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.”

Watch the full version of this episode of Conservation Ag Update.