Pre-Corn Cover Crop Mix: Barley, Vetch, and Camelina for Spring Corn Planting
Learn why this three-way blend of winter barley, hairy vetch, and camelina works better than cereal rye when you're planting corn the following spring. See how each species does its job—barley suppresses weeds without tying up too much nitrogen, vetch fixes nitrogen for your cash crop, and camelina adds diversity. This fall-planted mix prepares your soil and makes spring corn planting easier to manage.
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0:00 This is our precorn cover crop mix. This is a product that we have for sale on our website. It's a three-way blend of
0:07 Winter barley, hairy vetch, and some chamolina. So we've got a grass, a legume, and a brassica. This was October.
0:14 10th planted. We're in early June now. Here in South Central Nebraska, this would have been terminated and had corn.
0:20 Planted into it 3 to 4 weeks prior to today. We had the barley come through the winter very nicely. The veetch has
0:28 Now climbed up and overtaken the entire stand. It's flowering. It's fixing nitrogen. And it's just a good simple.
0:34 Mix to accomplish your goals and prepare your field for that next corn crop.
0:39 So cereal rye is such a great cover.
0:40 Crop, but one of the difficult things with it is planting corn into cereal rye. You just have to have a lot higher.
0:53 Winter barley. Now, it's not going to be as aggressive growing. Probably not going to be as good of weed control.
0:59 It's not going to have as much forage value, but that's not the goal here. The goal is to just prep our ground for.
1:05 planting corn. So, winter barley, it's going to have less nitrogen tied up than what rye would. So, it's easier to plant.
1:11 Corn into it, especially if we're terminating this 3 to 4 weeks earlier. It's just not going to be as mature. And what nitrogen it does have is going to release it quicker. So this is a relatively safe option to plant corn into versus a solid stand alfalfa.