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Wanted: A Few Good Farmers! Try New Multi-Benefit Cover Crops
Editor's note: The information presented below introduces a new project that was recently funded by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education program (NE-SARE). The three-year project began in April 2003 and will run through March 2006. By Ray Weil As a Future Harvest board member and University of Maryland Professor of Soil Science, I am looking for a "few good farmers." With grants from USDA - Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, The Maryland Center for Agroecology, and the Maryland Soybean Board, my graduate students, colleagues and I are embarking on a far-reaching new project that has the potential to help farmers improve their bottom line. For several weeks in 2000, I visited
southernmost Brazil, where the soils and climate are something like ours
in the Mid-Atlantic. I visited farms that ranged from a 20-acre organic
integrated fruit/vegetable/livestock farm, to a grain farm of several thousand
acres. Everywhere I was impressed with the innovations being made to adopt
no-till soil management to diverse farming situations - even small farms
using animal traction-and with the great attention being paid to cover
crops. At EMBRAPA (Brazil's equivalent of the USDA) and several universities,
researchers were also hard at work on cover crops. They rightly view no-till
as the heart of sustainable farming and cover crops as the key to successful
no-till. If you read Portuguese (and I don't), Brazilian extension bulletins
and websites carry a wealth of information on cover crop practices for
no-till.
Brassica cover crops show promise Have you noticed that many of our
grain farms have plots with signs along the road marking different seed
varieties or herbicides? Well, on the big grain farms in Brazil I
saw similar plots comparing all kinds of cover crop species and combinations.
Farmers were working with species I had never seen, testing them to see
how they performed to provide specific benefits. The no-till farmers especially
liked what they call "Nabo." This is a kind of forage radish with
a huge tap root. These experiences got me thinking-- we need to be more creative in our use of cover crops. We know that winter cover crops are one of our best tools for capturing nutrients before they leach away to pollute the Chesapeake Bay (and for controlling soil erosion on tilled soils that don't have good residue cover). But few farmers feel they can afford the time and money to put in cover crops, unless the state pays most of the costs. And nearly all the acres that are under cover crops in this region are planted only with winter rye (and sometimes hairy vetch). It turns out that there is a whole class of cover crops-- the Brassica family-- that has the potential to do specific things that many farmers need. Bits of research from Brazil, Germany, California, Idaho and other places closer to home show that certain Brassica species alleviate soil compaction, suppress parasitic nematodes, control fungal diseases or reduce weed pressures- in addition to improving nutrient cycling, providing erosion control, conserving water and generally improving soil quality. But, there is very little information on how these species might perform as winter or summer covers in Mid-Atlantic agriculture, or on how farmers can obtain several of the aforementioned benefits from the same cover crop. This is where our new project comes in. Initially we will be working with rapeseed (a.k.a. canola --- especially cultivar 'Dwarf Essex'), a mustard blend, oilseed radish, and forage radish. We also will investigate how these Brassicas grow in combination with other cover crops like cereal rye and crimson clover that are especially good at providing mulch or nitrogen. The bottom-line question is: can these new cover crops more than pay for themselves in the short term, with increased yields and save money not spent on deep tillage, soil fumigants and pest and weed control? Soon after returning from Brazil, I talked to several farmers in our area who are trying out new practices and materials. They didn't really know if these new practices were better than what they were doing before - or if they were worth the cost. Often, I'd hear statements like "I tried it and it worked great - yields were up by 20% from before." Well, I could sell almost any snake oil if all I needed to do was compare this year's yield with last year's (or yields in the neighbor's field to those on your farm). We need to know which variety will resist pests and diseases without the use of agrichemicals. Will a forage radish cover crop really improve compacted, nematode-infested soil so crops will yield more in dry years? Reliable information can improve productivity and the bottom line. Let's find out if a farmer's hunch is correct with objective research. With budget cuts shrinking university and extension efforts on practical farming research, it may be time for farmers to tool up to do some of their own research on their own farm. Therefore, part of our project will use the new Brassica cover crops as a vehicle to empower farmers to design and implement trials to answer their own research questions. We need you. Farms needed for 2004 research plots If you are interested in trying one or more cover crops on your farm in simple, reliable trials, call or email us. Since most of these cover crops need to be planted by late August or early September, it's too late to put in plots this fall. But, it's not too early to start thinking about and talking to us about plots for late summer/fall of 2004. We can help you determine what research questions are relevant to your farm, provide the seed, help lay out the plots, and help determine yields and measure soil properties. You can expect to have 4 to 6 plots of each treatment (these can be combine-width strips across the field or as small as 30-foot segments of a strawberry bed). We'll work with you so your research experiment will answer a question of importance to your farming operation. You can reach me at 301-927-7442 or rw17@umail.umd.edu. Or, see our website for details and photos: http://www.nrsl.umd.edu/research/NRSLResearchProjectInfo.cfm?ID=91 Please watch this newsletter for updates on Brassica cover crops and farmer-research support groups and other research topics. Photo caption: Forage radish penetrates
compacted soil.
Future Harvest-CASA |
They
said they used the radish to alleviate their soil compaction problems--
without having to resort to deep tillage that would set back their build-up
of a no-till soil environment. Some call this "biological drilling" (see
photo).
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Ray Weil