cover crop realities - warren schneckenburger - 9
TRANSCRIPT
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Cover Crop Realities
Warren Schneckenburger
Morrisburg ON
@farmerschneck
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Where it all began?
• Fall of 2010
• Continuous corn
• 30% soybeans
• Some wheat
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Paradigm Shift
• 2011 National No-Tillage Conference
• My eyes were opened
• The plows were parked
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A long row to hoe
• Started with aiming to cut tillage on soybean acres
• Reducing corn on corn acres
• Aiming for better soil structure
• Quasi controlled traffic
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Reduced Tillage
• Disk Ripping was the answer
• 2 tillage passes corn on corn
• Look how smooth the field is!
• It was great, but still not a green field
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Enter Cover Crops
• Where do the corn stalks go?
• NNTC taught me goal orientation
• I want soil cover in August and to plant 2 days earlier
• Focus on soybeans
• We had the no-til equipment
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How we made it work
• Cereal rye was our seed of choice
• Great for northern climates
• Easy to terminate
• Easy to establish
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Interseeding
• To the drawing board
• Had to manufacture the equipment
• Cereal rye is not shade tolerant
• A gap in the farms work load
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Mistakes
• Finding the right population
• Selecting the right corn hybrids
• Rain is key
• Tendering the high seeding rate
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Scaling up
• Seed is expensive
• Volumes are High
• Grow your own to cut costs
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Scaling up
• Rain is critical so efficiency is key
• If no rain in the forecast your strategy needs to change
• Consider post harvest.
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More acres more better
• Don’t focus your efforts onto one single task.
• Interseeding is best but drilling is cheaper and easier
• More acres is better than focusing on interseeding
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When is too late?
• We’ve gone as late as Dec 10th
• Broadcast is fast and cheap but seed rates are high
• Ideally earlier is better but you can still get benefit late
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Termination
• A lot of options
• Corn ASAP!!!
• Soybeans is a grey…or green area
• #plantgreen
• I like to kill either the day of or a couple days after drilling beans
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I prefer to drill green
• Wet rye cuts easily and doesn’t hair pin
• A rain delay won’t ruin your day
• Makes picking stones harder!
• No Dust equals no soil lost!
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Challenges
• Frost 2014 the leaves stayed up
• You have to pick varieties that are shorter
• Corn head maintenance is key to process the stalks
• Residue management out the back key
• Rain is the most important
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Grab a shovel
• Start walking
• Above ground is only part of the story
• Roots and worm activity
• Arbuscular Mycorrhizal fungi networks
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The Future
• Making it work on corn
• Reducing tillage further
• Banding all fertilizer
• Precision cover crops
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Remember that photo?
• #happyfarmer
• Finally into pilot scale
• Strip tillage is our future
• A lot of possibilities
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Thankyou for your time
Questions?
@farmerschneck