Episode 61 | Uncovering the Power of Clover Cover

Todd Gleason 0:06
This is the Illinois Neutral Horse Reduction Strategy Podcast Episode 61. New and Emerging Cover Crops. Clover I'm University of Illinois extinctions. Tug Gleason. Coming up a bit later, we'll talk with Nathan Johannes in a commercial ag educator at the University of Illinois about Clover and some of his experiences as he's using it on the University of Illinois. Research plots across the state. But first, we'll talk with Adam Dormer in southern Illinois. He has been using cover crops for more than two decades.

Adam Dahmer 0:41
Had him dormer farm east of Marion and Williams County, Illinois. Raised in the farm six generation and cover crop my entire career. We're probably at 26 years on cover crops right now.

Todd Gleason 0:53
That is simply amazing. Tell me about some of the other practices you do on the farm and then we'll get back to those cover Cropping.

Adam Dahmer 1:00
Mean

100%. No, till like I said, everything's cover crop. I've been actively involved for 28 years.

Todd Gleason 1:09
How did you start and why.

Adam Dahmer 1:11
So late nineties? Dad knew that we need to increase the organic matter on the farm and at that time there wasn't a lot of information as to how we were going to do that. Okay. But it was now known that if we want to increase organic matter, we got to put more residue out there. So he started with zero rye, fly it all with an airplane and a standing corn and then we would harvest that zero where I'd be three or four inches tall. And that worked out pretty well for us. It allowed us to have that taste for harvest was pretty resilient as far as when the combined were over and so forth, and it worked pretty well in that he started with 80% of cereal rye per acre that went on. We continued

somewhere about 2012. We decided, okay, we need to be 100%. So only half the acres were done up until that point. And then in 2012, we 100% never looked back. The only regret we have, we had at that time was that we didn't start 100% earlier.

Completely transform the soil. The main the main cornerstones of my cover crop program are sure rye, rapeseed, annual rye grass, Harry vetch and crimson clover. And that's that pretty well goes on. Well, this year Rye doesn't go on in front of the corn. We do oats instead, but substantial difference when it comes to building soil with that process. The when it comes to cover crops we have or I have applied it many different ways, whether it be from an airplane, utilize the drone we've done in 2013 that bought a miller high voice sprayer and we built a cover crop cedar out of that that worked pretty decent

problem was when I was far with him we didn't have square fields, so we were having to drive over everything and we still weren't getting much access in the standard beans. So it was really only effective in corn. So at that point it just one of those things that we we did it for a few years and then it kind of fell the wayside. The

from that point forward, I've drilled everything takes a little bit more time, but it is we do get a better stand. Some of the reasons that we weren't having a success in saving soybeans was we had such a dense mat of cereal rye from that spring that it prohibited see the soil contact. And then also you've got to pay attention to your insects and so forth. Mother Nature was doing its job and we had such a healthy population of crickets that crickets were eating the ryegrass seed. A cricket will eat up to 20 seeds per night. So it was completely detrimental to our stand when it came to ryegrass because we were doing exactly what we wanted. We were increasing diversity in the fields but weren't monitoring all the things that they were eating. So we were feeding crickets for a few years and then we abandoned that and went to drill

comes the challenges. I mean, we can make excuses for anything. There's no denying that. It's just everything at time is a challenge. Everything's a challenge, but it makes such a substantial difference in the operation. We won't do without it. I can transform a farm in about 3 to 4 years with the right program. And when it comes to the kind of the biggest aha moment was see, it was two years ago, we we had taken on a new farm. That was farm the same way my home place was same same nutrient package, same everything. We've been playing the same variety of corn that year, playing at the same day. Long story short, the fields are about a half mile apart from each other. They lay the same and there was a 40 bushel difference in the corn yield, and I attribute that to increased soil structure, better water hauling capacity and decreased compaction. So when you average that out, that's a four bushel year increased, upgraded. I understand that there's a lot of factors come into that. But to take the same soil types and the same practices in a 40 bushel swing on the same variety corn, that's not all like there's a lot more going on than what we wanted to and soil structure and life in the soil is substantial when it comes to that.

Todd Gleason 5:54
Tell me about the soils in Marion County that you're farming, in particular, those two farms. What kinds of soils are you on?

Adam Dahmer 6:01
We've got a lot of heavy clay, average organic matter in my counties, probably 1.8 to 2.2. I've got some soils pushing three and a half to 3.9 right now. But the problem, it is like this winter we're going to see a decreased

we're going to see a decreased organic matter because my biology hasn't slowed down. So with that, when the biology doesn't take a break, she just keeps munching on everything we got in the soil. And that's what makes it hard to get our organic matters at high levels because our biology doesn't go dormant. So but it's not where I can get above 4%. It's not a problem. We've done it. I've done it in the past. It just it just takes time. Soils are heavily degraded and just a little bit of love. They respond very quickly.

Todd Gleason 6:53
So the longer growing season allows you to sow in the fall with a drill. But the warmer climate, at least for this winter, has caused an issue for you. That that's what I think I heard you say. Is that correct?

Adam Dahmer 7:10
Well, I'd like to I'd like to see us more so I'm not going to say it's an issue. It's more so the fact that when your soil doesn't get that cold, the biology doesn't stop and biology doesn't stop, it continues to eat on organic matter and stuff, which makes it hard to build organic matter. To say that I can that I have a longer planning winter window than those in northern Illinois. I would I'm not going to disagree with that, but I'm also not going to agree with that because the advantage they have up there over where I'm at is when it gets cold, it stays cold in there, crops go dormant and they get snow cover. It's actually harder on the cover crops when you go 70 degrees one day, 30 degrees the next day and back and forth because they're constantly trying to survive. Wake up, shut down, wake up, shut down. And survival is is tougher in this area because we don't have snow cover to protect it. And we will see warm days and then we'll see cold days. So it's I mean, we can all we can all make assumptions, but there's a lot of other factors that come into play. And yes, they have to get out there and get it planted and so forth, but yet they'll be out there in the spring before I will plant.

Todd Gleason 8:19
What's your role? Crop rotation, corn and soybeans.

Adam Dahmer 8:22
My wife has a u-pick pumpkin patch that we've got ten acres of u-pick pumpkins.

Todd Gleason 8:26
When you went 100% to cover crops, how hard was that transition?

Adam Dahmer 8:32
Was it an issue? Soybeans, soybeans, going into cereal, rice, piece of cake. Clayton Corn into cover crops. You've got this. Are you going to plant green? Are you going to terminate early? What's your planner set up? What practice are you going to have? What practice are you going to implement on the plan? You're not sure, so forth. There's a lot more factors that go into that. The biggest mistake I see with growers trying to take corn to cover crops is they don't have their planner equipped correctly all too often and and pretty well. Most farmers are guilty of this. They're right in a conventional set up even trying to make it work in no deal for example, they're running rubber closing wheels. They probably got to know tillicoultry on the front and all they're going is they're relying on that no tail culture to fluff the ground. And then they get rubber closing wheels push down on it. But like our operation, we don't we have I haven't ran an auto culture in probably 15 years, if not longer. And we change our closing wheels on the back and you've got it. You've got to think about the environment. You're planted too. It's not loose soil. You've got roots intertwined throughout all that, and they're holding that soil together. So you've got to change your approach then when it comes to the nitrogen and so forth on how you're going to apply it, if you're dealing with every batch and you're going to use a typical nitrogen bar where you're knifing in the ground, that's not going to work because it's going to act as a garden rake and rake up all the vines and you're just going to have big wads out in the field. So there's a lot of factors come into it that you have to that you have to adjust as you're moving forward.

Todd Gleason 10:07
What's your planner set up actually like in that case.

Adam Dahmer 10:10
My planner setup is pretty basic. No, no, till Coulter's double disk openers and then I run the Copperhead for a cruiser. Extremes cast iron, and I've had the best success out of those going into ryegrass. We've tried all kinds. And that would seems to work the best.

Todd Gleason 10:31
And then for your anhydrous ammonia in the springtime too, you use anhydrous ammonia first.

Adam Dahmer 10:37
So I haven't used anhydrous since 2018. I switched to 32% thing about anhydrous ammonia. You have to you have there's a couple things going on there. One, it creates compaction because it just that's it's a gas and it's rapidly dissipating all the all the moisture, the soil in that area and also your your terminate your biology in that strip. But I got away from it and also because if it's not, if it's not healthy for me, it's probably not healthy for the soil. Not that 32% is any better. But if I spill it on my skin, it's not burning my skin off. So that's that's kind of one of the reasons why we switched. But yeah, I went to 32%, so I addressed.

Todd Gleason 11:20
What else have you learned?

Adam Dahmer 11:22
Every day is a new experience. I mean, we just continue to learn things all the time. There's there's so much there's so much that we can do with this. It's I mean, I could talk on it for hours as far as what experiences we've had. Main thing is you got to let you've got to get past the I am a certain color type guy and I'm only going drive that color because that's not the case at all, because you've got to buy the best equipment for that to accomplish your goals on that. And you've just you've got to you've got to be willing to to make it work. I when I do speak, when I do public engagements and do speaking events, so forth, I'll ask guys how many people have have worked their ground and conventionally farm and you know, pretty well, everybody raise their hand. And then I ask how many how many of those have had to replant crops in those situations? Pretty much all of them raise their hand, and yet they still go back to the conventional methods of farming. So this attitude that we have to replant and stuff is not applicable because they've all admitted to having to do it on conventional. They still work the ground, so there's nothing that's 100%. But with agriculture, I mean, you have to ever be adapting and ever changing, and not one year has ever been perfect.

Todd Gleason 12:40
What's the most recent change that you've made that you didn't like?

Adam Dahmer 12:48
I honestly couldn't tell you because, I mean, it's we've been at it so long that I've I've changed the way I look at things and we've got it pretty now, I've got to say, we've got to figure it out, because I don't think anybody that's doing this has 100% figured out. But it's we've got it pretty well streamlined. The the most exciting part of my operation is my wife's pumpkin patch with the cover crops in front of it. Well, because I've got I've got a clean field. I'm not spraying I'm not spraying water, hemp and everything. It's going into a dense mat. She's not having the health issues out of her pumpkins because they didn't have a crop. Our biology is active. We get beneficial insects. I'm not even spraying insecticide. Last year we didn't spray any insecticide, but typically we'll have to hit it one time in September. But other than that, all my mother nature's just taking care of it. Now, with that being said, well, we still see some insect damage. Yes, but even when we have sprayed insecticide, we still see insect damage. So you can't say that it's that it's beneficial. But I mean, it's just it's we get more excitement out of that side now than the corn, soybeans. Just because we've done this so long, we've pretty well got it figured out. And what we want.

Todd Gleason 14:01
We want to go back to the crop mixes you mentioned, but you were using. Yes. Can you tell me a bit? Can you tell me a bit more about those.

Adam Dahmer 14:10
In front of the soybeans? That's going to be 56 to £70 of cereal, right? £5 of ryegrass, £2 of rapeseed, no more than £4 of vetch and depending upon the year we may use crimson and instead you don't want to do any more than £4 of veg because it's Super eight when it match down so tight that the beans struggle to get up out of that in front of the corn will have £10 of rye grass, £30 winter oats, £2 rapeseed, 6 to £8 of crimson and sometimes we'll put vetch in there depending on which which approach we want to take visually.

Todd Gleason 14:51
Do you have to get you used to it for instance I'm thinking with no till soybeans don't jump out of the ground and often they just look like they're waiting. And I suspect that might be even more the case with corn and or soybean into a cover crop.

Adam Dahmer 15:10
Corn not so much. It doesn't excellent job. Soybeans. You just know not to look at it for the first 2 to 3 weeks.

They have to overcome it. And but they do and they yield and they're healthier. And there's there's no there's no complaint there. But I mean, we all get so caught up and we need a perfect picket fence when it comes to everything. And it has to look perfect. And yes, I know the science there that everything has emerged at the right time and yada, yada, yada and all that stuff. But you've also got to look at your plant health, your profitability and all other aspects of it. So if you want all emerge within 12 hours and you're working that field in into bug dust and you're beating it up, but then you have no water retention or you have no water holding capabilities and you got compaction issues just because you got out of the ground. If you can't take care of a weekend of the stress months of the year, what did you accomplish? Like you're so caught up on one and you're you're you're completely neglecting the other side. So, I mean, it's it's all a trade off. Not to mention you've got all kinds of inputs when it comes to your equipment, all the work in that ground and getting it down to that point.

Todd Gleason 16:17
Any advice for producers who are interested in trying this, whether it's on we've talked about the planter and the mechanics, maybe on those different species so than the cover crop mix that they might want to try to start with.

Adam Dahmer 16:32
Your seed supplier is who you need to lean on and remember, you get what you pay for and price is not always king, But if you want a guy, I mean, just taking a guy that you're selling seed out there versus a guy that's selling seed and has experience, there's two completely different approaches there, and experience always wins. So choose who you're buying seed from and that will be monumental On your success.

Todd Gleason 17:04
That's Adam Dormer. He's a Williamson County farmer and deep southern Illinois, where Marion is the county seat. And just to the north of the divide of Interstate 57, which goes south to Memphis and Interstate 24, which goes south and east to Nashville. Up next, we'll take up clover as a new kind of cover crop here on the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy podcast.

We'll turn now to some of the cover crops research that University of Illinois extension has been doing. We'll stay in the southern part of the state where Nathan Johannes works on this side of the river near Saint Louis, the Mississippi River, that is. And he's been doing cover crops research for more than ten years, sometimes for extension, sometimes in his previous career. Well, today he's got a couple of things going. And I asked him to explain what he's looking at.

Nathan Johanning 18:06
So I've done various cover crop research projects. Currently. The one thing we are working with is looking at some planting date trials with cover crops, just as we know for corn, soybeans or we know different planting date windows, influence or performance. Well, one thing we don't know as well is for cover crops. What are the implications for different planting dates in the fall and how does that relate to our our actual biomass growth productivity of those cover crops? So we're looking at cereal rye ahead of soybeans that then is planted. We have four different seeding rates and planted at three different planting dates in the fall, trying to understand the dynamics in the spring when it comes to how much biomass does that relate to? Does that have any influences on soybeans and that related biomass or then yield as well? The second part of that is we're actually working with some clover cover crops ahead of corn. Same thing. We're just using a single seeding rate, but looking at three different planting dates throughout the fall and assessing kind of the gradient of what kind of biomass production survivability do we get at those rates And how does that influence corn stand yield and and performance. I've also done some previous work in just different cover crop species and varieties looking at different termination timings of cereal, rye and soybeans and things like that, amongst other other things. But a lot of just general kind of screening and especially demo part for field days, looking at a wide range of varieties of cover crops, different species to get people familiar with them, see what they look like, etc..

Todd Gleason 19:44
So tell me a bit more about using Clover as a cover cropping on its own or adding it to the mix.

Nathan Johanning 19:52
So one of the of course the main benefit, as we probably all would know from adding a legume like a clover is the is the nitrogen fixation benefit. So that's besides just adding some extra diversity to our cover crops, especially as we look towards nitrogen loving crop like corn, which is obviously a very prevalent in our state. You know, we, we want to find a cover crop that's going to complement the nutrient needs of of that cash crop. So one of the things that people do like, and especially I think in a mix, is, you know, adding some of that legume in there to help know, bring in funding. It has a lower carbon and nitrogen ratio in its biomass so that doesn't tie up as much nitrogen that we have and then also have that nitrogen production aspect. So those are kind of the main kind of the main reasons that, you know, a lot of us focus on on the aspects of legumes like clovers in our rotations.

Todd Gleason 20:53
But clover varieties are you using and how are they similar or different?

Nathan Johanning 20:57
So we have the research, we're doing currently is looking at Crimson Clover and then also looking at balance of clover. So we're looking at those two specifically. As an aside, I've also done a little work in the past with precision clover, although my current work doesn't we didn't have room to include it in but with Crimson Clover, which is one that I've, I've always had a just a a natural kind of affinity for. I think, if nothing else, if you've ever seen a field of crimson clover bloom in the spring, it's at least agriculturally speaking, it's just it's probably one of, one of the prettier things you could ask for. Nothing but a field of that crimson red. But I like it ergonomically because it's an annual clover, a winner annual. So what happens with that lifecycle, I would say is very akin to wheat. So by the time you get to late May or early June, it naturally it's going to die. It's not a perennial like some of our other clovers. And what that means is sometimes there's there's always that challenge with you know, termination, especially because a well-established clover that we use in forage systems is fairly robust for a perennial clover because this is an annual, even if it is actively growing and if, if termination is a little bit of a challenge or concern, there's always the backup in your mind knowing that it's only it's over. It's going to die automatically. It's not going to persist all summer long and be be a nuisance or be a draw on water nutrients. It's life is going to end no matter what. So that's one thing I like. Besides, it's well documented. Have good ability to to produce nitrogen and things. On balance a clover. It has a higher growth potential as far as biomass production. It is a it is is not a winner annual so it is is a perennial in nature. And so it does it does grow. The longer it has potential to grow a higher amounts of biomass. So with that higher amounts of biomass, you know, there's I think there is some documentation that could also relate to maybe, you know, more nitrogen especially accumulate in the biomass. What we're learning and what we've seen and observed somewhat is I do believe that especially varieties of balance of clover that are bred for the Midwest and adapted, some are more maybe warm season in nature. Those that can handle the winter for us do have a potential to maybe have a little later planning window and better success, which is what we're kind of kind of poking at with our research than what some of the Crimson Clover does and ability to to handle maybe a little wider range and planning date, which is which is a challenge because we're trying to balance the time our cash crop is in the field and then trying to also get a cover crop established in that busy time of year. And sometimes those just don't overlap the best. Even though we want to legume out there, we don't have maybe the ideal planting date to get them out there.

Todd Gleason 23:59
When will you be able to compile the information on your planting dates, study and other things that you're doing this year so that farmers might be able to get a look at it?

Nathan Johanning 24:08
So we have some some preliminary data from from 2023 looking at our planning date studies. We have that that trial is also going to be continuing thanks to the continued support of the Illinois Soybean Association on those trials. So we're going to do we have another year planted in the ground already and we're looking to hopefully do a third year also to look at that, especially on the Clovers, which is more variability. And we're actually we're seeing that obviously as you get later in some of our later planting dates, which for us can the very last to be say early November that we aren't getting successful establishment, which is fine because in our case we're as researchers, we actually like the fact that we're hitting an intro because that kind of tells us in our gradient that we've hit a kind of a known unknown wall or barrier. So we can we can look back from there and say, all right, well, this we know is not is not viable. Let's move back a few weeks and see where that falls. So so that's that's some of the information we have. We have a little bit of early results out now and certainly within the next year, we're going to have more and we'll be sharing some of this data through some of our summer field days and events as well.

Todd Gleason 25:20
Are you working with any other, quote, new unquote cover crops.

Nathan Johanning 25:24
At this point in time? Those are the ones that I've had the most familiarity with. I've heard a lot about camelina and I will say that I have not had a chance to firsthand utilize it or grow it. So I'm hoping that's one that's kind of on maybe my short list to understand a little bit more. Also, I've worked some with either winter oats or black oats, which are some that are some oat varieties will have a little more cold tolerance. I've had a little bit of of just on field kind of observations and experience with them, but the thought of a maybe a lower seed and ratio of grass that would maybe be a good fit ahead of corn that would have a little better winter survivability than when we just plant spring oats, maybe not necessarily survivability, but a better ability to establish a little bit later. Kind of like the Clovers. If we're planning spring oats in the fall, we really need to get them out, you know, depends in your area but certainly by mid September is is kind of a decent threshold to get at least fairly substantial growth. You can go a little later, but just know that you're not going to have much growth. Certainly once we get much into October. Again, they may establish, but you may not you're not going to get a plant very, very large. So those are a couple just on a a short list that while I haven't seen there may be on my I want to learn more list.

Todd Gleason 26:48
So what practical advice might you have for a farmer that's interested in diversifying their cover crop mix?

Nathan Johanning 26:56
The biggest thing that I would say is look to obviously look to some regional sources in your area, whether it be other farmers, researchers and see what kind of things are out there. One of the other things that if you're looking for different things to include in your mix, I would be remiss to not include the resources of the Midwest Cover Crop Council. So we have a great selector tool through that. That group, which is predominantly organized by the land grant universities in the Midwest, along with some other agencies and industry as well. So with that, if you go to Midwest cover crops, dawg, you can find the information there about that. The biggest thing is that is that selector tool you get. We go down to county specific level within a state based off of our annual frosts free dates and they will give you prescriptions as to where are the ideal times of the year, months of the year to establish different cover crops. So that's a great starting point. You can see all these species, but some of them have different fits. You want to make sure that you plan a cover crop that and invest in one that's going to have at least an optimal chance to perform under those conditions that you have. So you don't want to say plant something like, I use Buckwheat as a really basic example. Buckwheat in the 1st of October, because it's extremely cold, sensitive and frost sensitive. So that wouldn't be a good fit. And that selector tool will tell you things like that and more nuances of course, and little more detailed than that one, which is a fairly simple example, but it's a great starting point to give you an idea of where these fit in our calendar year in general and kind of how to use them. Also, lots of great information on the traits they have. They rank them for different goals you may have. You can look into their fact sheets on each of them that give basic information. So that's a good a good starting point. And also, I would say kind of start small. There's there is value of including really big diverse mixes with, you know, a dozen of different cover crops, but don't feel like you have to do that to have some benefit. Even just a mix that has two or three things can be perfectly viable. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed by need and include as many species as possible. When you to get a mix, when you could get very good benefits just from the thoughts of having a a grass and legume and maybe like a brassica like a like a rapeseed radish in there, just a simple three way mix can be very beneficial as a as a next step. If you want to make any kind of additions to your current crop plan.

Todd Gleason 29:38
Nathan Johanson is a natural resources educator. The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast is produced with the aid of Rachael Currie and Nicole Hammer Bank. I'm Extension's Todd Gleason.