The 8th annual National Cover Crop Summit is officially set for March 10-12, 2026 and while the full speaker lineup and list of presentation topics won’t be revealed for another few weeks, I am excited to say that our first two speakers have officially been confirmed.
For those who might be unfamiliar, the National Cover Crop Summit is a FREE and full online/digital event. Farmers can sign up for the event, and then when March 10-12 rolls around, you’ll have three full days to watch the pre-recorded video presentations at your leisure. And don’t worry, if 3 days isn’t long enough for you to take in all that knowledge, we do have a paid option where you can pay a small fee to retain access to the presentations for an entire year, as well as exclusive access to presentations from past years’ events.
So who will be speaking at the 2026 National Cover Crop Summit year’s event, you ask? Drum roll please…
Our first speaker will be Nicole Tautges, who is the research director at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI) in Wisconsin. Dr. Tautges completed her Bachelors degree in Agronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned her PhD at Washington State University, completing a project on soil fertility, weed and soil microbial management in semiarid organic wheat production systems. At MFAI, her research focuses on organic production methods, biological nutrient cycling and development of Midwest Kernza, oat and buckwheat food chains.
Nicole’s presentation at this year’s Summit will be called “Adding a Cover Crop to the Third Crop: Diverse Summer Cover Crop Mixes after Wheat.”
Diverse summer cover crop mixes have become popular in recent years, receiving extra promotion from seed companies as farmers seek to add more crops to their rotations. But does having a diverse mix accrue extra benefits in rotation? Nicole’s presentation will focus on work conducted evaluating summer-planted cover crop mixes, in terms of cover crop biomass production and following corn nitrogen uptake and performance. This project was conducted in southeast Wisconsin in no-tilled corn and soybean systems, with 12 site years of data thus far.
The 2026 National Cover Crop Summit will also feature Castalia, Iowa grower Rick Matt, who will present about the details of his farm and how instrumental cover crops have been to his operation.
He began transitioning to no-till in 1993, added single-species cover crop in 1996, adding another species in 2000, and embracing a robust array of small grains and cover crop species after reading Gabe Brown’s “Dirt to Soil” in 2019.
Rick’s presentation will also focus on cover crops & livestock as well as summer annuals, soil health principles and mycorrhizal fungi.
This year’s National Cover Crop Summit is sure to be a great event full of a wide array of topics and speakers from all different regions. Sign up here now.
And if you’re reading this and you think that you or someone you know would be a great candidate to give a presentation for this year’s Summit, don’t hesitate to let us know! Reach out to me at mvogel@lessitermedia.com and I’d be happy to hear any and all of your ideas.
