Cover Crop

I don't think I have ever said a crop I planted grew too well, up until now! This is a picture of my first cover crop. The oats were planted early in August. This field was peas that were harvested too late to plant a second crop of beans. I had to control the weeds and I did not want to leave the soil tilled with no residue to prevent wind and water erosion. So, certified oats planted at a 1.5 bushel an acre cost very little to plant.

As you can see from the picture I have plenty of crop residue to protect the soil. In fact, too much. This field will be corn next year so I was going to disk rip it this fall. Early in the spring Corn can tolerate some residue but not as much and beans. The oats were so tall and thick they plugged up the disk ripper. When you try something new sometimes things don't turn out as you planned. I parked the disk ripper and went out with the stalk chopper. Hopefully after chopping the oats they will not plug up the disk ripper!