Extension's Cover Crops Initiative

Rick Koelsch, Nebraska Extension, March 3, 2015

Is Cover Crops becoming a part of conventional agriculture? The conversations occurring at this year's Commodity Classic might suggest "Yes". The more important question may be "Will Nebraska Extension be a part of this conversation on Cover Crops?"

First, I would like to thank Gary Lesoing and Roger Elmore and the rest of our Cover Crop leadership team for organizing the March 12 professional development session on this topic.  This is an excellent opportunity to get up to speed on the Nebraska specific research and to hear from farmers and natural resource agencies on their needs in Nebraska.  Educators planning to be a part of our Crops/Water and Beef focused educator in the 2020 plan need to seriously consider this professional development.  This is step one of some excellent plans this leadership team has targeted.

Now, back to Commodity Classic.  "Using Cover Crops to Boost Performance and Resilience" was attended by many hundreds of people at this year's Commodity Classic. It was led by a panel of  Nebraska's Keith Berns and two other producers.  One of Keith's messages was to "learn the principles of cover crops and then figure out the methods that work for your farm."  Ray Gasser, SW Iowa producer emphasized the value of cover crops helping improve his operations resiliency to the high intensity rain events.  Steve ??, south central Pennsylvania crop producer emphasized that cover crops were paying for themselves by reducing nutrient leaks, a huge issue in the Chesapeake Basin.  And the Mississippi River Basin is not far behind the challenges experience with farming in the Chesapeake Basin.

"Farmers of the Soil Health Partnership" was the focus of a second farmer panel focused on the National Corn Growers Association led demonstration of cover crops.  The questions was asked how many in attendance planted cover crops this winter to which between a third to half responded positively.  When asked how many had planted cover crops for 3 years or more, very few hands were raised.  Conventional producers are beginning to seriously look at this practice.

Nebraska's Greg Whitmore spoke about his first year in the Soil Health Partnership and his 10+ years growing cover crops. This partnership is recruiting farmers to demonstrate cover crops and host educational events over a 5 year period.  SHP intends to add an additional 30 farmers in 2015 including several from Nebraska.

Should Extension be partnering with SHP to identify additional Nebraska producers and with Greg to help him implement SHP?  The project manager, Dr. Nicolas Goeser would like to visit more with Nebraska Extension on just such a collaboration.  More information can be found by clicking on Soil Health Partnership.  Who in Extension might be interested in learning more?

Is Cover Crops a part of conventional cropping systems future?  The next few years is going to be very telling.  And is Nebraska Extension prepared to participate in this conversation? I trust that March 12 will be a critical starting point for a positive response.

Sustainable Corn: Insights to Extension's Future?

Corn is essential to American agriculture. It is an economic powerhouse, employing millions and producing food, feed and fuel. However, there is increasing uncertainty about how climate trends are impacting corn-based systems as well as the impact of current management on our environment. The NIFA funded regional Sustainable Corn project is  providing some of those answers.

Please check out the SustainableCorn.org relative the issues being addressed and the approaches being used.  This may provide some unique insights as to some of the critical issues for relevant  future cropping system programs in Extension.

Many of the outcomes of this project will be shared as part of a conference titled "Resilient Agriculture:  Adapting to a Changing Climate". The conference is designed to address 1)Latest science on climate impacts on agriculture; 2) Adaptation strategies for corn/soybean-based systems; and 3) New and emerging technologies for farm management.  The conference occurs August 5-7 and can be attended live by farmers and through technology for the rest of us.  Attendance via technology is free.  This appears to be an excellent professional development opportunity for our Crops and Water faculty.

This project has collaborated with the U2U Climate Change project (UNL's Martha Shulski is key partner) to conduct a survey of 5000 North Central farmers including farmers in the Loup, Middle and Lower Platte, Blue, Elkhorn and other river basins. Results are shared by graphically by river basin.  Before we make judgements about what farmers do and don't believe about climate issues, "Farmer Perspectives on Agriculture and Weather Variability in the Corn Belt" is a must read. Some of the results are expected, but farmer's attitudes related to adapting to climate extremes has some surprises.

Farmers participating in  the Climate Change Survey originated from these river basins.

If you want to follow this project team is talking about on sustainable corn and resilient farming, I might suggest subscribing to this projects BLOG. 

Kudos to Randy Pryor and Charles Shapiro and the 20 educators who invested a day in learning the Field to Farm sustainability metric software!!!  The group plans to engage 60 farmers in measuring 6 indicators of sustainability.  The tool is a nationally recognized tool supported by agribusiness, food industry, and environmental groups. This is an effort worth watching!