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Cover Crops heal soil, boost profit

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'How to' workshop offers tips for farmers to implement tools on local cropland
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By
Lori Sorenson

Another year of record rainfall and challenging growing conditions has reinforced the importance of conservation farming practices.
Cover crops are a basic tool for preventing erosion, but producers are learning they do a lot more — like improve soil health, increase yields and boost protein content in grain.
Meanwhile they reduce the need for fertilizer and herbicide, lower fuel costs with fewer passes across the field and save feed and veterinary costs for livestock producers.
In general producers —especially those with livestock — stand to gain $223 per acre with cover crops.
“Fixing soil biology for profitability should be our No. 1 concern,” Grant Breitkreutz told a group gathered at the Tom Fick farm Thursday morning.
He and his wife, Dawn, have been successfully using cover crops near Redwood Falls for nearly 20 years, and they shared information at Cover Crop “How To” event.
“If you don’t know where to start, at least reduce your most aggressive tillage pass and plant a cover crop, and if you can, do both,” Breitkreutz said. “No-till doesn’t work unless you use a cover crop.”
The couple farm in sugar beet country next to producers who don’t use cover crops and aggressively till the soil.
This has made for fairly accurate comparisons of soil health and yields during the years when corn or soybeans are grown side-by-side.
“They had prevented plant this year,” he said showing a picture of his growing corn on one side of the fence and deep muddy ruts in the field on the other side of the fence.
“We farm right beside them and we planted every acre … and we don’t have tile lines every 40 feet. It’s all about getting the water infiltration into the soil, especially if we can get it into the soil where it lands on the hilltops and not have it run to the bottoms.”
Breitkreutz drew other comparisons, such as cover crops moderating soil temperature.
During a recent day of 116-degree heat index that fired the neighbor’s corn, for example, the Breitkreutz cornfield thrived.
“When soil isn’t protected from the sun, its temperature can rise,” he said.
“In 100-degree soil, 15 percent of moisture is used for growth and 85 percent is lost to evaporation or transpiration. At 130 degrees, 100 percent of moisture is gone.”
He said one pass of vertical tillage at one inch deep will reduce water infiltration rate in half.
“It’s amazing that something that minimal of a tillage pass will do that, but it destroys structure of the soil,” Breitkreutz said. “So our goal is to reduce that type of tillage.”
He said a 1.3-inch rain that came over three hours left standing water in the neighbor’s field, but in the cover crop field, there was no standing water.
 “This one particular neighbor made seven passes in the fall of the year,” he said.
“Now they’re in there with dozers and pay loaders moving dirt back up the hill to fill in the rills that are getting so deep they can’t get through it with the 48-row planters anymore; they won’t flex that far.”
As cover crop methods are refined and improved, the Breitkreutzes said the same soil health principles continue to apply:
•Keep the soil covered.
•Minimize soil disturbance.
•Increase crop diversity.
•Keep living roots in the soil.
•Integrate livestock if possible.
Finally, he urged producers to adapt and learn. If something goes wrong with a cover crop experiment, don’t quit; look at the big picture. The goal is to improve soil health.
“This farming method changes how we see things,” he said.
The Aug. 1 workshop also showcased trial plots of planted cover crops that demonstrated single and multiple species of cover crops, soil structure and hands-on infiltration tests.
Local farmers Tom Fick, Terry Aukes, Brent Fluit and Brad Petersen also shared their personal experiences with cover crops and what they’ve learned.
This exchange of information is the point of the workshop, according to Doug Bos of the Rock County Land Management Office, which sponsored the workshop.
“Connect with someone who’s doing it, ask questions and find out what works for you,” he said. “Take 10 or 20 acres and try this, and use these guys as resources.”
The Land Management Office can be reached at 507-283-8862.

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