Mackane Vogel here with this week’s cover crop connection. For this episode, we are going to Nelson, Missouri to visit with Alan Weber as he discusses his use of cereal rye and other cover crops on his farm. Weber runs a diversified crop and livestock operation and he’s found cereal rye especially useful in reducing pigweed and waterhemp pressure.
“One of the reasons that I was initially attracted to the use of cover crops was actually for weed resistance or being able to decrease our dependence in terms of herbicide. It’s been more than 10 years actually since I first started using cover crops and at that point we were using red clover and cereal rye. And cereal rye we were trying to take advantage of the allelopathic effects in terms of the following crop. So I actually got a small grant from the state of Missouri and the department of agriculture to look at a control versus the use of cereal rye. And we took weed stand counts in terms of that control and we definitely found that anywhere we used cereal rye, that the weed populations, specifically the summer annuals like pigweed and waterhemp were significantly reduced. So that was actually my original reason for wanting to use cover crops. But now, after several years of use I’ve kind of pivoted to the point where I’m more looking at ways to be able to increase soil organic matter and thus water holding capacity so we’re in a position here geographically where many times we are short of water in july and august and being able to have a little bit more water holding capacity can benefit us significantly in terms of the economics.”
Weber also says that cover crops as a whole are saving him between $35-$50 an acre on hay needed for grazing.
