In Favor of the Cover Crop
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
Rob Myers is the regional director for extension programs with the Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, also known as SARE.
That’s his long title. The short one? Big fan of a cover crop. He joins us to recap the National Cover Crop Survey which showed that he’s not the only one…
“The National Cover Crop Survey report surveys farmers all over the United States using cover crops or interested in cover crops. A key finding this year was we found farmers who have received payments for cover crops are highly likely, about 90% say they’re going to continue to use cover crops even after the payments end. That’s been a big question.”
It's a good statistic if you’re a cover crop guy…
“One question farmers who are not yet using cover crops often ask is if there’s a way they can fit these into their cropping system efficiently and we’re finding a lot of farmers are hiring the cover crop seeding done.”
At the end of the day, he says they report the time impact wasn’t too major and the crops helped with issues like weed control and soil compaction.
