Cover Crop Strategies editors encounter a variety of articles, social media posts, podcasts and videos that offer a unique look at various aspects of our great agricultural industry. Here is our favorite content from the past week:

Iowa Survey Shows 142% Growth in Cover Crop Adoption

Check out these eye-popping numbers from the Iowa Farm Bureau. Cover crop adoption in the state has grown nearly 142% and no-till acres have increased by 22% since 2017 according to the latest Iowa Nutrient Reduction Survey. “Even through challenging years, more farmers are finding ways to fit cover crops into their field management systems and keep soil covered year-round,” says Ben Gleason, executive director for the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council. Iowa farmers planted more than 3.87 million acres of cover crops in 2024, a gain of about 32,000 acres from the previous year.

How to Avoid Costly Mistakes with Cover Crops

Ryan Wolf joins the A Better Way to Farm Podcast for a conversation about all things cover crops. Wolf shares practical cover crop tips, including what works, what doesn’t and how to avoid road bumps along the way.

Strip-Till Innovator Gives Cover Crops a Try for First Time

2024 Strip-Till Innovator Chris Perkins is trying something new in Otwell, Ind., this fall. He strip-tilled through a cover crop mix of oats, barley and Dwarf Essex rapeseed for the first time, and as you can see in these photos, Perkins is “very impressed” by the results. Perkins, who has always been a big proponent of spring strip-till, is willing to add something new to his bag of tricks if he thinks it can improve his operation!

Did Planting Green Improve Your Yields?

Here’s an interesting discussion we came across in the Everything Cover Crops Facebook page. Joe Miller asks, “Does anybody have yield comparisons for plant into cover crops vs. not? Saw a lot of guys bragging this spring about planting green, but I haven’t seen any posts mentioning outcome, yield, ROI.” Ethan Sylvester responded with the following — “Most of us are still harvesting. I can tell you where I had cows grazing saw a 5-10 bushels bump over where they didn’t.”

Joe-Miller

Cashing in on Relay Rye

Hop in the cab with David Hora as he plants relay rye in southeastern Iowa. Hora explains his cover crop strategies and goals and highlights a key equipment adjustment to improve his stands.

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