Category: Ag education

Cover crop field day

I recently attended a field day based on Iowa State Research farms data on cover crops for Northeast Iowa. I am very interested in integrating cover crops into our row crop operation for many reasons, but the most important in my mind is that cover crops help make the soil healthier by increasing the organic matter. Conventional farming is slowly stripping away vital micronutrients, compacting the soils so it cannot breathe and disturbing the amount of organic matter that lay in the soil.

As one cover crop practicing farmer put it, “Cover crops are a no brainer. It is something that every responsible farmer should add to their management system as a task to do in the fall and spring”.

Cover crops are not a money maker, but they will help yields and the health of the soil in the long run. This fact does not usually sit well with most capitalist farmers, but if they want their land to produce for many generations to come, it is something that we all will need to do.

Organic farmers have to have cover crops. They don’t have the option of using herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, UAN, anhydrous ammonia, and other spray on or granular fertilizers. They require the naturally occurring necessities of worms, roots from the cover crops, manure, nutrients from the cover crops, a good 4-7 crop rotation, weeding, and the sun and the rain for a successful crop year.

In our area, small grains such as oats, cereal eye and wheat are good options. They are cold tolerant and are the easiest to fit in a corn/soybean rotation. In a soybean field in late August, oats or rye can be overseeded by aerial seeding or by a tractor and a broadcast spreader. Another option is to drill wheat or rye after the harvest of corn and soybeans.

The return on investment could be huge, but difficult to determine. Cover crops decrease erosion by 50%, increases the soil structure and organic matter, creates a slow release of Nitrogen over the years, and with these long-term improvements, can get a farmer its 300 bushel/ acre corn yield. Now that’s something a capitalist farmer will want to hear!

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Winter rye on corn

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Winter rye on soybeans

Like-minded people

I have to share a neat interaction I had after my last workshop of the day.

I had eaten a clementine during my last workshop of the day and put the skin on the chair seat next to me so I could take notes. A girl sitting next to me ate an apple during the workshop and placed her apple core on a napkin on the same chair. As the workshop ended, we were all packing up our stuff, and the girl next to me turned to me and asked, “Can I compost that for you?”, gazing down at my clementine skin.

No place else but an organic Ag conference would someone ask me that question. I just thought that was so incredibly cool! And of course I said, “Sure! Thanks!”

I think I ate the healthiest I have eaten in a long time! I stuck to the raw organic food like mixed greens and fruit. There was also delicious meat, cheese, cooked vegetables and desserts, all organic of course. Snacks were fruit, cheese, bread and spreads. Beverages were all organic milk products from Horizon, water, tea, coffee and pure fruit juice. No soda, no candy, and no processed foods.

The conference had an exhibit hall filled with seed companies, grain buyers, equipment manufacturers, oil seed processors, organic advocates, and organizations that educate and network growers. It just proved that there is a market for organic goods here in the Midwest and that there are many people and businesses who have been successful at producing goods for farmers and farmers producing goods for Eco-conscious consumers.

In a 2007 census, California had the most organic farms in the nation at over 5,000 farms. Wisconsin was runner-up, Minnesota at no.6 and Iowa at no.8. It was nice to see that so many Midwest states were in the top 10. It reiterates the idea that we didn’t have to stay in California to have an organic presence. There is a string network right in the Midwest. We are very interested in the outcome of the 2012 census.