Episode 75 | Cover Crop Conversations: Management Advice

Todd Gleason: 00:06

This is episode 75 of the Illinois nutrient loss reduction podcast, cover crop

Todd Gleason: 00:12

conversations, management advice. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Today, we'll hear the second of a two part series. Each is an excerpt pulled from a July 2025 meeting led by extension agriculture and agribusiness educator Rachel Curry. In the first program, we explored barriers three farmers had and sometimes still face as it's related to deploying cover crops on the farm.

Todd Gleason: 00:37

Today, Rachel continues that conversation with Brian Corkle, John Pike and Norm Dietz. She'll ask them about the things they've learned over the years and how these influence the management advice they provide others interested in using cover crops.

Rachel Curry: 00:55

Let's move on to cover crop management and experience. So one of the questions that was submitted asked how many seeds per acre or pounds per acre do you plant for different cover crops? Norm, you want to go first on that one?

Norm Deets: 01:10

Well, it's pretty simple. I'm pretty much cereal rye up here. And currently I'm doing 50 pounds cereal rye per acre. I could probably cut that back a little bit, I think. I probably will experiment with that, maybe get down to 40 pounds.

Norm Deets: 01:30

You could say that saves on the expense side, but I do want to have enough cover out there to help my erosion problem. So kind of pretty simple, straightforward for me.

Rachel Curry: 01:42

John?

John Pike: 01:43

It's going to depend on what species of cover crop we're looking at because everything has different seed sizes to it. So that's going to, 10 pounds of one thing is going to equate to a lot more seed and ground coverage than 10 pounds of something else. But I think just in general, I always encourage people when they're starting out to stay on the at a more modest seeding rate. And because many times I'll go out to a field and that is from a first time early adoption cover crop and a farmer mentality is something that we want to plant something out there and we want to see a good stand, a solid vigorous growth of things. And our cover crop fields don't need to look like a well managed wheat field or oat field.

John Pike: 02:31

If we've got, depending on the species that we're dealing with, if we would have maybe, you know, eight or 10 seeds per per square foot in some cases that might give us a good suitable cover crop in a particular situation. Sometimes we might want 30 seeds per square foot depending on what that is. But I would start at a more modest rate because many the speakers that I see at conferences and things that are featured, they tend to be the more advanced folks. And they've got their equipment all fine tuned and their goals are usually different than what the someone that's taking the first couple steps in the in the initiation process would be. And I think staying a little bit on the modest seating rates and then working up if we see the need to do that as we go down the line will help to avoid unneeded challenges. Brian?

Brian Corkill: 03:31

Yeah, I think John summed it up pretty well. Obviously depends on species. So like I talked about, I plant trachealia, I plant that about 50 pounds to the acre. And then I also throw in some winter Camelina and that's only like maybe two pounds per acre.

Brian Corkill: 03:48

So species is, and then, you know, if guys like radishes, you know, that might be a pound and a half per acre. Then also, you know, and he spoke to that as well, you know, what are your goals? Where are you at in your journey? So I'm far enough along and I actually, I was up a fair amount higher rate on some of my grass stuff, and I've been gradually easing it back again. You know, if you're looking for weed control, and I do that, so that's part of my, my weed control program is my cover crop.

Brian Corkill: 04:27

So, you got to kind of find that happy balance on where you have a good enough stand to help suppress weed germination. And, but at the same point in time, you don't want so much out there that you have trouble planning your cash crop, because at the end of the day, part of sustainability is making money and you're growing a cash crop is your first goal. All these other things are things that we're trying to do to enhance that profitability.

Rachel Curry: 04:56

Somebody else submitted a question which asked which cover crop species are best suited to Northeastern Illinois? And so Norm, since that's closer to your neck of the woods, do you want to take Well,

Norm Deets: 05:08

you mean, I think if you really want to have a cover crop and you want to have it established over the winter, cereal rye is the go to. I don't have enough experience on some of the other things. Now I have seen a lot of people, they experimented for a year and maybe they flew on oats or radishes, something that will get a winter kill because they think they're afraid of what we talked about in the spring, it growing too fast and not being able to control. So if you want to dabble in that and take a little risk out of it, maybe fly some oats and radishes onto your soybeans and see what happens or plant them in after you harvest them.

Rachel Curry: 05:54

Don or Brian, do you have any other thoughts?

Brian Corkill: 05:57

My experience in the last couple of years of using winter Camelina, I think that's something that kind of fits our geography. I was a little concerned about it at first, but especially like this last year, we had a pretty good test of it. We didn't have a lot of snow cover, and we had some really, really cold temperatures a couple couple of different times in the winter and it survived the winter very well. So if you're looking at some diversity, that's something that you could put in there and it's easy to manage in the spring has been my experience. But I agree with Norm.

Brian Corkill: 06:30

I mean, cereal rye is, I mean, that stuff will grow, that stuff will grow if the soil temperature is like 34 degrees. If you have a little snow cover in the wintertime, like I've been amazed in years where it's gotten well below zero, but we had good snow cover and the snow melts off. I'm like, holy cow, that's like an inch taller than it was six weeks ago. So that it is very good. Triticale is pretty close to being as good and a little easier to manage in the spring, but yeah, cereal rye up in Northern Illinois is probably going to be the top contender.

John Pike: 07:11

I concur with everything that's been said. I'm curious too about the winter Camelina and even as we move south in the state as that was something that might pair well to allow us to get a cover crop on some of our double crop beans that are following wheat that as it stands now, it's pretty dicey on getting anything in there. So I'm going to try some of that this year, but I think that's good. You know, no doubt as you move to the North, your options are reduced a little bit. But one of the things to remember is whatever anything that we can do to get this, get the crop seeded quicker is going to help.

John Pike: 07:54

We need to have some establishment to ensure the best standard of winter survivability and even up in there the right conditions can take that out. So early along with what's been said species wide, think anything to do that we can establish that stand earlier is something to think about too.

Rachel Curry: 08:15

We've had the next couple questions are questions that have been submitted. John, I'm gonna put this one to you first. What is a good cover crop that will get established after beans ahead of corn to cut erosion on rolling ground?

John Pike: 08:30

I think when we're talking about erosion control, cereal rye is the first thing that comes to mind because of the quick germination and biomass establishment that you get. But then you're confronted with a lot of the problems that you hear about with rye creating for corn with nitrogen tie up and those types of things. So the way I approach that is that I don't everything that I do is a is is in a mix, and I want to have a plan to where I can get that cover crop seeded, whether I'm going to put it on over the top with a drone or an airplane or I've got a plan to get a field harvested sooner to get a cover crop established to have enough seeding window to establish a cover crop that's more than than cereal rye. But I think one of the misnomers with cereal rye is is the fact that people hear things about problems that cereal rye creates and they automatically think that cereal rye can't play a role in a cover crop mix ahead of corn. So I think that cereal rye is a good base component for a lot of that.

John Pike: 09:37

I use a lot of annual rye grass in my situation and mix that with cereal rye in some cases, and and that can kind of mitigate some of that. But I think with having a plan on how you're going to manage that cereal rye so we can have cereal rye in a mix. And if we go into the spring, we need to probably have a plan in wherever we're at in the state to terminate that relatively soon, because if we terminated in the small vegetative stage, whatever nutrients and nitrogen, especially that's held up, that is going to be less and it's going to be released back into the system quicker and be more available. We don't want to be in a situation where we're planning corn into headed out cereal rye at anthesis like we see pictures of beans. So I think cereal rye would be a base component, but yet have that in a mix and have a plan to manage that to take it out early.

John Pike: 10:34

And, you know, in the spring, it might be a situation where it's not a total termination. Maybe we could take that cereal rye or whatever grass crop out with clethodom and let something like crimson clover grow a little bit more and plant into that of, later into the season, but that's my best guess at that.

Norm Deets: 10:55

Pretty much up where we're at, cereal rye is yet going on soybean ground. And I would say, I've flown it on, I've drilled it, you almost have to really get what you want for soil erosion control on bean ground, harvested bean ground, is you need to drill it in. And here's one thing I have learned, tried, takes a little bit extra labor, and I know labor is a big issue, but in my fields, any place that will carry water, or I think will carry water, I go and I drill that first, and then I drill the whole field. So I get a double on any place where I think water will run, and that makes a huge difference. In fact, it's so good in managing soil erosion that I've eliminated a number of grass ditches just by doing that.

Rachel Curry: 11:55

Brian, do you have anything to add?

Brian Corkill: 11:57

Yeah, I would echo what Norm said. That's kind of what we do too when we seed ourselves. And you know, I can remember in even in the first, well, if we started in February, say the first ten years that we were doing cover crops, we still had issues with withdrawals and fields eroding. But now that we've been much more consistent on doing, like Norm said, double seeding basically those areas. I haven't had to pull a field cultivator or anything out of their shed in the last five years and those are actually improving and, you know, I don't have to do anything with them.

Brian Corkill: 12:43

I will say in my case, like a head of corn, I used to do cereal rye and I have run into a year or two where I planted into headed out cereal rye with corn and it turned out okay, but it isn't ideal. So I go to, I either use triticale or winter barley, so they don't grow as aggressively in the spring, but if you can get established early enough, they can still kind of accomplish the same things. And then with some of our fields that we know we're going to do later, we've actually started also putting in winter Camelina, which has been very winter hardy. Annual ryegrass around here, I do love it, but I would say probably it's fiftyfifty on whether or not it'll survive the winter. I would rather use that because it isn't nearly as competitive with corn in the spring, but trying to get it to overwinter is a big issue here.

Brian Corkill: 13:47

So I think triticale and winter barley are better than cereal rye, at least in my experience and what I've tried, just because they just aren't quite as aggressive in the spring as what cereal rye is. Once cereal rye gets the right condition and well, the cereal rye will grow all winter long, but man, when it starts to warmth in the spring, man, it can get out of control in a hurry. And if you have wet conditions and can't get in to terminate it and stuff like that, there can be some issues. And then another thing to consider, and that's what we've ended up doing, is we used to, we've always put starter on as long as I've been on the farm, but that was more in furrow stuff. Now we've, I've re outfitted our planters.

Brian Corkill: 14:35

So now we're putting on our nitrogen on at planting. So we put on about 45 pounds of nitrogen to try to overcome some of that tie up issue until it starts becoming available as the growing season goes on as well.

Rachel Curry: 14:51

What is the number one myth that you hear about cover crops and what do you wish folks would know? So John, we'll go with you first.

John Pike: 14:59

I think that one of the biggest myths is is that it's a it's a two sided coin. Either there there's a group that runs through the valley that says that cover crops are nothing but roses and butterflies and throw out some seed that'll solve every problem that you have. And then you've got the other side of the movement that said that anything to do with a with a cover crop is is terrible and the. It all relates to management and the good part of any system is kind of coming to the middle and sorting out the shades of gray about what works in a particular situation. So I think sometimes some of the meetings that I've been involved with in past, they're too get too fixated on terminology like regenerative or sustainable or something.

John Pike: 15:53

Well, all I want to do is farm successfully. And to my point that I forgot a minute ago, it's the fact that when some people hear about regenerative, they often think it's a minimalist approach. And I don't know what regenerative is and sustainable. I think I know how to grow corn and soybeans and wheat pretty well in Illinois, but I want to use cover crops and no till systems and all the things involved with that to put together a way to to grow a more successful, higher yielding, higher profitable crop. And if we look at this, that we're going to all of a sudden do something and that's going to reduce the need for us to use modern technologies.

John Pike: 16:38

If we can get around that, that's fine. But I look at it as a component that I can add to the rest of my operation and use that effectively with with the seed herbicide equipment and all of the other technology that we have to do things better and to to make my soils better and more productive and making things better and productive. You know, the root of that is to keep it in place. And if we don't see as much muddy water and we can control erosion of all types, that's a good thing. And as we have more severe weather patterns that come through, especially in the in the early spring where we can have maybe two or three, three or four inch rains at a time before the crop rooting system gets to the point where it can hold it will in a reduced tillage situation, it's going to be more likely to withstand that punishing rain system than if the ground is worked up like a lettuce bed.

John Pike: 17:44

We've got planter technologies that don't require that to get good seed to soil contact and to offset all the other reasons why we did tillage. I'm not against tillage, I think it has a place but we need to find the best package that we have to move forward and I think finding that middle ground somewhere in the shades of gray is where we need to be looking to find the best for what works for us.

Brian Corkill: 18:08

This maybe isn't necessarily a myth. So one thing I hear about from a lot of farmers in my area is they just purely look at it as an expense. That's all they think about. It's going to cost me this much money and granted it does cost you money. So I always try to tell guys that well, are programs where you can get started.

Brian Corkill: 18:32

That'll offset some of that cost. And they're the longer I've been doing this, the more that I find, you know, there's government programs, there's non government organizational programs. There's all kinds of places where you can get some financial help to get started in that journey. But I guess I was fortunate when I started, you know, farming was pretty profitable at that time. And I always viewed it as, as an, maybe not the first year or two, but after I started to learn more about other things, viewed it as an investment.

Brian Corkill: 19:09

So the stuff that I've been doing over the last fifteen years now, I'm, I'm to the point where I'm able to cut back on applied fertilizer and I'm able to cut back on some herbicide applications and things like that. So I put that investment in. Now I'm starting to reap the benefits of that. So it's always about having, and I think Norm probably mentioned this earlier, if I remember right, having, not only having a goal, but having a long term goal and where do you want to get to. And like I'm to the point now where I'm starting to reap the benefits of what my long term goal was.

Brian Corkill: 19:46

So I guess that would be maybe not a myth, but things I hear that guys say about it, started.

Norm Deets: 19:55

Yeah, you know, I think Brian sums it up. The myth of expense, really it isn't, it can become a profit center from the standpoint. I think the myth that, oh, my yields will go down. Oh, the yields are going to go the other way if you stick with the program. Probably the biggest myth, if I have to say there is a myth, is you can't do cover crops for one year and it's going to be wonderful.

Norm Deets: 20:27

I mean, it's a commitment to a multi year thing to get your crop or to get your land conditioned and get it ready and you to understand the system and the management, that's when it's going to pay off. Much like Brian said, it's an investment in the future.

Rachel Curry: 20:44

There was one more question that was submitted that maybe each of you can hit on a resource that examines the financial impact of some of the different regenerative farming practices like cover crops, no till. Especially this person was interested in the reduction in cost from additives and drainage solutions. And they were also wondering how do you communicate these to your friends and your co owners or landowners?

John Pike: 21:12

I'll take a stab at it first. I think that in some of meetings that I've been involved with, Soil Health Institute has put together several good case scenarios of cost and production issues from around a bigger part of Midwest. But they've talked to several people throughout Illinois and over into Indiana that would be applicable. The SARE program, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program that's housed at the University of Missouri, in this North Central region here, they've done a series of case studies and have some information about that as well. And I think the PCM data is something that I would keep in mind.

John Pike: 22:01

And that's been a good program. And I think as their data set increases and covers more acres and we get producers that are involved in that program that have a longer history with cover crop management and changes, especially in Central Illinois, that that will help a lot because right now I think that there probably there's some jading to that information as far as the the the very, very best soils in Central Illinois aren't something that is getting cover crops thought right now anyway. So as we look at the acreage in those regions that are getting cover crops, they're probably something that's a little bit on the marginal side anyway. So it's not always an apples to apples direct correlation. But I think that the PCM data is sure a good component to keep an eye on for our specific Illinois information for sure.

Brian Corkill: 22:56

Add one other source real quick because those were going to be some that I was to mention, but, and they're Practical Farmers of Iowa has a lot of good, resource and they are starting to do more outside of the state of Iowa. So I'm working with them this year on some nitrogen rate trials on a farm, but they do all kinds of different things nutrients, cover crops, all that kind of stuff. They have a ton of field days. They have a lot of data and information available from field trials and things like that. So that'd be another good source.

Norm Deets: 23:31

Yeah, I use PCM. Actually, the thing the think a lot of the data still, I know they're trying, I don't know how provable what

Brian Corkill: 23:43

it is at this particular point. It's hard to collect.

Norm Deets: 23:46

Yeah, it's hard to collect. The one thing I look at, to be honest with you, I look at my soil tests over the years when I started no till and when I added cover crops, and my organic matter has gone up 2.6% since adding cover crops. And I can equate that to being able to grow better crops because when I can increase my organic matter, I have a better farm.

Todd Gleason: 24:16

Norm Dietz is a farmer in the state of Illinois. He was joined during the July 2025 cover crops conversation farmer to farmer event hosted by University of Illinois Extension and joined by John Pike and Brian Corkle. It was hosted by Rachel Curry. Today, we've been listening to an excerpt from that event. It is the second in a two part series.

Todd Gleason: 24:37

In the first program, the four explored the barriers each found as they began their cover crop journeys. The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension under the guidance of Rachel Curry, Nicole Haverback, and Luke Zwilling. You may find it and many other U of I Extension podcasts online. Search Illinois Extension podcasts. I'm Todd Gleason.