News

Terminating cover crops a problem this spring

Damp and cool conditions this spring have caused additional problems for farmers with cover crops.

Planting delays are occurring across the Corn Belt because of cold weather and saturated soils.

Channel Seed technical agronomist Todd Vagts says cover crops have helped reduce erosion, but terminating the plants has been a challenge.

“If you’re terminating with a herbicide, you want your air temperatures to be warmer so you can get good activity from the herbicide.  And we’d like it to be 60 degrees or greater during the day, and we’ve had a few days here and there, but not necessarily at times when the field has been dry enough to be able to get in and get that herbicide application on.”

He tells Brownfield patience is important, but the bigger cover crops get, the harder it is to kill them.

“The taller it is, of course then the higher dose rate of the herbicide you’ll need to go in there and terminate it.  Then if (the farmer) is going to do light tillage or no-till, there’s just a lot more vegetation to have to try to manage through once you’re going into planting.”

Vagts, who’s based in Minnesota, says most farmers in his area have effectively terminated their cover crops.

But there are a few fields he describes as out of control.