grant, University of Florida soil health expert Jehangir (Jango) Bhadha shadowed the cover crop practices of eight farmers across the state to measure the benefits of using cover crops (mainly cow pea and sunn hemp) as a soil amendment and nutrient source for subsequent cash crops.

Mitchell Hora walks to a field on his family’s southeast Iowa farm, where 5-inch-high soybeans grow in alternating rows with 4-foot-tall cereal rye. The 25-year-old admits that combining the two crops would make most farmers freak out. Read more in this article from The Hawk Eye (Burlington, IA).

When faced with a crop failure due to severe weather, or conditions prevent planting in the first place, seeding cover crops on these acres can help control weeds and protect soil from erosion as well as provide other soil health benefits. Trials from the University of Minnesota reveals which covers grow the most biomass the quickest.

Due to the increased demand for efficiency, farmers have had to pull more resources from the soil to make sure their production practices are as efficient as possible. The extra demand for resources from the soil has led to a decrease in overall soil health. Read more in this article from the Herald Journal News (Logan, UT).

Soil microbes are living, working barometers of soil health. They are responsible for turning atmospheric nitrogen into forms plants can use, and for releasing nitrogen back into the air. Read more in this article from the Wisconsin State Farmer.

After harvest in the fall, farmers take the harvested crops to market or store them on their farm. They don't take the whole plant from the field, though. The leftover parts of the plant, like the stalk and leaves from corn, remain in the field. This debris is called crop residue. Read more in this article from Phys.org and the American Society of Agronomy.

In this Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast from the Illinois Corn Association, host Todd Gleason from University of Illinois interviews three cover crop experts on managing covers.

In the midst of a renaissance in soil health, researchers, agronomists and extension personnel have been pushing the message that everything a grower does in a field is connected to everything else. Fertility is linked to planting depth, just as mycorrhizal fungi are connected to weed management. Read more in this article from Country Guide.

Lessons learned from field scale cover crop trials have transitioned to a watershed scale and continue to show the system’s benefits in controlling nitrogen loss. Shalamar Armstrong, Purdue University assistant professor of soil conservation and management in the Department of Agronomy, is a co-investigator with Illinois State University faculty in the Lake Bloomington watershed trials. Read more in this article from AgriNews.