Strips of different crop on a sloping field in a bucolic rolling landscape. Some of the strips are white with buckwheat flowers, indicating that it is time to terminate the cover crop.
A wet spring put many prevented-planting acres into buckwheat in Yates County. When do you #killontime? Terminate #covercrop now and collect insurance or wait till harvest and collect $620 a ton from the mill in town? A triticale winter cover can follow either option.
#killontime. For buckwheat, “on time” is 35 days after planting. Maximum weed suppression, most complete kill, rapid decomposition. That has been the adamant research-based recommendation from Cornell since 2010. Covercrop.org
Filling open ground in late June and July with a buckwheat cover crop pays off. Buckwheat on the left, "bare ground" on the right. Lambsquarters grows well on vegetable farms! A good buckwheat stand results in zero weed seed rain. #killontime for no buckwheat seed rain either.
While dandelions are spectactular just now, there are other #covercrops that will achieve the same goal better without the downsides. There is no way to #killontime with dandelions, an absolute requirement for cover-crop success.
Knowing these differences in spring behavior is very valuable for knowing how to #killontime. Multiple criteria determine the optimum, and some cover crops meet several criteria at the same time.
With #covercrops, it is important to #killontime. Most years, winter cold will kill oats and leave a nice protective cover during snowmelt and April showers. That worked this winter. Last spring the crowns were green and the oats regrew when it warmed up. Check to be sure the job is done.
Thank you! Buckwheat does not play well with others. Mixtures just get in its way. For summer in the Northeast,buckwheat is always the #1 weed suppressor. Often >99% suppression when growers can get a #Faststart #nogaps and #killontime.
MCCC webinar at noon CST today "Managing Risks When Using Herbicides in a Cover Crop System" Liz Stahl, Minnesota Extension & Dan Smith, Wisconsin.
iastate.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #killontime, not too soon unintentionally.
#killontime for #covercrop success. One criterion, susceptibility to termination method, applies even when chickens do the terminating. A nice example here.
Sunflowers are in several commercial cover crop mixes. There is no research showing a managment advantage to including them for the Northeast US. But the fun of seeing them might be reason enough. #Covercrops should never go to seed, sunflowers included. Hence the late planting. #killontime
White mustard can be a good winter- killer cover crop. Despite flowering for over a month, it is not making seeds. Managers must #killontime, so the cover crop doesn’t become a weed itself. Some have high seed-production potential.
There is an urgent need for a few heuristics on managing legume cover crops for lower nitrous oxide emission. The will help avoid the worst practices and focus research on ways to accomplish covercrop goals with lower emission. Part of the #killontime requirement for cover-crop success.
