I thought this might be of interest.
This field, one pass sown for the last 6 years, was Reflection Winter Wheat last year with an average yield of 10.5t/ha with 220kgN. It was sown with a cover crop mix of berseem clover, phacelia and oil radish on the 31st Aug at a rate of 12kg/ha with my disc rake machine. It was immediately rolled as conditions were dry.
The left hand soil profile was taken from the main part of the field, the right was immediately next to it in a fertiliser overlap (liquid fert and gps glitch). The extra rooting is obvious but the difference in the corresponding soil sausages was more than I had expected from just digging the hole. You could almost make a case for drilling it now despite having 7mm in the preceding 9hrs.
Whether you can quantify whether this benefit covers the cost of using some N on covers I am not sure of, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
This field, one pass sown for the last 6 years, was Reflection Winter Wheat last year with an average yield of 10.5t/ha with 220kgN. It was sown with a cover crop mix of berseem clover, phacelia and oil radish on the 31st Aug at a rate of 12kg/ha with my disc rake machine. It was immediately rolled as conditions were dry.
The left hand soil profile was taken from the main part of the field, the right was immediately next to it in a fertiliser overlap (liquid fert and gps glitch). The extra rooting is obvious but the difference in the corresponding soil sausages was more than I had expected from just digging the hole. You could almost make a case for drilling it now despite having 7mm in the preceding 9hrs.
Whether you can quantify whether this benefit covers the cost of using some N on covers I am not sure of, but I found it interesting nonetheless.