Iowa Cover Crops Conference February 17-18, 2015 West Des Moines, IA

1. Scott Jungman- Regional Lead
Nathan Johnston- Seed Advisor
Why Cover Crops

2. Cover Crops
• Soil and plant health benefits
– Reduced erosion
– Increased nitrogen for future crop use
– Nutrient sequestration
– Soil Tilth
– Minimized soil compaction
– Water Infiltration
• Problems with Cover Crops
– Seeding Establishment
– Length of Growing Season

3. Why Cover Crops?
• Reduce Erosion
• Build Organic Matter
• Produce and scavenge
Nitrogen
• Reduce Compaction
• Improve water infiltration
• Increase Earthworm populations

4. Soil Erosion

5. What happened January 8, 2015?

6. Cover Crops Provide Nitrogen Production

8. Cover Crops - Build Soil Organic
Matter

9. GroundBuilder Radish drilling
through compaction

10. Increase Soil Aeration and
Percolation

11. GroundBuilder Radish

12. Increase Earthworm populations
• Enhance soil
aeration
• Enhance
nutrient
recycling
• Enhance
percolation

13. Cover Crop Application

17. 2013 Seeding and ROI
• Late to seed plot
• Dry conditions impacted seeding establishment

18. Beck’s PFR Cover Crop Research
Seeding Methods
– Aerial, Broadcast, Drilling
Seeding Timings
– Pre-harvest, Post-harvest,
– Interseeding
Nutrient Sequestration
– Nitrogen Rate Testing
Long Term Cover Crop Testing
– Organic Matter, Soil Tilth, Economics

19. Questions??