Pop quiz: does water vapour insulate, and do cover crops cost yield?
The answers: yes, and sometimes.
To dive into to how cover crops might cost in yield potential but still save fuel, Peter “Wheat Pete” Johnson kicks off another episode of the Wheat Pete’s Word podcast. Also on the episode: how a milder winter could change crop rotations for the better, and why an encouraging word can make someone’s whole day.
Have a question you’d like Wheat Pete to address or some field results to send in? Agree/disagree with something he’s said? Leave him a message at 1-888-746-3311, send him a tweet (@wheatpete), or email him at [email protected].
- Pete loves doing the Word. Keep those questions coming
- It’s always really is nice when someone gives you a little bit of a boost, and Pete appreciates the support
- We are working to share knowledge!
- On a sad note, Rest in peace, Jack Riddell, former agricultural minister with the Ontario government. He died last week at the age of 92
- The climate is changing, there’s no doubt. Weather is what is happening now, climate is the average over time
- How will winter weather favour certain crops? Will winter barley or canola gain acres?
- Does it mean opportunities for ultra-early seeding in the west?
- A farmer was testing out the GPS with the air cart empty. No! Put some wheat in!
- The Great Lakes YEN closes soon for the 2024 growing season. It’s $300 well spent
- Volcanos and water vapor, and greenhouse gas
- Let’s talk cover crops and soil health and yield impacts
- Making soil work for you is really what any cropping system is about. Agriculture is invasive, how do we make the negative impact lower?
- Last week on The Agronomists, Dr. Yvonne Lawley says, in relation to cover crop: First, do no harm
- In practice, that means not hurting yield, and better understanding the use of a cover crop to improve all, and do no harm
- Better soil health can decrease your fuel bill, ask me how!
- One farmer uses 17 per cent less fuel on fields with a diverse crop rotation. Another added that wheat with red clover, they use 20 per cent less fuel than wheat ground with no cover
- Beautiful soil that has great aggregate stability — that’s a rotation thing
- We know not to grow cereal rye ahead of corn, because we know that can do harm, grow cereal rye ahead of soybeans, it does not do harm.
- Carbon cycling makes a difference, and cover crops speed up that process
- If I use a cover crop, carbon cycling is going to be faster, and that cycles nutrients faster
- If you grow oats following wheat as a cover crop, add nitrogen
- What about decreased erosion? Erosion of topsoil costs in the ballpark of $200 per acre.
- Cover crops can also decrease wireworm — it doesn’t add yield, but it protects yield potential
- Bottom line: By golly, even without a yield increase, there’s lots of reasons why you would still put that cover crop in
- Less tillage and trying to grow covers? Make sure there isn’t a mat of residue
- Organic soybeans and soybean cyst nematode risk? Take the test to beat the pest!
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