Its been 6 months since we burned the fescue field.
Several weeks later after the fescue and cool season plants came up nice and tall and green and pretty, we sprayed it with glyphosate to kill it all. Ouch, that kinda hurts for the grass folks. Take a deep breath and know that were moving forward, on to something better.
Since then, we’ve had a record rain event in the spring which prevented plan A (planting a summer cover crop for profit), and then dry weather late in the year. Oh well, I guess we move on and learn as a good farmer does.
On the bright side, it gave us a perfect opportunity to control some of the Johnsongrass that lifted it’s head at times through the summer. I didn’t much like not having an abundance of growing plants on the soil through the summer to keep what soil biology we had active, but sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.
So, here we are on August 18th, without delay, drilling our fall cover crops.
Why do we do this? Let me tell you what we’ve learned:
- Cover Crops prevent soil erosion by holding soil in place and providing armor
- Cover Crops provide excellent wildlife food
- Cover Crops that grow robust canopies provide weed control
- Cover Crops particularly the radishes and turnips are a bio-fumigant and limit pests
We’ve also observed a few added benefits over the years that are particularly applicable to this project.
- Cover Crops, our winter kill mix provides a good decomposing mulch cover in the spring that is easily planted into with a no-till native grass drill.
- Cover Crops, seem to provide a cycle-breaking / actively growing environment in the soil that promotes and kick starts healthy biological processes that had been inhibited by fescue endophyte.
