Cover crops over maize stubble - is it viable?

[crashbox]

One for the maize growers...

Looking for advice on putting in cover crops over winter stubble on continuous maize ground, to prevent nitrate leaching and protect soils. NVZ areas are getting more encouragement to do this too.

- What are you experiences, good and bad?
- Is it worth it? Even without a grant?
- What's the most economic way to get a benefit?
- Can you broadcast on cereals, just to get green cover?
- Does sowing grass seed (e.g. italian/westerwolds) for a silage catch crop impact the following maize crop?

My circumstances:
- Light sandy soils
- Maize usually sowed late April/early May, harvest end sept/early oct
- Only use post-emergent spray, usually once
- We are in a dry area down South (lack of rain is usually the limiting factor for yields)
- Inter-row sowing grass seed under maize is a no-go, due to competition for moisture and post-em spray

But others will be different so any advice would be great.

Cheers!

 

[Tarw Coch]

Have done it in the past when we grew maize and had sheep for extra grazing.
Tickled the surface with power Harrow, broadcast westerwolds and ring roll.
The problem we had was they didn’t really get going until we were ready to muck for the next maize crop by which time they were growing like stink.
Biggest difference which may work in your favour is we were usually rushing to harvest maize early October so that we could get the grass in, a month earlier could make a lot of difference in establishment and getting off to a good start.
One possible area of concern could be the grass taking moisture out of the ground if on very dry ground on a dry year to the detriment of the maize allthough it’s not something we had a problem with.

 

[Devon James]

Planted a mix of rye, radish and vetch last night into maize stubble for a customer.
To get the maximum benefit the earlier the better for planting. This was held up due to weather conditions. Seed rate seemed very low at 32kgs/ha

 

[sticky]

Would direct drilled oats be a cheap option for a bit of cover?

 

[Mc115reed]

Place we go too slurrying spread oats on out the shed at 24m with his fert spinner... 1Ton over 40acres and it held us up nicely when we put slurry on in the spring really limited the mess and run off

 

[sjt01]

We have tried rye for the first time this year, put in with the Weaving GD at 40kg.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Rip it up with a subsoiler or similar and leave it. No run off that way.

 

[beltextexel]

Would undersowing the maize with grass in the spring be a better option?

 

[som farmer]

last year we grew hybrid rye after maize, cut early may, massive yield - knocking 20/ton acre, then back to maize, which yielded well. This would be on rich lighter soil, and sheltered ground, hoping to do same this year, weather permitting. If it works well, it will be a regular thing,

 

[neilo]

Rip it up with a subsoiler or similar and leave it. No run off that way.

On another thread you were saying how farming had to change, with wider rotations and lower inputs. Now you're suggesting subsoiling to burn some diesel and soil carbon, then leaving the soil bare so that the nutrients can leach away all winter and soil biology has little to live on. Which is it?

 

[deleted user 837354]

On another thread you were saying how farming had to change, with wider rotations and lower inputs. Now you're suggesting subsoiling to burn some diesel and soil carbon, then leaving the soil bare so that the nutrients can leach away all winter and soil biology has little to live on. Which is it?

Its wet as fudge Neil and the main issue is water washing soil straight off the deck. Rip it up and leave well alone. In a kind autumn you can till behind maize and get grass in easy. Shouldnt be growing maize back to back really anyway.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Would undersowing the maize with grass in the spring be a better option?

Tried that once for different reasons, we’re in an NVZ with a grassland derogation meaning we need to have at least 80% grassland at all times. We had some cereals so our planned maize acreage partly determined by field size was taking is below this threshold however by under sowing the maize it would still class as grassland for the purposes of the NVZ derogation. We only needed to do about 5 acres, which amounted to a couple of turns around two fields. The grass came a bit too well which was to the detriment of the maize, not a disaster but certainly not maize you could be proud of. Only good thing about it was that it made the headlands better to travel at harvest. Can’t comment on how the grass did after, it went into wheat the next day.

 

[crashbox]

Thanks for all responses so far.

Last year tried sowing some fast growing grass seed, scratch drilled in about mid Oct. It came up well (mild autumn) and gave some handy early grazing in March/April, before ploughing. Supposed to retain a bit of N in the root stock/leaf too.

So I reckon it's worth it where you can graze the field, but where you can't, not sure if I'd be better grass seeding and taking an early cut of bales, or just flick some cereal on for a bit of green cover...

 

[NZDan]

Farm I used to visit would broadcast red clover and Annual RG pre harvest. Harvester had a chopper on the back for the residue.

 

[som farmer]

Ploughing maize stubble now. to sow hybred rye, didn't think we were going to get it in. Start drilling today, if everything goes according to plan.

 

[NZDan]

Farm I used to visit would broadcast red clover and Annual RG pre harvest. Harvester had a chopper on the back for the residue.

I just looked up old notes, he used to broadcast Red Clover seed on pre harvest (helicopter) , and then drill Annual RG directly behind the harvester.