The Next Step: Adding Cover Crop to a No-Till System (VIDEO)

From Cooking Up a Story: Dan Forgey, farm manager at Cronin Farms in South Dakota, has been using no-till management for more than 17 years. Over that time, Forgey has developed a keen understanding of how his farming system works and where new challenges and opportunities exist.

Several years ago, Forgey began thinking about how he might include cover crops on the 8500-acre farm to improve soil and the bottom line. But how best to do this in a no-till system? Usually, cover crops are tilled into the soil while they are still green in order to promote soil quality and fertility, but that is not an option in a no-till system. Forgey received a SARE grant to test the feasibility of using cover crops at Cronin Farms. It's an on-going experiment, but after three years, results are promising.

Watch the video to learn more about Adding a Cover Crop to a No-Till System, and what the benefits are:

To read complete post, go to Cooking Up a Story. In addition, an information sheet describing how cover crops and livestock fit into a typical crop rotation at Cronin Farms (PDF) is available at the SARE Web site.