“With a lot of our farms, we have a plan going in and sometimes it doesn’t work out quite like we planned.”

— Lisa Kubik, Iowa Grower & Account Executive, Agoro Carbon Alliance

In today’s episode of the podcast, brought to you by the National Strip-Tillage Conference, listen to a conversation with Lisa Kubik, an Iowa grower who grazes cattle and grows corn, soybeans and cover crops, while also working with growers through Agoro Carbon Alliance. Hear Lisa discuss her own farm operation, a recent Agoro Carbon cover crop case study where one farmer found success from accidentally planting green, and much more.  

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Full Transcript

Welcome to the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast, brought to you by the National Strip-Tillage Conference. I'm Mackane Vogel, Associate Editor of Cover Crop Strategies. In today's episode, listen to a conversation with Lisa Kubik, an Iowa grower who grazes cattle and grows corn, soybeans and cover crops while also working with growers through Agoro Carbon Alliance. Here Lisa discusses own farm operation, a recent Agoro Carbon cover crop case study where one farmer found success from accidentally planting green, and much more.

Lisa, I want to start this off the same way we start almost all of our episodes, which is just kind of asking you to introduce yourself and tell us what I like to call your ag origin story. So kind of your earliest memories of agriculture and how you got to where you are now in the ag industry from where you started.

For sure. So Lisa Kubik, I'm the account executive, which sounds really important, I wouldn't say that it is, but for Agoro Carbon Alliance, which essentially just means that I work with farmers and ranchers to see if they will qualify and be a good fit for our carbon program, as well as work with some of our partners that are also encouraging their growers and ranchers to get involved in a carbon program.

So a little bit of background on myself, some of my earliest memories include riding in the tractor, combine, whatever it might be with my family. So I grew up on a corn, soybean farm where I'd hop in the combine with my grandpa or just being part of every aspect of the farm as much as possible. If it came to getting to clean the house with mom or go ride with dad, you know where I was.

Awesome. I love that. I always just think it's interesting to hear how different people find their way into the world of agriculture. Cool story for sure. I know we're going to touch on a lot of different topics today, but to start out, I mean it's May 1st the day we're recording this, so we're getting into the spring season. Growing season is about to be in full swing. So what are some kind of general tips to keep in mind this time of year when maybe you want to get started planning covers and what might be a good timeline to look at?

For sure. So this time of year, I mean a lot of what's on everybody's mind, especially if we have a cover already growing out in the fields, have we already terminated it? If we haven't, what's the plan to do so? Are we going to get our crop planted first or is it planted and now we're going to have to terminate it after the fact? So termination and how do we deal with that cover crop now that we're likely going into a row crop is probably the most top of mind. Lots of different ways to do that and do that successfully, but let's make sure we have a plan in order to do that. Once we kind of get past this time of year, let's start thinking towards summer, fall and getting that next cover crop planted, seeded and in the ground somehow.

Yeah, and so you mentioned termination. I know obviously with all things cover crops, there's never a one size fits all, but what are some of the termination methods that you've had the most success with in your area? I know you mentioned you're in Iowa. What do you kind of recommend? What have you seen work the best?

So like you mentioned, I live in central Iowa. I would say over and above anything else, some sort of herbicide termination is going to be easily the widest used. Roundup easily kills our most popular cover crop, cereal rye, super easy. Let's make sure we have a good spray day in order to do so, so we get good coverage, but that's easily going to be the most used here in the Midwest as far as termination. Lots of people have success with roller crimping, different things like that. There is a little bit more variability and a little bit more technique that has to go with a form like that. If we're looking at reducing herbicides though, I'd definitely explore that. It seems like there are a lot more roller crimpers out there and available that you could get ahold of if you wanted to try a technique like that.

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting method. It seems to be kind of growing in popularity. I'm curious to ask you as well, because I know you said you've got experience with strip-till, with no-till. Do you think that there is a certain tillage practice or an amount of tillage or type of tillage that works best with cover crops?

So it kind of depends on the crop, right? My husband and I farm in central Iowa also. On our farm, we typically no-till our soybeans and then do strip-till before corn. So I really, really like the strip-till before corn, especially paired with a cover crop. We have cattle also, so we prefer to do strip-till in the spring. I know windows can get a little tight when we're looking at spring tillage of any sort, but if we can do that strip-till in the spring, we can kind of eliminate any tracks that might've been left from cows grazing, get that really beautiful strip in the spring and also that can work as a termination method on some of the rye that's growing essentially where we're going to plant that corn. So that's really allowed us to let that cover crop grow for a little bit longer and not have concerns with the corn that's growing there and any negative effects that might be there.

What types of cover crops have you had the most success with in that strip-till system?

So far we typically have just used cereal rye. We've tried some oats and radishes. A lot of it all depends on seeding time and how much rain we can get. As we can continue to grow and use cover crops over a longer period of time, I'd like to add some additional species into our own. We're pretty new to it, so this is about year three that we're doing it on our own ground. So just like anybody, we're going to start with baby steps. We're just kind of getting started and then we'll continue to add some additional species as we go.

I want to talk more about the grazing experience that you have too, because I think that for a lot of people, grazing can be sort of the most elusive piece of that soil health puzzle. Just from a logistics standpoint or just from a familiarity standpoint, I think it can be intimidating for some growers that don't have experience with it already. It's sort of like, well, there's a lot to think about. I have to figure out am I going to use my neighbor's? Am I going to get my own fencing? There's a lot of pieces that go into that, but what can you say from just a soil health perspective of how helpful it's been and how much it's kind of added to your system?

So it does really vary, right? So on our row crop ground we're grazing our cover crops. Now how much grazing you truly get, once again depends on how early did you get it seeded, how much rain have we had? Unfortunately this past year we've been super short on rain, so we got our cover crops seeded just in the perfect timing. We used a lot of cereal rye, a heavier rate than typical and then we didn't get any rain. So we did still see some benefits from grazing out there, but I wouldn't say as much as we would other years. Honestly, as long as we're not out on wet ground, you see those cows all over the ground, they kind of use a little bit of working action, I would say, a little bit of tillage, not really, but you do see some effects on the soil and then we're adding additional fertility from those cows too, which is always a benefit.

Sticking with your own practice, what kind of a cover crop equipment do you use and what do you recommend other growers use?

So my biggest recommendation would be use whatever works best for your system. I know that's a really vague idea, but we've done a lot of different things. We've borrowed seeders from neighbors, drills and air seeders and things like that. Those work great if you can get your crop out early or if you're just looking to establish a good solid cover crop. For us, we're wanting to graze it, so we're hoping to get it seeded early. So in some cases we've maybe had a little bit of a challenge getting that seeded early enough to see the grazing benefit, but typically your stands are the best.

We've also tried airplanes. When we've got a standing corn crop, as long as we get a little bit of rain behind that airplane, we've seen some really good value with that too. With that, you might see a little bit of off-target seed. We had some show up in a neighbor's field to be honest, the conversation with that neighbor is great. He had no concerns. He didn't have cover crops there, but had no concerns. But be prepared that there might be just a little bit of off-target seed that happens.

We've also tried drone seeding that I'd say is even a little bit better than the airplane because they can be a little bit more specific. We've got one field that's got a big grove of trees on the one side and it's a pretty short field. So for an airplane to have to swoop up and over the trees makes it a little difficult. So the drone was a great application there. Drones are a little bit harder to find, but seem to be getting more plentiful. So I think that's a great option too.

We've also even just broadcast the seed out with some fertilizer. If we're already going out with some fertilizer and you're not wanting to add an extra pass, let's throw it out that way if that's the best option for you. In the case that we're grazing, if we can direct seed or seed early, I think that's really ideal. But really, however we can get that cover crop seeded, let's do it instead of just avoiding it.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm also curious what kind of pest pressure and weed pressure you deal with the most in your area. Is there a specific type of pest or a couple of different weeds that you guys deal with most often?

I would say that waterhemp is probably the worst here in Iowa, waterhemp and giant ragweed. And I'll be honest, last year we had a ton of growth on this one field of cover crops. We honestly just didn't get it terminated early enough. It was more of a mistake than a plan unfortunately. But compared to some of the other soybean fields in the area, it was beautiful. We had a few late volunteer corn plants that popped up, but otherwise the field was completely clean and I do attribute a lot of that to the cereal rye mat that was there from the cover crop previously.

We'll come back to the episode in a moment, but first I'd like to thank our sponsor, the National Strip-Tillage Conference for supporting today's podcast. Are you ready to take your strip-till game to the next level? Then don't miss the National Strip-Tillage Conference happening July 31st to August 1st, 2025, in Iowa City, Iowa. Unlock over a decade's worth of proven strip-till strategies and insights from the industry's top minds. This is the premier event where profitability meets innovation featuring six powerful general sessions, 13 in-depth classrooms, 14 collaborative roundtables, and a bonus field day experience that brings it all to life.

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All right, well, let's move on to the cover crop case study. I know we wanted to talk about that a little bit. So tell us what's going on there, and I know you said there may be some more information that comes available later on, but what can you tell us so far?

So as far as our cover crop case study, we highlighted one of our growers that's here in Iowa, he has just gotten started with cover crops, is planting it before soybeans and just kind of wanted to highlight a few of the things or benefits that he's seen. So as with what happens on a lot of our farms, we have a plan going in and sometimes it doesn't work out quite like we planned. So with this specific grower, his original plan was not to plant green, but he ended up planting green and luckily for him it turned out as a great experience. There were some places where he had a little bit of effect on germination where he saw a few less plants that germinated just because of the cereal rye that was still there. But in most cases the crop came up beautifully, as long as his row cleaners were working well, which happened on most of the fields.

Last spring, which is when he first tried this cover crop, we did have a ton of rain, just heavy rains all at once, and he could see a pretty dramatic difference from where he didn't have cover crops or neighbors didn't have cover crops to where he did. So he said visually big difference as far as erosion control and where he was able to see that rain actually truly saturating the soil. In this area where we haven't had a lot of rain in the last couple of years, I mean, being able to soak in some of those big rains when we don't get the little rains will make a big, big difference.

So overall, he did see a benefit in the cover crops, didn't see any issues as far as compaction. The field that we specifically talked to him about has been chopped for silage the last two years. Typically, we see a lot of compaction from that practice. There's not a lot of residue left and we're running pretty big machinery over that ground. So he's seen no compaction, which I would attribute a lot of that to that cover crop continuing to grow as well as our cash crop of course. But yeah, overall great experience. You can read more on that case study on our website, agorocarbon.com, as well as we do have a lot of other resources that focus on cover crops, focus on tillage and reduced tillage and just different carbon-creating practices on our website.

That's awesome. I'm curious now that he had so much success with that planting green system, do you think he'll plan to do that again now that he saw what it could do? Or is it just kind of a one time got lucky thing?

Based on our conversation, I bet he'll try it again. So it was kind of a mistake. We all know timing doesn't always work out in our favor, but there's always a good reason to have a plan B just in case. But where this producer might not have wanted to try that previously, because he's done it and been successful, I'm sure he will try it again.

It's always interesting what kind of accidental cover crop experiments can turn out to teach you something. What can you say from an economic standpoint about maybe if there's a grower listening right now who's sort of on the fence about, I want to do cover crops from a soil health perspective, but has some questions about the economic standpoint, the return on investment, that kind of thing? What have you seen in your own experience and also from your agronomy standpoint as well?

So cover crops are definitely an investment. I mean, we can argue that there definitely is a cost to it as far as seeding, as far as purchasing that seed. In a lot of cases as far as termination, we're looking at adding some additional products, maybe an additional pass, things like that to our production system. So there's definitely a cost going in. We need to recognize that.

The nice part is that there's a lot of resources out there that can help with those costs, especially if we're getting started. Here in the state of Iowa we've got things like EQIP, well, actually that's national, but an EQIP program through NRCS. Here in Iowa we have some state cost-share dollars that are available. There's other private programs that can give you a little bit of money to help start out. There's also carbon programs that can look at, okay, now that I'm thinking I want to do this in the long term, can I get involved in a carbon program that can also help reduce some of my costs and give me some additional income to help with these practices. So if we're looking at getting involved in, let's say state cost-share, $25 right off the bat. That takes a pretty good chunk of change off of the cost of this practice.

Then with some of those government programs, we can also layer a carbon program on top. So if we can essentially get to the point where our cover crop's not costing a whole lot, then once we dive in, like on our farm where I said we had great weed control last year, we actually reduced the pass of herbicide. So I mean when we can look at reducing a pass of herbicide, quantify that one. I mean for us, if the co-op was to come out and spray, it's seven to $9 just for application, then let's look at herbicide costs on top of that. I mean, we could look at anywhere from 20 to $40 an acre reduction. That's definitely helping out that cost of applying that cover crop.

And you mentioned carbon programs. I'm curious, have you seen certain cover crops or mixes or certain species do a better job than others at carbon sequestration?

For sure, for sure. So when we look at a cover crop, having anything growing in the soil is going to benefit the amount of carbon that we're sequestering, right? So if we can add a cover crop and it's growing over the winter when we don't have a cash crop there, there's benefit there from a carbon perspective. So if we're looking at doing a rye, wheat, any sort of grass species, there's going to be some good benefit there. Now if we add a legume to that mix, we're just adding the carbon benefit. As that legume is adding nitrogen to the soil through nitrogen fixation, it's adding an additional mode of carbon to that soil. So best value, let's add some sort of grass plus a legume. But if we haven't done a cover crop, let's start with a cereal rye, some sort of grass species just to get us started. But the value really is in having that overwintering species, they're growing all winter.

Lisa, is there anything else you want to discuss that we haven't gotten to today? Anything else you want to highlight?

So I would say anybody that's looking at getting involved in cover crops, whether you've tried them in the past, whether you're just kind of looking at getting started, my best advice would be to reach out to someone that's done them in the past and really multiple someones. Everyone has a different experience. We've had great successes on our farm. Honestly, we've had situations where maybe we could have done a little bit better or the weather could have cooperated a little bit better. So there can be so many different experiences. In most cases, we're going to see some sort of benefit whether we have a lot of growth or not.

So knowing some other farmers and agronomists that has experience with cover crops, all of that's going to be a big value and then find some other support. There are so many different methods, like I mentioned, different state cost shares, USDA, private funds, carbon programs like ours. There are so many different support methods from a financial standpoint as well as agronomic standpoint that can help you get started and work with you through the process. So you're definitely not alone if you're starting cover crops.

All right, well, we'll close with this question. As the weather is getting nicer, I know farmers are getting busier, but I'm curious, what's your favorite part about this time of year? I think for me as an ag journalist, I always look forward to getting back on the field, going to field days, visiting farmers, that kind of thing. But what's the best part about this time of year for you as a farmer and just from your job as well?

I would say my favorite part of the year would be seeing the cover crops come out. Really, starting the year you only get one chance to plant, one good chance to plant, right? We don't want to have to replant, but we only get one good chance to really get the crop started out. So I love going out in the field, doing stand counts and looking at things to make sure everything is coming up evenly and beautiful and getting started out for the year. And my other favorite thing is kicking cows onto green grass. They get really excited. So it's my favorite.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us today on the show, and we'll be sure to give any updates on the case study or any other info that comes out across the year. But otherwise, good luck with growing this season.

Thank you so much.

That's it for this episode of the Cover Crop Strategies Podcast. Thanks to today's guest, Lisa Kubik, and thanks as always to our sponsor, the National Strip-Tillage Conference for helping to make this podcast possible. A transcript of this episode and our archive of previous podcast episodes are both available at covercropstrategies.com/podcasts. And for all of us here at Cover Crop Strategies, I'm Mackane Vogel. Thanks for listening and have a great day.