During long hours in the cab planting soybeans primarily in tall cereal rye, Andrew Reuschel began taking a mental inventory of the active cover crops he was no-tilling into with his Kinze 2600 planter this year.

“In addition to 2019’s fall-planted cereal rye, I had annual ryegrass between corn rows from the previous summer and volunteer barley and crimson clover from the fall of 2018. Then I saw evidence of the forage turnips I planted in 2017,” he explains. 

That abundant seed and residue from cover crops of the past 3 years is a vital part of Reuschel’s effort to reduce inputs and weatherproof his western Illinois operation.

“By the time I had my corn and soybeans planted, my only inputs on the farm were seeds,” he explains. 

Reuschel and his father, Jeff, farm just under 1,500 acres in a two-way corn-soybean rotation near Golden, Ill., about 30 miles northeast of Quincy. Andrew joined the farm full-time in 2016, bringing with him a newly-purchased nearby farm.

TALL COVERS. In mid-May, 2020, Andrew Reuschel stood in this tall cereal rye cover crop which was inter-seeded into his corn fields ahead of the combine in late summer, 2019. The rye provides a dependable planting mulch for Reuschel’s soybeans each year.

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