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Fall Cover Crops
152 Plays2 years ago
Join the Hort Culture regulars (Alexis, Brett, Josh and Ray) as they talk about fall cover crops for your gardens and fields. Thanks for listening!
Cover Crops for Kentucky Gardens and Fields
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome. And if you are a consistent listener, you may be saying, I haven't heard from you all in a while. And that is true. And that is because we've had a little thickness going around and there was enough of us out. Down with the sickness. Now that's what I call coronavirus volume 19. I was going to let them call themselves out. I wasn't going to call them out for it. The ones that had it just did it. So yeah, we called ourselves out.
00:00:43
Speaker
A little under the weather for a bit. I thought of it as Corona as COVID-19 having me, you know, keep down with the case of me.
Post-COVID Recovery Experience
00:00:50
Speaker
It definitely takes you out. That's for sure. We both take naps. It is the dominant one in this relationship. We took turns resting, me and the virus.
00:01:01
Speaker
But we are back and maybe a little bit, I don't know, a little bit foggy in the brain and a little depleted. But some of us are feeling a little bit punchy today and I'll let you guess who that is. It's me. I'm the problem. Punchy. Tell us why you're punchy. I mean, that's pretty sad. You've had a big day. When you say punchy, you mean like you want to like punch or like is is punchy better than stabby?
00:01:26
Speaker
Um, punchy is kind of like stabby with like a, uh, humorous kick to it. I think, uh, killing me solving attempted murder judge. Yeah. Punchy is more like a slight, you know, uh, stabs, but with a smile on my face, feather duster over and over again.
00:01:49
Speaker
No, I just well to be honest with you I've gotten to teach a lot in the past couple days which is what I love to do is just to talk to people about plants and I've talked to middle schoolers and high schoolers and garden clubs and it's just it keeps me keeps me fresh keeps me alive and I Enjoy that so punchy's good
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just don't come at me because I will also stab you. I'm keyed up. I'm keyed up. I know. I just liked the word punchy. Just feels good. I know. Yeah. I was just clarifying what I didn't know. They went punchy today, y'all. I'm not on TikTok, Alexis. I don't know what the new words mean. You know what? I actually heard that term used by another podcaster. Look at you. And she goes, we're punchy today, y'all. And they're all waiting. It just seems right.
00:02:31
Speaker
Just feels good.
Fall Cover Crops: Urgency and Benefits
00:02:32
Speaker
But today we are talking about fall cover crops and we have talked about cover crops on here before we've talked about why they're great Some of the summer ones that you can do but we're at the period in fall and we're about getting close to the time where it's up for cover crops like
00:02:50
Speaker
You don't have much window left to be planting them. So if you're hearing this right now, get to the store, get on the internet, wherever you're going to buy your seed and get to ordering if you're wanting to put that down. And I can tell you from personal experience, I am always late. It is never, I never get it down at the right time. Like, I don't know if anybody, anybody else, but it can be hard. You know, your tomatoes are still producing. Maybe you're, you know, you've got some good garden stuff still in there. The cover crop until everything's done. Yeah. Done, done, done.
00:03:19
Speaker
It's not always the way it works because it needs to have enough time in there. I guess it depends on the person because there would be many, many a time where I would just be thrilled to knock everything down and put in a nice clean bed of wheat. Yes, Brad. 100%. I've knocked down all my tomatoes as I've
00:03:41
Speaker
Confessed in earlier episodes, maybe the last episode, I think, you know, we talked a little bit about that, like ending the garden with Jennifer will not let me end her little round circles of flowers that I've tilled around with a garden tiller. I've tilled around every little round circle of flower and I'm waiting to dispatch those into the netherworld. No, but yeah, I can't circles.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, little crop circles. Lower circles. But yeah, Alexis, that's a great point because I can't put down, I've got a crimson clover base mix. I got, I don't know, 10 or 12, you know, things. And I usually put down a mix of things of grasses and clovers, but I can't put them down yet. And I know something about crimson clover is that winter kills really bad. So I got to get that in soon. But, and also one of the reasons that I put in a cover crop, specifically a fall cover crop,
00:04:33
Speaker
is that my garden is kind of, you've seen kind of the backyard, it kind of slopes down to a flat area, then slopes some more. It has a little slope to it. So I desperately need that cover crop on there because it's in a state of 90% being tilled right now. And I'm starting to see little wash outs. Yeah, erosion. So I need to get that on ASAP. Yeah. And it's a timing issue for me. So those flowers, I can't guarantee how much longer the little crop circles of flowers will be in the garden.
00:05:02
Speaker
They're all going to get powdery mildew if they don't have it already. They already do. They already do. It's just a matter of time. It's a slow death. I drink my coffee and I'll watch them decline. Have you ever accidentally mowed them too early? You know, made a mistake. You will accidentally do bodily harm to me. Talking about feeling stabby. Yeah.
00:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's Jennifer. She's just straight, stabby, not punchy. So yeah, she'll come and get me. So that's one of the reasons that there's lots of great reasons, I guess you all to do a fall cover crop. But that's one of the main reasons that I do is to hold my soil on this ever so slight slope, but it's just enough to gather water and it's just a big enough area to gather a volume and
00:05:43
Speaker
velocity of water to do a little washing. So that's one of the reasons I am anxious to get my fall cover crop in. I know we're focusing on cover crop specifically, but just in case anybody's new to this time of year, they're new to gardening in general, a couple of the other things, just think about this time of year and you can look into them as you're listening to the rest of the podcast would be.
Planting Activities Beyond Cover Crops
00:06:04
Speaker
So I just saw some of our growers are planting their annual strawberry plants in the next few weeks. On plastic, typically on raised bed plastic culture or plastic we've talked about before. That's people who are growing them for annual production almost, or not almost, exactly as an annual, rather than a perennial or biennial crop.
00:06:26
Speaker
I think about garlic is another thing this time of year that people should be thinking about planting. We covered a little bit of the bulbs and other things that are fall planted last week. Tulips. Tulips and some of those woody perennials. This time of year, there is a lot of activity, a lot of things that can be planted.
00:06:46
Speaker
Uh, grouped in, in the, I was, you know, kind of as, as fall comes on, those are the things that I have in my, had had in my mind when I was growing things more regularly, but Alexis, I don't want to digress us off of, uh,
00:06:58
Speaker
No, no, I heard somebody call fall second spring the other day, and that I think can be very true. It doesn't have to be true, but it can be very true. If you're tired, listen, I get it, and it's okay to terminate, and hopefully you can
00:07:16
Speaker
throw in some cover crop or whatever but i was gonna say a cool maybe a cool way to start talking about cover crops array talk about why he is covered cropped in all of us have used it in some way and some point of our life so maybe just talking about why you did in your situation my vehicle and then we can talk about just some of our favorites
00:07:36
Speaker
timeline on those and then you know, kind of getting rid of them in the spring can also be something that terminating terminating can be a little bit tricky depending on what equipment you have available for you. All of it is possible, but it's something to think about when you pick one and we've talked about this with summer cover crops and the same is true for winter, some
00:07:58
Speaker
Some termination is easier than others depending on your scale, but for me, erosion is I think always, whether you're on a slope or not, is always something to be concerned with, but I have other ways of covering the soil. In my situation, I can cover it with a big
00:08:15
Speaker
a black, you know, plastic silage tarp and do a lot of that. But what I don't get by covering it up with silage tarp is I don't get that organic matter buildup. So I may get some weed suppression. I may get the warming of the soil. So there's great things to do. And I have a tarp down right now where I've pulled it over an area that I just could no longer look at because the weeds were so bad. We talked about that as well.
00:08:40
Speaker
I use cover crop both for weed suppression and because I have a pretty heavy clay-based soil. So I'm really trying to break that up from where it was in tobacco a long time ago and then in pasture. I have a little bit of compaction, some clot issues that happen.
00:08:57
Speaker
And so I'm trying to increase that organic matter in a cheaper way because I can add compost, I can add manure, you know, as much as my phosphorus levels will. You added a lot of tap rooted things to your mix. I was wondering, like, do you have anything with any of the tillage radish stuff? Yeah, I did daikon radishes the first time. I did them and they worked great, but I don't necessarily have like a hard pan per se. It's just I'm trying to prevent a hard pan because I have this type of soil.
00:09:24
Speaker
that will do that, but they did do great. I even picked some or pulled some out that I missed with the tiller and that got really large and we sautéed them up and ate them because they were tasty. But I'm more going in with a mix of just both grasses and legumes because I really need some good weed suppression
Preferred Cover Crop Mix
00:09:46
Speaker
as well, but I need a lot of biomass. Can you share the names? Yeah, I was going to... Hold on, let me pull up.
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, what's the phrase? I want to pull up the exact mix out there, especially for homeowners, you know, on an agriculture scale. You know, we've been doing that forever. And, you know, the important thing to remember about as Alexis is I'm killing time as Alexis is pulling that up.
00:10:09
Speaker
is to if you have a pre-done mix, that's great. Those are readily available for homeowners and larger scale. Typically for homeowners, you get those mixes ready to go in the proper ratio. But if you're making your own mix, remember to reduce the total amount recommended.
00:10:23
Speaker
If it says a pound per thousand square feet or whatever, a lot of times you are reducing that by half if you're putting that in a mix. You don't want to double ups if you're making your own mix. But have you found that Alexis? The seating rates are for a pure stand of just price.
00:10:39
Speaker
For summer cover crops, I tend, I tend to like like a straight species and it's totally personal preference. Like that's just, it's easy for me. That's the way my brain works. But for fall, since they're going to be in a lot longer in theory, um, I like a mix and I need various things. So, uh, the one I have is winter rye, field peas, rye grass, crimson clover and hairy vetch. Um.
00:11:02
Speaker
Harry vetch is one of my absolute favorites. I love it. It's so consistent. I like a mix because if you don't have great success, like let's say I get this in a little bit late and the Crimson Clover doesn't end up coming up. That's okay because I have other things that can kind of help fill in that void.
00:11:18
Speaker
Um, because when I've done straight winter mixes, I, I have the, some things might be killed off easier than others. Um, the, the, the, the clovers bad about that, the crimson. Yeah. Sometimes if it gets way, way below zero, like a couple of years ago, that killed a lot of crimson. So if it wasn't a problem in my mix last year, but the, um,
00:11:39
Speaker
rye and the veg did fine. So like I didn't lose all my cover crop because it was a mix. So that's one of the reasons I like to have a mix as a fall cover crop. We've talked before about the biodiversity and the different root structures and depths and all the benefits you get from that. Because remember the cool thing about cover crops is you have the top part and the bottom part and Alexis has already kind of kicked us off into that conversation with like the radishes doing the mechanical
00:12:07
Speaker
some of the, you know, penetration into the soil. So that's the cool thing about it. We look at the biomass on top and what's going on with the root system. So that's a great reason to use the mixes I think is you kind of get that diversity naturally by selecting different things, a mixture of grasses and legumes.
00:12:26
Speaker
What about you, Brett and Josh? You guys have worked in a lot of different, uh, different industry, not industries. What's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. It doesn't matter. Thank you. So like how, how have you all used it and what, what, what was your preference?
00:12:44
Speaker
Well, I mean, what comes to mind recently, because these days, I'm just a homeowner managing like a quarter of an acre of kind of the endemic polyculture of crabgrass and whatnot. I like to kind of oversee with white clover kind of around that frost date and just kind of keep doing that to
00:13:05
Speaker
I don't know, I guess influence the yard to be a little bit more perennial, be a little bit more friendly to kind of pollinators and be less of kind of a
00:13:15
Speaker
monocot forest. I'm really curious. How's that work for you? The overseeded with clover? Cause it's such a tiny seed. Does that work pretty well for you in a lawn set up? It's definitely not something where it's like fat. It's not something that you get great results in the first season. Yeah. It's one of those do continuously kind of. Yeah. And then the Springs in the spring and the fall. Okay. Yeah. And just kind of over walk it over with a little, uh, organ grinder, you know,
00:13:44
Speaker
Doesn't take long when it's a quarter acre. We kind of laughed when you said crabgrass, but somebody mentioned it was last year, a year before, and they had a hand-bitten chickweed out in the field. It looked like it was sown out there. And they said, well, we're going to leave it because it's holding the soil and we're getting that top mass that we're going to till under later. So why not? And that really made me take a step back. I was like, huh, you know, it's yeah. Anything can be a cover crop. Yeah.
00:14:12
Speaker
If it is giving you those benefits, it doesn't have to be one of these cereal grains or legumes or grasses that we're mentioning here today. But they said, no, that's a weed problem for them. But then it's not a problem when the way that their tillage patterns in the spring, they just mechanically kind of tilled it up and it was not a problem. But every year they had this, coming back, they must have had quite a seed bed. But I thought, wow, that's something to me because that was their cover crop, chickweed, henvent.
Organic Matter and Diversity Benefits
00:14:41
Speaker
was like, okay, yeah, I mean, that's like, that's a really important point is to think about, you know, what is it that you want from this place, because I'm not out there pulling out a bunch of like carbohydrates or biomass, right? I'm not growing anything. I'm just kind of trying to subtly influence the ground cover that's out there, whereas you all are, you know,
00:14:59
Speaker
Pulling things off and mitigate like yeah Specific plans for you know what what families of crops you're gonna be having come up and trying to break Disease cycles and all that really good the big on the larger scale that becomes a big issue. That's another facet of Cover crops is are you trying to make that be a nitrogen sink? Where you're trying to capture excess nitrogen based on the production scheme for that year so that you can sort of let you know
00:15:26
Speaker
decomposition, kind of add that to the soil at a later date. But yeah, that's another, on bigger scales, that becomes a big factor as soil testing is used to determine exactly what kind of cover crop you need to capture what you're trying to do. Make sure that it stays there on site with the soil. Yeah, that's a good point, Josh. I know it's not a popular opinion, but I actually, I prefer crabgrass to lobster grass. What are you?
00:15:52
Speaker
I don't care what it is. As long as there's plenty of butter while I'm eating either. You can eat lots of different things. I know that bread is making a joke right now, but crabgrass is the faint of my existence right now and it can go raw in hell. Okay. The lobster grass fan has entered the chat.
00:16:16
Speaker
Somebody has opinions. From what I understand, in the Grassland Ecology Lab, looking at the steadily warming temperatures, apparently, crabgrass is coming in here to stay and will only come dominating our grasslands.
00:16:32
Speaker
So, uh, it is words that I cannot say on a recorded podcast while I am wearing my UK official gear. Uh, but just know I'm thinking them and I'm thinking that I know you're not talking about your lawn because I don't think you would care.
00:16:50
Speaker
Yeah. So what scenario has got you so worked up? Is it like in one of your production areas? Yeah. So I have a couple of different style of production areas because I like to keep things fun. I don't necessarily recommend that, but the place where it is the worst. So remember I have converted pasture and this will be my third growing season and so of converted pasture.
00:17:16
Speaker
I have perennial rows that are mulched and in between those rows I have plastic walkways. That is where the crabgrass has taken over because I've tilled up new area. Even though I've mulched and I mulched heavy and well and there's a good amount of perennials that have really started to take off in that area, the crabgrass is there. It shows up and it is.
00:17:43
Speaker
It is special. And honestly, like it's worse than my John, like I don't really have knock on wood, a bad Johnson grass problem. Um, I mean, it's there certainly, but a lot of people tend to have bad Johnson grass issues when they convert pasture, but mine is crab grass and it also comes up.
00:18:01
Speaker
The worst place it comes up and I finally had to just weedy the entire row. I'm sorry I'm getting off topic, but like, this is why cover crops are so important to me because of this craft grass issue. So I finally just went in and just completely destroyed a whole row because I couldn't look at it anymore. And I also- Did you destroy it? Did you kill it with fire?
00:18:20
Speaker
a weed eater. I would just, I scalped it down. Yeah. And then I just, I'm going to pull tarp over it and go, when I do it. Couldn't you sell like crab grass is like some kind of foliar. I got to figure out something, man. I'm telling you a while. I don't know. I almost can't give it that much.
00:18:43
Speaker
Because I hate it. I loathe it in such a way that I don't think I could ever. If someone was like, I will give you $100 for crabgrass, I'd be like, no, I just I don't want to look at it. I must die.
00:18:59
Speaker
I know this is an aside, but crabgrass is so odd and research tells us this more and more, but most weeds, we say, if you're doing a chemical weed control, spray them when they're actively growing and young. Well, crabgrass doesn't adhere to that. You can spray it when it's young, it works pretty well, but in the middle of its growth cycle, when it's still somewhat young, it doesn't work at all. But when it gets older, the chemicals actually work better. So there's this strange dip in the curve. So crabgrass is very evasive.
00:19:29
Speaker
Even with chemical controls, it's really interesting. It's so low profile. It's not that it knows the blade is coming, but it knows the typical ways we control things go right over its head. It's evil. It is evil. But anyways, cover crops can
Managing Crabgrass Challenges
00:19:49
Speaker
help you with crabgrass. For me, conceptually, the ways that I've used it or thought about using it.
00:19:55
Speaker
We've mentioned it already, but I kind of just kind of these categories of things. So there's the grasses, there's your nitrogen fixer legume kind of stuff. And then I think there's sort of like a third utility category that has other things that it does. We talked about tillage radishes and the flex player types of mustard for like a kind of fumigation and whatever other. If you need like a perennial crop, how about those, Brett?
00:20:21
Speaker
Like if you need something more than one year and I see that in production operations where you're doing something like alfalfa or you know something that's going to persist more than one year. Yeah. But I think in addition to covering the ground both while it's actively growing and once you either cut it or knock it down. Another way that I think of grasses is sort of like this sponge
00:20:44
Speaker
So if we think we talk about fertility, when you get a soil test and you get a sense of how much fertility is in the soil and available to plants at that time versus how much will be available across time. Well, the reality is sometimes when we're going through a season, especially if you're adding fertilizer throughout the year, there's going to be a decent amount of free fertility hanging out in the soil profile toward the end of the season.
00:21:08
Speaker
And so when you go and you put in something like a winter wheat, a winter rye, something like that, what it's gonna do is it's gonna take and it's gonna put down its roots and it's gonna grow and it's gonna use that nitrogen and it's gonna use the other macro and micronutrients to build itself. And in the process, it's holding all of those nutrients in the stem and in the stalk and in the eventual seed heads, et cetera. And so when you plant that, what you're doing is instead of letting that
00:21:36
Speaker
letting that fertility wash out the bottom of your soil profile across winter, you're actually holding it in this live living tissue in a way that is going to save you money as far as fertility applications and et cetera down the line. Now there's things you have to figure out when you go to terminate it and the timing and all that kind of stuff. And then the nitrogen fixers are
00:21:59
Speaker
are contributing to the fertility that's in the mix there. And as they're releasing nitrogen, some of it's getting taken up by those grasses and some of it's going back into the nitrogen fixers themselves. And so overall, when you get to the end of that period, you have this big, juicy, green thing of biomass on top of your field growing, actively growing and fixing nitrogen.
00:22:26
Speaker
fixing atmospheric carbon and holding the soil profile in place and covering it and keeping some of those early weeds from germinating, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then you go and you knock it down and it's like ringing out that sponge and all of those nutrients can actually just then be released. And whether they're directly released or they're released as food for microbes,
00:22:50
Speaker
That to me is what gets me really excited about. You touched on a big one there. We hadn't touched on at all and that was weed suppression. Huge function of cover crops. In addition to all those awesome, amazing things you just talked about is that we talked about terminating a cover crop, which that's a big deal for small gardeners as well as larger farm operations because you have to have a plan. Is it going to be a chemical? Is it going to be a mechanical cultivation?
00:23:13
Speaker
You got to watch out for some of these things like rye, where it has early spring, a flush of growth that can get away from like home gardeners if they don't have proper equipment. But yeah, weed suppression is a big deal. Cover crops, because once they get in there and they kind of take up the space, you don't have weed bed from other maybe more noxious things such as crabgrass, Alexis. You don't have maybe those things that contend with
00:23:40
Speaker
So it's like picking what you want to terminate at the end of the season rather than having fallow ground with lots of maybe invasive weed species coming in on you. So yeah, all of those are great points. Absolutely. So should we talk about some of the cover crops that can be seeded, you know, September through November, at least in Kentucky and most parts of Kentucky?
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, a lot. I mean, we're, we're in the, we've been in the season for two or three weeks now, uh, for what can be seated. I mean, you're talking about the raw wheat, uh, can all be seated now. Winter oats are great because as Alexa said, if you have something going on, winter oats can be, although I've put in winter oats all the way at the end of October and had pretty good stands, depending on the weather, um, barley, uh, all of that can go in now. Has anybody ever done triticali before?
00:24:38
Speaker
I haven't. I've always heard it said. But that doesn't mean that it's right. It's Latin. The language is dead. Okay. Nobody correct me. And everybody who disagrees with Alexis also did. I'm really punchy and I meant it. Yeah, she is a little triticale salad.
00:25:01
Speaker
I think I put it in like the beginning of October but it's been oh gosh 20 years ago probably. Yeah I've never used it and I don't see it a ton in mixes. I see it commercially more than I do for homeowners for whatever reason and then it's not super common there in production systems like it was several years ago at least locally I'm just making local observations. Yeah. Austrian winter pea is another one that can be good and you can sew through October.
00:25:28
Speaker
I always thought of with with the grasses that kind of wheat could be a little bit sensitive to not not going too late into the season for planting. And rye was a little more flexible to go. You know, if you basically if you missed a window where you wanted to plant wheat, you could go in with rye, you know, as a last resort. But excuse me, on the and I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit on the spring side of this equation.
00:25:57
Speaker
in general, cereal rye. And one thing you mentioned rye grass earlier, Alexis, just to distinguish, there's rye grass and there's cereal rye. And so cereal rye is what we typically think of as like the most famous probably cover crops. Rye grass is actually really interesting because there's both annual and perennial versions, but its root structure is like
00:26:23
Speaker
pretty gnarly and wild and extensive and deep. Aggressive. Yeah. We had some that persisted as weeds in part of our garden where we had used it, but the root system is pretty baller. But anyway, when you're selecting rye or wheat, in the spring, there's going to be a lot more biomass with the rye. In other words, there's going to be a lot of bigger, thicker stalks that may be harder to terminate and knock down, et cetera. So if you're
00:26:50
Speaker
If this is your first go around, you might try wheat as your, you know, your first one, at least that was always our experience. A lot of this, if it gets too tall, uh, it does help greatly. If you are a smaller operation that maybe have, um,
00:27:05
Speaker
a person powered cultivator, like a walk behind type cultivator. You do not want to stick that into something that's grown up 36 inches tall because it's just going to wrap around the tilling times and make you say really bad words. So a lot of times if you have some way to mow that before you go in and try to, yeah, some, some way to chop it up. It's not such a big issue for commercial operations. I have ways of dealing with that, but homeowners I find
00:27:31
Speaker
Lots of frustration when they have that rye or whatnot out there that's number one has a really tough root system, extensive root system. But then it puts on a lot of early growth. And by the time the seeding window is there and the ground is dried out and it's suitable for tillage, it's already too late to just go in with ground tilling equipment, smaller based equipment. So you have to usually add a point in the operation there and that's to mow it or somehow chop it.
00:27:56
Speaker
And then go in and do your tilling operation so yeah all those are kind of consideration we have do we have like a beginners beginners cover crops here's a few species that have worked in our manageable and are gonna.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, we go to be an older publication. Um, it's, uh, literally called winter cover crops for Kentucky gardens and fields. It's about 20 plus years, just a little bit over 20 years old now, but it's really good for larger operations, particularly here in Kentucky and small gardens.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yes, it has lots of information in a small amount of space, but it kind of follows along with the conversation we're having today and the way it breaks down things. It gives you nice charts for all the main categories such as legumes and grasses. It kind of gives you considerations for each and not only that, but more importantly for homeowners, it designates which cover crop species are most appropriate for home gardens,
00:28:53
Speaker
So if you look up that information, it's readily available online. Once again, the title is Winter Cover Crops for Kentucky Gardens and Fields. And I think the call numbers are ID-113 for those techie out there that want to just look it up by that. But great information in that. It contains basically all the talking points we've been going over today, except for Crabgrass Alexis. I'm going to continue to circle back to that.
00:29:19
Speaker
Lots of great information in there for homeowners and larger scale operations. That's a really good one. I also want to pull, um, pull up a newer one and it would be one that a lot of people would skip over because it is the title is cool season cover crops for high tunnels in the Southeast. And so even if you don't have a high tunnel, check this out. It's some really cool tables in it with even more, um, options.
00:29:45
Speaker
And what I like about it is when people are doing high tunnels, they're looking at 1,000 square feet type situations. And so for a lot of people who are doing intensive small farming or gardens, that's what you're looking for.
00:30:02
Speaker
And I like that this publication has certain comments in it that says, like, easy to terminate earlier and matures faster than rye. And so those might be something that you're like, oh, I tried rye. I didn't like it. It was hard to deal with. Here's some other things. It also gives you traits and tolerance. So it gives you traits such as nitrogen fixing, weed suppression. If it's a host for root not nematode, which is a big thing that we're dealing with in high tunnels around these parts.
00:30:32
Speaker
And if it's a soil builder. So like I told you earlier, I really need something that's a soil builder as well as a weed suppression. So I might go down through here and say, I'm looking for something that is very good in both categories. And then I just, you know, okay, looks like Pacific gold mustard is very good soil builder and very good weed suppression. So I might see if that will work.
00:30:54
Speaker
for the timing that I need, even in my fields if it's fairly resistant to cold. So just something to think about it and it is, like I said, for the Southeast. So if you're in Kentucky or Tennessee or somewhere close by, it could be helpful for you. And I think we can put links in the show notes and we'll put those in there that you guys can check out if you want to.
00:31:17
Speaker
Um, there's lots out there and I think why we're not necessarily going over every single specific one is because each of them have their own benefits. Uh, and you really kind of have to go through there. I mean, Crimson Clover, you know, has a lot of great things, but from my perspective, it's also pretty. And so I can use it for cut. So if there's, um, there's another one.
00:31:40
Speaker
Phacelia is a great cover crop and it's quick and it's really pollinator friendly, but it's also something that can be used as a cut. I'm not using it predominantly for that, but if it's going to take up space and use space, then I want it to do as many things as possible for me or for my soil. There's just so many out there to go through.
00:32:05
Speaker
at least the publications we've mentioned in my opinion do a pretty good job of kind of going through the benefits and disadvantages of each so that you can pick something that really works in your situation. Everybody's situation is a little bit different. I mean I've worked with people that they are doing a cover crop in the raised bed garden and then there's other people that have you know large commercial production fields so
00:32:28
Speaker
It's all about what works for you and what you're trying to accomplish. And as Alexis mentioned earlier, your soil top and matching, you know, what's needed for that soil and that situation and cover crop can be kind of integrated into that based on needs and fertility. I think you mentioned about it being pretty or being, you know, beautiful or attractive.
00:32:52
Speaker
I think that is a really good and overlooked point. And honestly, especially like in a home garden, we get a little high-minded about the ecological implications of our 10 by 10 area. And in reality, the outcomes associated with that 10 by 10 area being something that looks really nice through the winter time and is this bright patch of green, maybe with some flowers sprinkled throughout it and encourages you to get out there earlier next year.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that that might be more of an overall net benefit in terms of than the impact of that little area being undercover, you know, compared to a larger area. And so I think
00:33:31
Speaker
We don't always have to have efficiency or this really grounded NRCS water plan for our 10 by 10 raised bed in the backyard, but I can say going out there and seeing some winter wheat, just like this green verdant thing as opposed to this dead partially hen bit covered
00:33:54
Speaker
Crust. It's got a flower on it. It's inconspicuous, but it's purpley. It just looks like the ground has been strangled in his, like, purple spaces. Yeah. It's a good point, Brett. Yeah. And like Alexis said, crimson clover's pretty, and that's why I like it. It may winter kill. I don't care. I'm going to put it in every single mix I use. Yeah. Just because I like the way it looks in May, you know, right before I tail it. Do you want the good way to tell the difference between a nematode and a nemafrog?
00:34:24
Speaker
I do not. How far they jump? I just ask him. I just ask him. What do you, what's the question? You just make conversations. So you, uh, you told her, uh, you frog. Just, uh, are you feeling froggy? Just real quick. Just real quick. Yeah. Let me hear you ribbit.
00:34:40
Speaker
I should also plug the cover crop calculator that was developed and released in the last 30 days. Was that something that you developed? Oh, yeah. I forgot. That was me, too. I just thought it was something. Oh, whatever. Somebody cool made something cool. You just focus on the product. Whoever may have done it, whether it was me. It just happens to be me, yeah.
00:35:00
Speaker
But yeah, I developed that in collaboration with the Hort Council and Dakota, kind of it's set up to be of most value to people who are working with areas of management that are measured in kind of square feet. Because a lot of the recommendations are per acre. So this is for people, you know, who they've got a 10 by 10 or a 20 by 20. And it has, you know, all the recommended cover crops. There's also links to
00:35:28
Speaker
much deeper resources, but includes things like handouts on, you know, what are the benefits or what are these different cover crops best at providing? Like, where's that house that Josh is at the where's that house? We can drop a link. It's on the CD website. There's a link to it. But yeah, we'll we'll include a link in the show notes where you just pick your cover crop and you give it your area and it gives you the range of like the high and low seeding rate.
00:35:55
Speaker
while we're, or plug in resources, I'll just say. So I work with the USDA SARE program, Sustainable Ag Research and Education, and one of their hallmarks has been cover crops because it's the sustainable ag practice that applies to a whole lot of different farms across different types of systems.
00:36:13
Speaker
et cetera. Their website is just sehr.org. That's the main Sehr website. You can go and find the Southeastern region within that. They have free downloadable PDFs of all of their things, all of their resources, including one called Managing Cover Crops Profitably, which has some summaries and other things. They also have a link to the
00:36:37
Speaker
Midwest cover crop councils, cover crop decision tools, which are also available online. So I think, you know, cover crops is something that has been heavily researched and broadly applied and used in different, you know, kind of fits and starts across time, but Sarah has supported it going back to the 1980s.
00:36:59
Speaker
Are we going to talk about calculator? The calculator drew heavily on that resource and provides links to those SARE resources and a couple of the ones that we've talked about on this episode. The calculator, Josh, does that take? Did you say that takes into account? Can you like do mixes with that also or? Not currently we're planning on adding that functionality. Awesome. You know, kind of coming soon, but right now you can kind of just get your basic, you know, and it gives you like the high and the low, the high and low rates. Gotcha.
00:37:28
Speaker
If you are hand seeding, if you're just tossing stuff out, which is what I do, uh, go with the high rate. If you are, uh, doing this more methodically, then you can use the lower rate. But if you're doing this by hand, go with the high rate and you will see all of your mistakes in a couple months. Yeah. Yeah. This kind of booming bus cycles all across the field. Yeah. So we, we talked a little bit about, or we've talked quite a bit about the, this is the time of year.
00:37:58
Speaker
this August, September, October windows, when we usually plant these things. And just to ask a question or put the, you, we aren't fertilizing our cover crops, right? That's not something that we typically would be doing. Correct. No. Right. That's kind of counter to the whole goal here. Especially if you have legumes that'll work directly against that. And that's more for the homeowners of, you know, again, they,
00:38:22
Speaker
kind of get that concept, but it's easy sometimes to miss that on the homeowner side of things sometimes. But yeah. Yeah. And then in general in the fall, we're trying to maybe if we can target to get plant, get seeds in the ground ahead of.
00:38:37
Speaker
some rainfall that's going to come and germinate those crops. Cause that's one of the things that I think, you know, if, if I plant this week or next week, if we don't get any rain between now and then there really isn't going to be that much of a difference between putting it in today versus putting it in next week.
Terminating Cover Crops for Spring Planting
00:38:51
Speaker
Um, excuse me. And then do we do, are we doing really anything to them across the winter time? And then.
00:38:57
Speaker
I guess we could talk briefly about just some termination strategies or approaches in the spring, any other? Before we maybe talk about termination, if you guys don't care, we'll back up a little bit. We kind of take it for granted within this group. But as far, and Lexus started maybe to touch on it, was seeding method. I'm assuming that in the wintertime, you have some kind of prepared seed bed?
00:39:21
Speaker
when you throw down a seed mix, and Josh mentioned it earlier, that seed that you just cast on top of the ground if it's not prepared at all, like a clover seed, even though clover seed's tiny, if you throw it on top of an existing something like a lawn, a lot of that's just gonna perish. So my baseline assumption for smaller plots of land is that you're casting this seed into a prepared seed bed, which is ideal.
00:39:46
Speaker
And if it's something like a clover seed, you're incorporating that somehow by either lightly raking or even better if you have like some kind of cultivator of any size or any implement that goes on the back of something that you can drag across to either physically drag the seed in just ever so slightly if it's clover or press the seed into the seed bed.
00:40:09
Speaker
So I thought it may be good to touch on that. You generally just don't cast on top of the ground. You will get better results with most seeds if you either press it in or drag it in to ever so slightly cover that seed. I guess it's possible if you have something like clover if you just throw that on top of the garden and you don't want to till it a final time. I've had some luck with that but not as good as making a basic pass
00:40:34
Speaker
a tillage pass and then seeding, you'll have better results if you throw that seed into a prepared seed bed at the end of the season. Definitely. You want that good, like soiled seed contact. Yeah, yeah. And where were you taking us, Brett, before I veered off? No, I think you were taking us in the termination. You mentioned the cult packer thing. And I think I think the raking and or doing the cult packing is one of those steps that's also not super intuitive. So I appreciate you pulling this back.
00:41:03
Speaker
So when you say a cultivacker in a field environment, that's basically like this giant heavy duty rolling pin, like giant rolling pin that goes on the back of a tractor. There's different sizes now. They make, you know, I'm more familiar with the one on the agriculture scale size where it's large and they come in different shapes a little bit. Some of them are kind of corrugated, have individual rollers. The theory there is just to press seed into soil. So any way you can press it, even if you have a lawn roller,
00:41:32
Speaker
and you throw down Clover and press that in, you're going to have a lot better results than not pressing it in. If your seed bed is tilled, you may have some success with small seeded stuff like Clover without doing that, but you're going to have better results if you do rake it in or pack it in somehow. The keyword there in Cultipacker is the packer.
00:41:52
Speaker
portion of that word is that you're kind of pressing or packing the seed into the soil. And on a very small scale, I'll tell you what I, what I did in our backyard for maybe four, four, I get no eight, eight 40 foot, 50 foot long rows is I went and I put my feet right next to each other on, and I just kind of gradually shuffled.
00:42:14
Speaker
I do that all the time with grass seed and other stuff. I call it my duck walk method, but yeah. Exactly. And it works fantastic. You don't have to quack, but it does feel good. Maybe it works better if you do. It certainly gets the neighbors wondering what you're doing. It's that pressure and that weight along with kind of pressing it in. Love it. I've also done
00:42:36
Speaker
where I like kind of almost made snowshoes with some boards so that it can increase the area. I also see people use like a keg. They would... Brett, so you have like... That's not what I use my kegs for. Yeah. Yeah. We got them laying around over here. They're just all over the place. People use a keg and roll and roll. Yeah. So there are other options and I like that. Yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
I went a long time actually without even knowing what a lawn roller was because I didn't really ever use one. That's obviously like a really good solution to that too. But in general, I think that light cultivation followed by some sort of packing step can really help with germination and with the seed not washing away if you get a lot of heavy rainfall. But yeah, so then I was just saying basically after you get it in the ground and it germinates, you're kind of done, right, for a little while.
00:43:31
Speaker
Watch your garden grow, so to speak.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah, most cover crops, they don't need additional water. Once germination takes place, you're really not doing anything beyond that in a typical scenario. And so then when, when's the next time we really need to be thinking about that thing that we put out, those crops we put out, when, when do we need to get rid of them? The spring, you're looking at your spring seeding dates when you need to have your soil ready to go. And sometimes that's easier said than done because we have wet springs sometimes here and where we live in the country.
00:44:04
Speaker
uh so the weather doesn't always play really well with us and the thing to remember that if you have a good thick cover crop that soil is going to stay unworkable just a little bit longer with tillage equipment because it's doing what it's supposed to do retaining moisture in some cases it's self shading it's keeping the soil cooler longer so kind of keep that in mind and do your testing and one thing you'll never want to do is work wet soil because you're not going to get that
00:44:30
Speaker
soil structure back so don't ever be tempted to terminate your spring cover crop when it's a little too wet. That is going to destroy all the benefits you've gained from that cover crop and then some. But yeah, I start looking at my spring planting dates and then I look for a window on the calendar that the soil is workable and then you kind of have to
00:44:53
Speaker
take stock of what your equipment is, whether it's gonna be mow and then till or whatever process you're gonna use to mechanically get rid of that cover crop. And in some cases, if you're a large scale producer, you're gonna use chemical management as a burn down for maybe that and some other options. If we maybe just another in that larger scale, and I'd love to hear what you do, Alexis. So in the larger scale, in addition to the chemical applications,
00:45:19
Speaker
There's a specific tool called a flail mower, which is a specific type of mower that is such a powerful and cathartic tool to use if you're... I'm gonna order mine today. Yeah. So rather than it spinning around like a clock if you're looking down, it actually spins around a shaft that's almost like in the same direction as your wheels and it's got these little
00:45:41
Speaker
blades on it that chew up and just, it'll just chew up and spit out. And so large scale organic farms or even, you know, moderate scale organic farms aren't doing any chemical treatment. They'll often mow it down with that, but they also make those attachments for a walk behind tractors like a BCS or a Grillo, those types of walk behinds. And they, it's a very powerful tool.
00:46:06
Speaker
But so you don't have one yet, Alexis, what have you done up until now as far as terminating cover crops?
00:46:12
Speaker
So I tail mine in or I will cover mine with a silage tarp. And so if they've gotten really tall, so if they're more than two foot tall, then I will mow them first. I'll mow them down and then I will cover and get that soil heating up and get those microbes moving and doing that.
00:46:36
Speaker
and then i'll go in until after some of that stuff has broken down and died off but one thing we haven't mentioned for that i have some friends who are organic no-till growers is that they are crimping and so crimping is usually done you see this even in large
00:46:59
Speaker
large pumpkin production as well, but it's great for weed control and if you're doing no-till or low-till situation. So essentially what that is, it's something you're going to use with a grass. You're not going to be using this with a broadleaf, a legume or something. So if you're doing wheat or rye, something like that, you could do crimping.
00:47:20
Speaker
On a small scale, this looks like someone with a two by four that has a rope attached to either end of this, you know, two by four that might be three foot long, five foot long, whatever. And they are usually literally stepping on that two by four and crunching the grass down. And so what they're doing is they're crimping that vascular system. They're bending it in half, just like a straw, just kind of like cutting it in half.
00:47:49
Speaker
And so there's no longer water and nutrients flowing up that stem. And so then it dies. The top growth dies back.
00:47:59
Speaker
You can go through and do this crimping. There are large scale crimpers that you can pull behind a tractor. But I have friends that actually have done this by hand and then they plant into that. So they use that crimped laid down mat of wheat and rye as a weed suppressant, as a mulch essentially. And then they will actually either like make slits that they can plant into or they will use like a small little
00:48:29
Speaker
hand drill auger and auger little holes and that weed and then they'll plant their plant down into there. So that's kind of a cool thing and if you have a small garden can be done really, really successful. Fun fact worth mentioning about the crimper at that small scale, that tool is also really great at making crop circles.
00:48:53
Speaker
If you want to have a great Halloween, it's the same tool. If you know people who are into making crop circles, ask to borrow their crimper. There you go. See, perfect. If you have some alien friends who are into that, ask to borrow their crimper. They have one. And timing with the crimping, I remember that kind of thing. Yes. Because if you do it too early,
00:49:20
Speaker
Essentially that the grass is just going to stand back up. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to do this while it is starting to go to seed, but before that seed has matured. And so that can be the other, the trickiest part about crimping really with.
00:49:35
Speaker
Really with cover crops in general, I think that's kind of the trickiest part, it can be timing. But with crimping especially, you want it to be sending all of its resources into creating a seed head and then you can kill it off pretty easily by crimping. But if you wait too long, that seed will shatter and then you have created a weed problem for yourself. They refer to that as the milk phase, is that right? If you were to- You can squeeze the seed's head and you get like- Milky sap. That's not sap, but yeah.
00:50:05
Speaker
If it's clear, it's too late, or if it's dry, it's too late. But that's the time when if you were going to start an almond milk business, that's when you milk the oat. You milk your oats. You want to make your own oat milk? Go for it.
00:50:20
Speaker
That's how that happens, okay. Little rye milk, little turnip milk, you know? Little turnip milk. Got some tang. Got some bite to it. Yeah, smothering, so cover crops, again, if you're no-till or low-till or just you don't maybe even have time, silage sharps can be a great way.
00:50:42
Speaker
It does take longer in the spring than it does in the fall because it's usually temps aren't as high. So you're looking at wanting to move that silage tarp. And remember, for those of you who are like, what is a silage tarp? Totally fine. It is something that does not allow water or air flow through there. And it's usually black on one side and white on the other. Any type of black plastic would work. So if you go to Lowe's or Home Depot or wherever,
00:51:08
Speaker
and get some black plastic that is truly black plastic and doesn't allow water through, that would work on a small scale. I've got large ones. So I pull them over and I terminate that way. But from a timing perspective, if you're going to do silage tarps, you need at least a month depending on when you're going to terminate. So you need to plan for a month.
00:51:29
Speaker
for that to kill off, to get your temps where they need to be. When you're terminating a cover crop, usually we say, and you all feel free to chime in, but I like to give myself, if I'm just tilling something in two weeks before I plan to put it, like to plant in it at least two weeks. And that's just if I'm just going out as it is and incorporating it into the soil two weeks for it to break down. Yeah, if you're incorporating heavy cover crop into soil and if it's got too much moisture,
00:51:59
Speaker
That creates a lot of problems if you seal that off from oxygen, but that's usually on more of a commercial scale with like chisel plows and traditional deep tillage. But yeah, I got to be careful with that of incorporating any kind of.
00:52:12
Speaker
green matter like that under the soil where it may be trapped without oxygen, then lots of bad things happen. Yeah, there was actually just that there was a short course discussion about cover crops and cut flowers. I think it was earlier this week, but Dr. Jacobson was talking about that timing of when to lay it down or till it in versus when the plant has its need because there is this kind of little
00:52:40
Speaker
Zone of when the microbes still have to go through their process before it becomes available and starts like the cycle Yeah, it's it's interesting with the timing but that say once you find your cover crop that works for your needs So you go through these little your charts and you're like, this is what my goal is This is when I have time to plant and you find the cover crop that's gonna work Pay attention to when you're when you're gonna terminate how you're gonna terminate and make your
00:53:07
Speaker
Make sure to give yourself plenty of time to terminate that cover crop so that you're not having microbes stealing nutrients from your, you know, veggies or whatever you're putting in to break down that cover crop. Uh, that's, you know, usually we, we can see some nitrogen deficiencies early spring, uh, that way. So, so timing all around is important if you're placing at the right time, if you're terminating at the right time.
00:53:33
Speaker
which can make this all seem very hard and difficult to do. So choose something easy. I always think turnips, radishes, those are all easy. They're going to rot in the ground. In my opinion, they're easy. They're going to rot in the ground. They're not hard to terminate. And so if you want to do something, you can do that or wait till summer and try you some buckwheat because you can't go wrong when it comes to buckwheat.
00:54:02
Speaker
It's fast and easy and gets, get your feet wet in the cover crop area, but don't feel forced into doing this. If you're tired and just make sure your soil is covered in some way with mulch or plastic or something. If it's, if it means that you're covering it with purple, purple henbit covered it, that's fine. Uh, just some time a year to be thinking about this. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you're getting a little crab grass.
00:54:27
Speaker
You can come get mine. You can come get it from my place. Let me just write my address down for you. Cover it with something. The gist of all this is just take care of your soil and it'll take care of you and your goals for whatever scale you're doing. I wonder if I can sum us up in about a minute here on what we've said.
00:54:51
Speaker
Now is the time of year to be thinking about getting a cover crop in if you're wanting to have one through the fall and winter. Some things you might want to think about are a grass and a legume and maybe a combination of multiple of those or something like wheat or rye plus maybe a vetch or a clover. If you can get those, if you can get a soil, your soil bed prepared after your cropping has come out for the year, your regular crop for vegetables or your flowers or whatever,
00:55:18
Speaker
get that seed down through whatever way that you're gonna do that, and then in some way try to pack it into that prepared seed bed. The rain comes, the magic happens, it germinates, it grows. Enjoy, rest with the trees, watch the green grow. In the spring, as you're planting out your garden and you're thinking about your planting dates and when you're gonna wanna get in, I would say take a step back probably six to four weeks before, or four to six weeks before you're gonna try to get in.
00:55:46
Speaker
around here, that means we're gonna start paying attention to the weather and see if we're gonna get anything that looks remotely like a dry spell for us to be able to get in there and work. At that point, in that month ahead of time, before you try to get into that area, in some way, figure out how you're gonna terminate your crop, whether that be with a weed eater or a mower or cover it with something or crimp it or whatever, and try to get in there and do that
00:56:15
Speaker
to give yourself ample time for it to break down ahead of planting into it for the garden for next year. Nailed it. Cool. I love cover crops so much.
00:56:27
Speaker
There's a part of me that wanted to just kind of stop growing vegetables and just grow a sequence of cover crops. Totally, totally. It would be a worthy endeavor, Brett. I used to think about it in terms of animal agriculture, just growing cover crop stands and then turning animals into it. Yeah. I just want to get them right, and I get so caught up in the cash crop of it all.
00:56:49
Speaker
that I never get it. And it makes me so mad because I'm like, one of these days, I'm going to have the most beautiful crimson clover there is. And it is not going to be this year, you guys. So yes.
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
00:57:02
Speaker
But I think I think it's time for us to get out of here. And with that, make sure that you if you are on social media, if you're on Instagram, you can follow us at Hort Culture podcast.
00:57:14
Speaker
If you would like to shoot us an email, if you've got questions, comments, thoughts, concerns, you can... Especially concerns. Especially concerns. You can email us at hortculturepodcastatl.uky.edu. That is also in the show notes. If you want to leave us a review that helps other people find us, we would greatly appreciate that and hopefully
00:57:42
Speaker
Hopefully it'll be a good review. Yeah, leave us a review if it's a five-star review period. That's me telling the you today But anyways, we hope that as we grow this podcast you will grow with us and join us next week We are talking about season extension because you know timeliness of it all. Thank you guys so much and we'll talk to you soon