Winter peas can be a great addition to a cover crop mix for many growers, but the cost of these seeds can be high and the return on investment doesn’t always pay off. USDA plant research geneticist Lisa Kissing Kucek is in Madison, Wis., at the forage research center where she and other researchers have been breeding winter peas for 7 years in a nationwide cover crop breeding network to study spring vigor, winter vigor, biomass and other benefits of various cover crop species.

As you can see we are at the birthplace of the tillage radish, yes I am on Steve Groff’s farm in Holtwood, Pennsylvania and speaking of which, we’re going to toss it off to Steve right now for some cover crop action.

This one comes to us from Connor Sible, research associate at the University of Illinois and 2024 National No-Tillage Conference speaker. He checks in with an update on a residue management study.  

We stopped by Eis Implement, a single store John Deere dealer in Two Rivers, Wis, for a special assignment for our sister publication Farm Equipment. And co-owners Jon and Chris Eis had some interesting things to say about no-till and strip-till trends in their area.

Let’s go ahead of the curve now, and ask the question — “How practical is a smart sprayer in a no-till system?” Tyler Troiola is about to find out on in Eagle, Wis. He installed a John Deere See & Spray Premium kit on his sprayer to target-spray weeds, and he’s going to use it for the first time on his second sprayer pass around V4.

No-Till Living Legend and 2024 Conservation Ag Operator Fellow Ray McCormick is reaping some big-time benefits from cover crops on his southern Indiana farm, especially in a wet spring.

On this edition of the Cover Crop Connection, associate editor Mackane Vogel pays a visit to Jay Baxter’s farm in Georgetown, Del. The no-tiller takes us to one of his fields and shows how multiple cover crops species, including hairy vetch, buckwheat and winter annuals, are helping his soils retain moisture during a dry stretch.

This week we’re going to hear from USDA research agronomist Jose Franco as he discusses alternatives to only using cereal rye as a winter cover crop in the Upper Midwest. Some of these alternatives include triticale, hairy vetch and winter camelina.