Mackane Vogel here, with this week’s cover crop connection. This week, check out some advice from Merlin, Ontario no-tiller Blake Vince, on how to go about putting together a multi-species cover crop mix.

“First I like to use a ballpoint pen and I like to reference the seed size spectrum, because seeds inevitably are smaller and larger. So, at the clicker end of the ballpoint pen — if you can imagine seed that’s large like a fava bean, and then at the opposite end where the ballpoint is of the pen, you would have a seed like canola or kale — something that is very small like Phacelia. And then in the median of that range would be a seed like soybeans. So, people inevitably will ask me how can you plant all this diverse blend without it sort of settling out of your seed or your seed plant or the box of your drill or whatever. And I set the drill based on the size of the average seed in the blend which is typically soybeans. So you just look at your chart for your specific planter and if you want to have 50 pounds of soybeans you just open up the opening based on what the book would say or the chart as it pertains to your drill or your air seeder and it's very, very easy to do that.” 

Stay tuned for an upcoming No-Till Farmer article with more tips and info from Blake Vince regarding best practices for multi-species cover crop mixes. That’s all for this week’s cover crop connection.