True Cost of Cover Cropping

[Will7]

Hi Will. Good to see you at the BASE conference.
We are told that the key to healthier soil is having living roots in it for as much of the year as possible. Difficult to quantify financially.
Also, the cover crop roots should help keep the soil drier at depth and help to carry the weight of the drill and tractor in the spring. I guess you need to do a few part field comparisons with and without covers.

Richard, Playing devils advocate; my Land Rover discovery salesman said his truck was the best way of motoring, yet the ford ranger does the same job for a third of the price. I bought the ranger!!

I struggle to get cover crops to root deeply in my situation, and then have to kill them out pre xmas either for large blackgrass or to get the cover to die back to allow the soil to try in the spring. I have tried drilling on the green here and it does not work in the spring

 

[Richard III]

Cover crops work for me on my silt loams that are prone to capping due to winter rainfall, but heavy clays are obviously a very different beast and there are a few long term No Tillers out there that don't use covers on them.

How about trying a single species black oats cover on a small patch? I find that if they are early sown, they frost kill easily in December and are very competitive with anything else there. The picture below is where I autocast black oats at a high rate this autumn, they have been dead for ages now.

Would at least cut out the double glyphosate cost.

 

[Brisel]

I've tried a few mixes here. Prices range from £30/ha for Kings vetch/rye, Brights berseem clover/vetch or Pedders Legimix to £7/ha for straight mustard in September. The early sown mixtures were rolled after drilling and needed a £20/ha graminicide to tidy up winter barley volunteers. Some really ought to have had a dose of sluggies too. The mustard didn't even get rolled as I wanted to leave heavier land open for the winter and the slugs don't like the taste of mustard anyway.

One extreme was 58 ha of stubble turnips costing £78/ha in variable costs plus Claydon drilling, rolling and 2 sprayer passes (liquid N and a graminicide). I'm hoping that the 45p/ewe/week grazing income at least covers the basic costs with side benefits of manure and first class weed control.

 

[Howdenshire Farmer]

Although I only have a small area of strong land I fully appreciate the issues of drilling on the green on your heavy stuff.
I'm sure you will be getting a benefit from the dead cc roots in terms of the soil carrying the tractor better at drilling even though you kill them early.
As for cost of the cc, you could grow your own oats, linseed and even radish.

I see my ccs as an investment in the future resilience of my business that should start to pay back in the medium to long term and particularly in years of extreme weather etc. Any short term payback is a bonus.
We could all cut our costs dramatically for short term financial gain but we would suffer in the long run.
Maybe I have bought into a myth but I have seen enough to convince me that I am doing the right thing.

 

[Brisel]

Killing off CCs in Jan isn't that expensive while glyphosate is cheap and a sharp frost does most of that. Doing a further 2 l/ha just before March drilling into a rotted surface crop will get any further flushes of weeds and anything shaded the first time.

 

[Will7]

On 4th year of cover crops here. Here are the lessons I am learning.
1. Scratch mixtures in as close behind combine as you can. I agree wholeheartedly
2. Don't spend too much. £30/ha is a budget I work too. Again I agree
3. Don't plant brassica's if rape in rotation or have history of slugs. Good advice, my understanding was radish doesn't have the same effect as osr
4. The more species the more benefit to the soil. Good advice, the one thing I have had no success with is vetch, although it seems a common component.
5. I am now using over wintered cc as a semi break crop to grow more cereals in the rotation and less osr This is similar to my plans of replacing flowering cash crops with a sheep grazed cover to allow an entry into a winter cereal.
6. Cover crop mixture now oats/black oats/vetch/phacelia/linseed. Interesting, I will look into this. Can I ask what kg/ha of each component?
7. Finally if you can't get your head round to the benefits of cover crops for your farm don't bother because growing them you need a clear mindset in what you want to achieve. I am fully on board with the concept, hence the original post. If I could grow big covers without slug pellets I would be all over it. Unfortunately I can't at the moment. Whether I am the problem or my current rotation is could be debated. Growing a lot of spring barley and chopping the straw does not help, but baling the straw is not an option due to importing blackgrass seed.

 

[Louis Mc]

I think we should really be looking at one application of glyph per year. I'd be leave it till drilling time. I think if covers are leaving your soil too wet to drill either cc species is wrong, you have an ineffective drill or you are not being patient enough in spring. Or maybe you should just not bother with covers....

 

[Clive]

Killing off CCs in Jan isn't that expensive while glyphosate is cheap and a sharp frost does most of that. Doing a further 2 l/ha just before March drilling into a rotted surface crop will get any further flushes of weeds and anything shaded the first time.

Where I have grazed sheep and then had a frost I'm actually considering not spraying any glypho

 

[mikep]

I think we should really be looking at one application of glyph per year. I'd be leave it till drilling time. I think if covers are leaving your soil too wet to drill either cc species is wrong, you have an ineffective drill or you are not being patient enough in spring. Or maybe you should just not bother with covers....

Latter sometimes only answer if your soil type is wrong. The whole thing will sort itself out eventually as those who's system and soil suit will carry on but those don't will not. Main thing is to not get your knickers in a twist and take no notice of the cover crop police.

 

[Louis Mc]

Latter sometimes only answer if your soil type is wrong. The whole thing will sort itself out eventually as those who's system and soil suit will carry on but those don't will not. Main thing is to not get your knickers in a twist and take no notice of the cover crop police.

I nearly think cover crops between winter crops are easier to manage and fit into the system. Don't have the issue getting land warmed up/dried out like in the spring. It's an easy way of introducing diversity into even the most conservative Rotation. I appreciate this might might be an option for the blackgrass propogators of the world but I'm a big fan of cheap short term covers before winter wheat/barley/oats. Nearly always see improved establishment/vigour where covers are present

 

[mikep]

I nearly think cover crops between winter crops are easier to manage and fit into the system. Don't have the issue getting land warmed up/dried out like in the spring. It's an easy way of introducing diversity into even the most conservative Rotation. I appreciate this might might be an option for the blackgrass propogators of the world but I'm a big fan of cheap short term covers before winter wheat/barley/oats. Nearly always see improved establishment/vigour where covers are present

Can see that but again the soil types that are not suited for overwinter covers are less suited for short term ones as generally you have to drill earlier in the autumn so there is less time to have any benefit.

 

[moretimeforgolf]

Where I have grazed sheep and then had a frost I'm actually considering not spraying any glypho

Easy to say when you don't have black grass or ryegrass ....for the rest of us that's not an option.

 

[Clive]

Easy to say when you don't have black grass or ryegrass ....for the rest of us that's not an option.

I have ryegrass and even some blackgrass on some new parts of the farm - nothing that's not well under control however

Not sure how it would work with blackgrass but where we have had a hard frost just after grazing every plant in the field (ryegrass and sterile Broome included). Is as yellow as if it's just had 3L of glypho

 

[Louis Mc]

Most things are usually easier for everyone else

 

[Brisel]

Where I have grazed sheep and then had a frost I'm actually considering not spraying any glypho

Just looked at mine where the sheep finished it 3 weeks ago and have moved on. Any trace of a root left and there is regrowth already.

 

[Louis Mc]

Just looked at mine where the sheep finished it 3 weeks ago and have moved on. Any trace of a root left and there is regrowth already.

If it a broad leaf you could take it out spring barley easy enough though??

 

[Brisel]

If it a broad leaf you could take it out spring barley easy enough though??

Yes, but this field has a big sterile brome problem so if I see one surviving brome plant I'll glyphosate the whole field as there will be lots more I haven't seen yet.

 

[martian]

I see my ccs as an investment in the future resilience of my business that should start to pay back in the medium to long term and particularly in years of extreme weather etc. Any short term payback is a bonus.
We could all cut our costs dramatically for short term financial gain but we would suffer in the long run.
Maybe I have bought into a myth but I have seen enough to convince me that I am doing the right thing.

I agree with this and maybe I've bought into the myth too. Here's an interesting bit of research that shows these things take time
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-02/nioe-wnr020717.php#.WJ63pY5Df5k.twitter
On the basis that you want to farm as though you'll live for a thousand years, I reckon giving the soil community a bit of a leg-up (or mycelia-up) with continuous growing roots makes sense now, even if the benefits aren't that obvious straight away.

 

[Chemical nick]

Will
Seed rate of covers normally go by normal seed rate divided by number of species in mix. Think the whole mix was around 40kg/ha.
Ref slugs. Osr in the rotation is our biggest issue for encouraging the population.They don't seem to like Linseed or oats. Why don't you try a mix of those 2 not too heavy a rate to keep the canopy open.

 

[Colin]

I find sometimes fields need/justify a cover and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they'll do a good job and sometimes not. For example if I'm harvesting winter wheat on 15th September (happens plenty here) then justifying anything beyond farm saved oats or natural regeneration is difficult. Lots of the time spring barley will produce its own cover crop anyway.

Given our humidity and the fact that I get plenty of FYM and a bit of grass covers aren't the be all and end all for me. I think between say spring barley and beans they're good. And maybe between winter wheat and spring barley they're ok as long as not too thick or can be sheep grazed a bit.

Otherwise most other situations will have a winter crop going in anyway. If your OM status is going in the right direction, and the soil is reasonably well held together then its not so much of an issue unless you value weed shading out (which can be useful)

The dullest daftest thing in the world is cover crops before tilling them in. Beyond pointless.

I think saying the daftest thing is covers that get tilled in is wrong.
That's what I'm doing with all of mine, majority going into roots; carrots, potatoes and beet, but about 100 odd acres of rye and Vetch is getting ploughed down for spring oats. I've got a claydon but due to the roots a lot of fields aren't really even enough to get even depth control, so plough and power Harrow it is. I see it as a way of mitigating the damage from roots and I'm also using radish for fumigation purposes. It made a huge difference to soil structure last spring, which will hopefully be repeated this year.