Jim Stute, an independent research agronomist who has been studying cover crops for decades, conducted on-farm trials that suppressed glyphosate-resistant weeds by up to 95% by using cover crops and planting green

A native of southeastern Wisconsin, Stute first started studying cover crops in the late 1980s when he was a graduate student at UW-Madison. Since then, he has spent more than 30 years farming and conducting on-farm trials in East Troy, Wis., on the same land his father grew up on. He started using cover crops on his own farm in 1994 and has been continuous no-till since 2003.

“I drank the soil health Kool-Aid long ago,” Stute says. “I know I’ve got soil health. I know it’s doing a lot for my soil biology. But I want to get something additional out of my cover crops.” 

Initially, the appearance of glyphosate-resistant giant ragweed, waterhemp and marestail on his farm was alarming, but Stute saw it as an opportunity to test the ability of cover crops to suppress the weeds. He also knows that glyphosate-resistance is a growing problem. 

“In Wisconsin, we’ve been dealing with confirmed resistance in ragweed, waterhemp and marestail for the last 10-15 years, ” Stute says. “I guarantee we’ve had resistance or tolerance longer than that. It just had not been officially confirmed as resistance.”

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Compared to the control trial with no rye, Jim Stute’s planting green method (post termination) resulted in an average of 95% suppression in marestail population. The box…