Working with producers in Washington State
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From the 2020 NACD Annual Meeting. Learn about the Washington State Department of Agriculture's on-farm cover crop trials and what was learned from five years of ‘boots on the ground’ research.
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Working with producers in Washington State
- 1. Leslie Michel, Soil Scientist Other information Working with Producers On-farm cover crop trials Lessons learned from five years of ‘boots on the ground’ research
- 2. Okanogan CD’s on-farm research • 2014 NRCS CIG • 2017 WesternSARE • 2017 WSU BIOAg Image(s)
- 3. Ignorance is Bliss • 4 counties • 5 years • 22 farmers • ~187 plots • 360 sq. mi. • Lots of ice cream
- 4. Farmers • Farmer led • Farmer implemented • Farmer outcomes Image(s)
- 5. Low Summer Rainfall • 8-13” rainfall zone • Mostly winter precipitation in form of snow • Usually no precipitation July and August 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec PrecipitationinInches Average Precipitation Waterville, WA Scottsbluff, NE
- 6. Geology • Glacially formed soils • Shallow • Sandy • Wheat-fallow Image(s)
- 7. Incorporating Cover Crops Year 1 Year 5Year 4Year 3 Fallow Year 2 FallowFallow Cover Crop Winter Wheat Winter Wheat W W • 100 years of wheat-fallow • Summer or chem fallow
- 9. Cover crop rotations; four treatments July Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun July Aug Year 2 Year 3 Fall cover crop Spring CC Summer CC Chemical fallow control W W W W WW=Winter wheat; CC= Cover Crop Aug
- 10. Cover crop rotations; four treatments WW=Winter wheat; CC= Cover Crop • Triticale • Barley • Oats • Sorgum Sudangrass • Millet • Winter peas • Spring Peas • Lentils • Turnips • Radishes • Sunflowers • Flax
- 11. Fall Image(s)
- 12. Summer Image(s)
- 13. Summer Image(s)
- 14. Measurements • Collected soil samples • Compaction readings • Above ground biomass • Installed soil moisture sensors • Rainfall • Soil temperature data loggers • Gravimetric water content • Depth to moisture • Calculated GDD • Yield • Grain protein, moisture, weight • Grower work group meetings • Field days Image Image Image Image Image Image
- 15. Results • Cover crops use moisture • Cover crops increase yield on spring cash crops • Clear effect by: • Year • County • Soil type • Years of no-till • Treatment, and multiple years had little effect Image(s)
- 16. Results
- 17. More is not better Image(s) • Reason for the data • Know your capacity • Technology, is it worth the cost?
- 18. Lessons learned Image • Consistent people • Split plots • Larger plots • Limit data collected • Limit instrumentation
- 19. Conclusions and next steps • Goal focused • Incorporate grazing • Be patient • Plan ahead • Experiment
- 20. What farmers are trying now Image(s) Summer Intercrop Winter Stock Piling Summer intercrop w/ winter cash crop Spring/Summer Cover Crop
- 21. Western Cover Crop Council • Join the WCCC listserve: https://lists.oregonstate.edu/m ailman/listinfo/wccc • Follow our new Facebook page: search for “WestCoverCropCouncil” • Follow our new Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/we stcovercropcouncil/
- 22. •Partnership between WSDA & WSU •Baseline for soil health metrics •Respiration •Active Carbon •ACE protein
- 23. Academic and research advisors • Lynne Carpenter Boggs1 • Ian Burke1 • Doug Collins1 • Nichole Embertson2 • Tip Hudson1 • Kristen Johnson1 • Tarah Sullivan1 • Haiying Tao1 Image 1Washington State University 2Whatcom Conservation District
- 24. Thank you to sponsors Leslie Michel Washington State Department of Agriculture lmichel@agr.wa.gov 509.731.9895 @Leslie_MMichel Funding Statement: This material is based upon work supported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under number 69-3A75-14-247. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.
Editor's Notes
- Going to talk about our project, how we worked with producers, some of our lessons learned, give you some take-aways if you want to do a project of a similar scope, and hopefully we can have some fun along the way. This was a great project that I feel really blessed to have funded. And I’m excited to be here today to share it with you. I spent 7 years working for the Okanogan Conservation District, before moving to WSDA in November of 2019, Craig Nelson, my manager at OCD, never put me in a box, infact I’m pretty sure he forgot to tell me there was a box, or county lines– or even state lines at one point. So huge thanks to Craig for letting me run wild over NC Washington and work with farmers.
- In 2013 I received a small grant to work
- I call this my ‘Ignorance is Bliss slide” Because I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started. Located in NC Wa – 360 sq. miles of area 0 I took the approach that anyone could be involved I treated my crew to a lot of ice cream bars – are cheap and refreshing during a hot day in the field. And about a $1, so cheap way to keep a crew happy.
- If there’s anything to know about working with 20 farmers over 5 years, each with their own operation, it’s essentially like herding cats. I had no control over anything except the seed I gave them, not when they planted, how they calibrated their drills, or what crop they planted afterwards. So I learned to master my poker face, when they ran over our soil moisture sensors, planted twice the recommended rate or didn’t call me at harvest time.
- So I’m a millennial, so inherently I like to think I’m special. But what’s fun to watch is farmers are the In the PNW we do have some unique challenges, which are also part of why we are one of the top grain producing regions in the nation.
- Glacial till soils Had opportunity to drive no-till drill this summer for the first time. I’m not sure who was more panicked, the farmer or me
- Trying to add diversity to our system And keep soil covered Living roots
- You know what farmers think when they see research plots? ‘that’s cute’ but how will that work on my farm. They want to know how to relate a 10x40 plot to a 140 acre field which has nobs and draws, or looks something like this: So we set up 5 acre plots, three seasons, and a control. Farmers were responsible for pre-herbicide application, planting, termination(by herbicide), planting the cash crop, and harvest—which we’d come out and weigh
- Fall– harder to get seed germination in low precip areas Better returns on soil indicators – moisture, pH increases, biological activity Spring
- Everybody always wants to know what we planted– these are the species we found work best in our system NRCS rate 30-40 seeds we did not follow that– varied a little bit by year we planted ~12 seed/sq ft. Rye and hairy vetch – which most of research is conducted on, are weedy species. We use a lot of triticale – cross
- Cover crops use moisture– we know that. We also know, and research supports this, that where cover crops are grown, recovery of soil moisture tends to be higher than in controls without cover crops. We had very good luck with spring crops following the cover crop, but our focus was on SWW, so not a lot f data for that
- Split plots – in large plots, fewer are better.
- More information is not always better – we ended up with over 10,000 data points to try an analyze. And we couldn’t keep up with everyting, such as above ground biomass, compaction, and soil moisture sensors Technology – we installed soil moisture sensors in each plot, we used temperature loggers as well, we had so much data that we’ve never been able to go back an analyze the data. We could that collecting the gravimetric water content, available water content, and depth to moisture was much quicker and gave us a better idea.
- One complaint – our scale was so big that I couldn’t manage it all. Farmers didn’t like having different people coming out, working with a variety of people Consistency is key Split plots – in large plots, fewer are better.
- Know what your goal is – and stay focused. It’s easy to try and and do everything, but make sure your goals and objectives stay true to your project and to the desires of the producers Incorporate grazing – so much negative press is on livestock right now, I truly believe we can regenerate land more quickly with livestock and so many studies are out there to show this. If you can—do. Be patient with your growers. Work with as many of them as possible, get their input, plan ahead. If you have a grower who has a hair brained idea, that won’t ruin your project, let him/her try it on half,
- **Put in date planted
- Last SARE region to for Cover crop council Board made up of farmers, ag industry, land grant universitys, Governement employees, NGO’s and separated into regional commitees Bylaws adoped June 24, 2019 19 member board 10 new cover crop grants Future plans to hire a program coordinator, host sub regional conference, design and launch WCCC website
- ACE (Autoclaved Citrate Extracted) protein
- Special thanks to Okanogan Conservation District