It has been hard for scientists to predict how much extra water farmers can expect when they use regenerative agriculture practices that improve soil carbon. This is important because many farmers consider water management to be the biggest reason to adopt soil health management practices like cover crops.

Minnesota State FBM included initial findings from 17 farms growing cover crops in its annual report, Influence of intensified environmental practices on farm profitability, which was released in April. The preliminary data shows the seed cost, input costs and other expenses producers incurred growing a winter cover crop.

To help understand cover crop decomposition and N release throughout the growing season, University of Nebraska researchers designed a study using “litterbags” — a common method to research crop decomposition. This research is part of the Precision Sustainable Agriculture (PSA), a collaborative project supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Sustainable Agricultural System Coordinated Agricultural Projects from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Country Crock's Cover Crop Whiskey project is an effort to educate farmers and the public on the benefits of planting cereal rye and other cover crops, including improved soil health and potential for additional cash crops.

Forage sorghum, sorghum x sudan, sudangrass, millets, and teffgrass have allowed for risk management in the past but have been especially depended on in recent years for emergency forage. A common rotation that has been adopted is Corn Silage-Winter Cereal-Summer Annual, and summer annuals also being used following spring cereals. Selection of summer annual types and management practices should not be overlooked.

With the cool and wet spring in 2022, there haven’t been many opportunities to seed forages. Looking at the calendar date, is it getting too late to plant forages? The short answer is that there is still some time to seed forages this spring.

Cover crops are typically used by producers in dryland no-till cropping systems to improve soil health, reduce soil compaction, enhance nutrient cycling, improve soil structure, and improve water infiltration. Producers may be able to realize some income from cover crops by grazing or haying them. But is this a good idea or will it cancel out any benefit the cover crops would otherwise have on soil properties and residue cover?