Cover the Soil, Capture the Sun

The sun rises and sets every single day, whether you have something growing in your field or not. Rain falls whether your soil is ready to receive it or not. These are two abundant and free resources that you cannot buy more of, and cannot get back once they're gone. And every day a field sits bare, you're leaving both on the table.

What’s Happening on Fallow Ground?

Modern farming systems often leave the ground bare for much of the year, sometimes even the majority of it. With fertility available in a bag, the urgency of keeping a living root in the ground year round has faded. But what are we missing out on? What are we leaving on the table by letting our land rest?

The truth is that bare soil is not resting, it is losing. Without living plants growing, we lose out on months of photosynthesizing plants that could be cycling nutrients in our soils. Soil microbes go dormant or disappear entirely when there are no living roots to feed them. Topsoil erodes during the extreme wind and weather events that have become all too common. Moisture evaporates before it ever makes it past the surface and the rain that does fall runs off instead of being stored in the soil profile. Fallow ground looks like a field taking a break, what it's actually doing is falling behind.

Consider Opportunities to Fit in a Diverse Cover Crop Mix

Across the country each type of farmer faces unique challenges and limitations within their context. Cotton farmers down south face the challenge of replenishing their soils after harvesting such a nutrient and water intensive crop that has been farmed on the same fields for generations. Growers in parts of the arid west must choose between planting a cover crop to improve their soils and risking mismanagement of water that harms their cash crop. Those in the wetter regions of the country might miss their planting window by weeks because of waterlogged fields. Each of these scenarios presents unique challenges but it also presents unique advantages. Where is your advantage? Where is your opportunity to fit in a diverse cover crop that captures that precious sunlight and rain?

Corn & Bean Rotation

For those in a corn and bean rotation, cereal rye alone in the fall only scratches the surface of what's possible. Corn interseeding allows a viable option to introduce diversity during the peak growing season. Our Corn Interseeding Trials have shown that when managed correctly, interseeding does not harm corn yields. Not only does it greatly improve the soil, it can also be an additional source of income through grazing. Soybean interseeding is still in early experimentation but as more research is done, it may be revealed as another viable option for diversifying this specific rotation.

Rotations with a Small Grain

A small grain in your rotation opens the door to real diversity. After summer harvest, there's a generous window to plant a warm season cover crop with 10 to 20 species that would never fit into a corn/bean rotation.

The common hesitation is water. Traditionally this ground sits fallow to preserve moisture for the following cash crop, and it's a reasonable instinct. We want to give our cash crops every advantage. But a well-managed cover crop can actually improve your soil's water holding capacity and capture more of the precipitation that falls before your next planting date. The key is management: choose low water-use species, keep seeding rates modest, and terminate before maturity. The cover crop draws some moisture, but it gives back far more than it takes.

Cotton in the Rotation

Cotton is a unique crop with unique opportunities for adding diversity. Interseeding a cover crop while the cotton is growing can work depending on your row spacing. Similar to corn interseeding, wider row spacing allows for more diversity in the field and can grow lots of biomass for livestock grazing following harvest. Livestock can graze across the fields and cycle valuable nutrients before returning it back to the soil. Additionally, the warm climate in this region allows for cover cropping in between crop rotations. Follow corn harvest with a diverse mix that grows until cotton planting the following June. This opens the door for increasing soil organic matter, cycling nutrients and protecting against erosion. 

Biology Diverse Soils = Resilient Soils

The life in your soil affects the life of your crops. Highly efficient, abundant soil biology leads to healthy, efficient and abundant crops. Fallow periods eliminate the food (liquid carbon from plants) and housing (plant roots) that biology needs to proliferate. Using biology, whether it’s homemade or a purchased product, along with cover crops sets your system up for resiliency as it is less reliant on synthetic inputs. 

Invest in Your Soils for the Long Haul 

Our monoculture cash crops are incredibly resource intensive to grow, demanding nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and moisture from our soils. A diverse mix is not a net extractor, it works to replenish soils. Even a cover crop that draws on soil moisture is giving something back by cycling nutrients, increasing water infiltration, fixing nitrogen, feeding microbes and storing carbon.

Covering your soil isn't just about protecting what you have. It's about capturing every resource that passes through your land and putting it to work. By maximizing our sunlight and rain capture, we can transform our soils and save our profits. The system is not a one-size-fits all and it takes trial and error to find the right fit on each given year. Luckily, you’re not alone. Countless farmers across the country are deeply questioning their systems this year as we collectively grapple with input costs and an unfavorable grain market. 

While cover crops and biologicals aren’t a silver bullet, they are tools to help create resilient agricultural systems that are profitable for the long haul. Our team of experienced cover crop specialists are happy to talk through your unique situation to identify the correct cover crop for your goals. Give us a call at 402-469-6784.