On this episode of Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment, No-Till Innovator Rick Clark gives a presentation at the Regenerative Agriculture Summit in Chicago, Ill., explaining how cover crops are saving him hundreds of dollars on inputs per acre.

Ottawa, Ohio, no-tiller and strip-tiller Jeff Duling shows us his custom-built toolbar that’s capable of performing up to 6 different tasks, including the interseeding of cover crops around V4-V5.

David Stark, president of agriculture at Holganix, breaks down the true nutrient value of corn and soybean residue in no-till systems.

In the Cover Crop Connection, Mackane Vogel catches up with weed science specialist John Cussans for a conversation about annual ryegrass and Italian ryegrass as they relate to herbicide resistance.

Three Forks, Mont., no-tiller Franck Groeneweg explains how he’s giving a boost to crops with compost extract from his Johnson-Su bioreactor system.

In the Video of the Week, Precision Planting PTI Farm Manager Jason Webster shares data showcasing the benefits of early-planted soybeans. 

This episode of Conservation Ag Update is brought to you by Yetter Farm Equipment.

 Since 1930, Yetter Farm Equipment has been providing farmers with profitable solutions. From residue management and fertilizer placement to seedbed preparation, our equipment is designed to maximize your inputs, save you time, and deliver a strong return on investment. Explore our full line of planter attachments, precision fertilizer placement options, strip-till units, and stalk rollers at yetterco.com. Let Yetter help you prepare your equipment lineup for success today.


TRANSCRIPT

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No-Till Innovator Breaks Down True Value of Cover Crops

Hundreds of major companies and dozens of farmers gathered in downtown Chicago last week for the Regenerative Agriculture Summit. No-Till Innovator Rick Clark gave a presentation about his farm and grabbed the audience’s attention when talking about how he saves millions on inputs with his no-till organic system.  

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A big part of that is his use of cover crops. Check out this data, showing the amount of nutrients sequestered by cereal rye that Clark drilled in after corn harvest. There were also 4 or 5 other species in the mix that winterkilled. The numbers keep going up, the longer the rye grows before termination.  

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As you can see on this next table — there’s a lot of money in that biomass. Clark calculates $435 worth of nutrients in the 28-inch-tall rye. This is a big reason why he’s going on 6 years without any applied nitrogen (N) and 11 years without any phosphorus (P), potassium (K) or starter fertilizer.

“When you look at a 2 or 3 species cocktail and then you increase that to 10, 12, 14, that’s increasing diversity. Always look to increase diversity. We’ve got 9 crops in rotation, that’s diversity. CUT *7:54-8:00* I’m no longer looking at species-specific cocktails, I’m looking at families of plants for the cocktail. If you were to put together 7 or 8 key specific families, you could raise enough nitrogen (N) to where you wouldn’t need to add synthetic fertilizer.

“I’m over here. We’ve taken everything (inputs) away. The majority of the farming community is over here. Let’s meet right here somewhere in the middle and figure out how to make it work within your context of how far we can cut inputs.”

Clark also looked at the value of legume cocktails ahead of corn, which sequestered $969 worth of NPK in early June. 

No-Tiller Designs Toolbar to Accomplish 6 Tasks

Longtime no-tiller and strip-tiller Jeff Duling is finding creative ways to maximize the benefits of cover crops on his Ottawa, Ohio farm.  

He collaborated with Fennig Equipment on this custom-built toolbar that allows him to interseed covers at V4-V5. Duling gets up to 6 different uses out of this bar, as it can also be adjusted to seed covers between rows ahead of strip-tilled corn. Jeff, show us how it works. 

“It’s set up for 17 rows, I plant 16-row corn. That outside row there is putting on half rate cover crop and half rate of 28%. We’re putting on the nitrogen right beside the corn row. Then we’re putting my blend of cover crop — annual ryegrass, rapeseed, sunn hemp, radish — in a Velmar blower on every row right in front of these little tillage tools that Fennig made. It’s hydraulic adjust, it’s a 3-point model. It’s just tickling the cover crop in, just to get some seed to soil contact.”

How Much Nutrient Value is in Your No-Till Residue?

Rick Clark talked about the value of cover crops at the beginning of the show, but what about the value of all that corn and soybean residue after harvest? Dave Stark, president of Agriculture at Holganix, breaks it down for us.

“Every 40 bushels of corn produces about a 1 ton of stover. In that ton, you’ve got 17 pounds of nitrogen, about 4 pounds of phosphorus, 34 pounds of potassium and some sulfur. Do the math — If you have a 200-bushel-per acre corn crop, 5 tons of residue. You’ve got a lot of nutrients out there you’ve already bought. You’ve got to return it to the soil. You want the carbon in the soil. You want the nutrients in the soil. None of that happens without microbes breaking it down and releasing these nutrients so next year’s crop can take advantage of it.”  

That was from a recent No-Till Farmer webinar, which you can check out on No-TillFarmer.com. One of Dave’s favorite quotes is — “Plants farm microbes because microbes mine the soil.”

Looking Into Cover Crops & Glyphosate Resistance in the UK & U.S.

Well it’s no secret that glyphosate resistant weeds are becoming more of a problem for farmers all over the world. But what role do cover crops play in this situation and how does it vary between the U.S. and the UK? Check out a clip from the latest episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast where weed science specialist John Cussans talks a little bit about annual ryegrass and italian ryegrass as they relate to herbicide resistance. 

“And now with glyphosate we see issues with Italian ryegrass where we don’t see with black grass which would be our most widespread weed. We don’t see the same problem in our brome species or wild oats, it really does seem like Italian ryegrass has this disproportionate propensity to develop herbicide resistance. As to why that is, all projects end with a requirement for more funding, that’s where we will finish. But I think one of the things that we are seeing as we begin to look a bit more at ryegrass is just how incredibly genetically diverse the background is. So we have all different types, we have all different levels of dormancy and germination patents. We see differences in fertilization requirements in wild populations. So there's this massive genetic diversity and there's almost a soup of lolium genetics in the landscape because we've got perennial living in the landscape. And it’s just a soup of genetics and I think that gives you the raw ingredients to go on and select for herbicide resistance.”

Well if you want to hear more about John’s research and why glyphosate resistance in the UK might be an even bigger deal than it is here in the U.S., be sure to head to cover crop strategies dot com to check out the full episode of the podcast.

Compost Extract Provides Extra Boost to No-Tiller’s Crops 

Next up, we’re headed to Three Forks, Montana, where no-tiller Franck Groeneweg grows a variety of crops on more than 12,000 acres.

And he has this Johnson-Su bioreactor system, which allows him to apply compost extract in furrow during planting season. Univ. of New Mexico biologist David C. Johnson, developed the system, billed to “bring lifeless soils back to life” by reintroducing beneficial microorganisms with biologically enhanced compost. Groeneweg shows us how his John Deere air seeder carries the compost extract to the crops. 

“Liquid goes into the tanks there. We have squeeze pumps. These are basically metering pumps, and send the liquid to each row unit.”

“The seed is coming here, liquid is coming there, being thrown out into the furrow and liquid comes right on top of it. Now probably some people are going to say this doesn’t look like a John Deere opener, and no it’s not. It’s a double disc. One is to cut at an angle, and the one beside it acts as a rolling boot. So, when it opens up, it keeps the soil from falling into the trench. The seed is being pushed into the soil, the liquid comes on top of it, gets closed and the packer is closing the furrow and also acts as a depth gauge.”

Video of the Week: PTI Farm’s Case for Early Soybeans 

Some of you might be planting soybeans already as we wrap up the first week of April. And if you’re able to plant this early, that might not be a bad idea, says PTI Farm Manager Jason Webster in our Video of the Week. 

“We’re coming in with net profits of over $135 per acre. It shows you the power of what early planting soybeans can do for us. Why do we need to plant soybeans earlier? At the PTI Farm in Pontiac, Ill., we don’t have a long enough growing season. We’d like to extend the growing season to offer us some higher yield ability. What we’re going to do to cheat the system is to try and plant earlier. Every year, we get into soybean planting date studies. This is data from 2018-2024. What we found was the second week of April is actually offering us, on average, the highest yields here at the PTI Farm.” 

That’ll do it for this week. Got something you’d like to feature on the program? Shoot me an email at Nnewman@Lessiter Media.com. Thanks for tuning into Conversation Ag Update. Until next time, for more stories visit no-tillfarmer.com, striptillfarmer.com and covercropstrategies.com.