Field day displays the benefit of cover crops

Although cover crops -- mixtures of wheat, root vegetables and grasses that provide benefits to soil -- have been around for decades, Friday was the first time a field day was devoted to them at Southeast Missouri State University's David M. Barton Agriculture Research Center outside Gordonville.

Cover crops are seeded into fields and allowed to grow during or between seasons, resulting in benefits for the environment and the land, Dr. Indi Braden, Southeast associate professor of agriculture, said in a university news release. They can improve soil moisture and quality, reduce erosion, retain nutrients, reduce pests and provide wildlife habitat, among other benefits, the release said.

With healthier soil, Michael Aide, chairman of the Department of Agriculture, said future crops will do better. "They [cover crops] act as nature's fertilizer amendment to improve the quality of soil, so it's a profitable management practice and the soil becomes a more dynamic resource," Aide said.

Michael Plumer, a retired extension educator for agriculture and natural resources at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said cover crops were a mainstay of American agriculture for 100 years, but it "pretty much disappeared" in the 1950s with the advent of synthetic nitrogen, other nutrients and more intensive farming practices.

The cover crop a producer selects depends on soil needs, where he lives, and what he's trying to do, whether it's increasing organic matter, breaking up compaction or building up soil structure, Plumer said.

"Every cover crop has its own benefits you can maintain from it. As a mix, cover crops get a synergistic effect," Plumber said.

Aide said the research center has grown cover crops for several years. "We're just seeing if it works, and it does," he said.

"One of the key things is it costs money to put it [cover crops] in, but you make it back on your crops that you're either going to sell or feed back to your livestock," Aide said.

Friday's field day attracted about 70 people -- half producers and half students.

Phillip Wichern, a 29-year-old Cape Girardeau County farmer who grows corn, beans and wheat and raises cows, said he started planting cover crops last year. "It worked pretty good, I thought. I'm going to do it again this year," Wichern said.

He added he used 10 acres of it for his cows last year.

"I think there's something to it," Wichern said.

Charles Schabbing, a longtime Cape Girardeau County dairy farmer who also grows corn silage, said he's used cover crops for at least 10 years to put organic matter back in the ground.

"It makes it work a whole lot better," Schabbing said.

Participants at Friday's event heard expert presentations and looked at research plots at the farm and some crops, including a huge oilseed radish shown by presenter Jerry Kaiser, plant materials specialist, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service field technical services staff. Other speakers included Doug Peterson, NRCS grassland conservationist; and James Hunt and Monica Siler of the NRCS cover crops incentives program.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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