Hartsburg Field Cover Crop Demonstration

October 9, 2015

One of the emerging trends to improve soil tilth, and to scavenge available nitrogen to prevent its loss from the field, is to utilize cover crops. A simple demonstration has been put out at the Hartsburg Field to demonstrate a few examples of self-terminating (meaning it is killed by the cold winter) cover crops. The strips were broadcast after corn harvest on September 17 with oats used as a carrier for the small seeds. Matt Wrage provided the seeding and obtained seeds for us. Attached are photos of the five demonstration strips taken 18 days after seeding.

Cover Crop	# Seed used	# Oats used	Acres Applied	Seed rate per acre	Oat seed rate	cost per pound	oat cost per pound	seed cost p/a	oat cost p/a	total cost p/a
Oats	48	0	0.83	57.83	0	0.33	0	$19.08	$0.00	$19.08
Oats/Nitro Radish	8	32	0.83	9.64	38.55	2.29	0.33	$22.07	$12.72	$34.80
Oats/Purple top Turnips	8	32	0.83	9.64	38.55	1.82	0.33	$17.54	$12.72	$30.27
Oats/Hunter Brassica	8	32	0.83	9.64	38.55	3.88	0.33	$37.40	$12.72	$50.12
Buck Wheat	8	0	0.41	19.51	0	1.15	0	$22.44	$0.00	$22.44