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Post by gakaren on Feb 6, 2016 15:20:18 GMT -5
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Post by oliverman on Feb 7, 2016 22:26:33 GMT -5
Now folks are complaining about the smell of the cover crop radishes as they decompose. There is a farmer a little over a mile from me that planted 80 or more acres to them after sweet corn harvest this summer. When we got a thaw after the first real hard freeze, I could smell them at my house when the wind blew right. Smells like rotting garbage. Smell is pretty well done now that we have had a few warm days.
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Post by brownrexx on Feb 8, 2016 8:06:09 GMT -5
Now folks are complaining about the smell of the cover crop radishes as they decompose I never heard that before. I'll have to check out the radish fields in my area but I doubt that it will bother me as I don't think that the cow manure on the fields smells too good either but it goes away in a couple of days. I say, "Don't build your house near farms if you don't like farm smells!" I love not living "in town".
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Post by binnylou on Feb 8, 2016 11:10:40 GMT -5
I say, "Don't build your house near farms if you don't like farm smells!" Many years ago..like 40...folks built a new home not far from us..just up the road a bit. There was confinement hog not far. When they bought the property, they had to notice the smell in the air. It never went away. One day the farmer was spreading the black gold on the fields across from us and new neighbors. She didn't like the stink so she called the EPA. Farmer sat the equipment in the field directly across from her home and dumped the whole tank. With the westerly breezes we get, I doubt she could open her windows for a couple of weeks. Pigs are gone...farmer is grain farmer now....air smells much better....except when the farm chemicals are being sprayed.
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Post by kimmsr🕊 on Feb 9, 2016 7:11:25 GMT -5
One of the outcomes of the dust bowl days of the 1930's was the creation of the Soil Conservation Service that advocated, among other soil conservation practices, the growth of cover crops. Following World War II, when synthetic fertilizers became more readily available, that practice was left by the wayside as the memories of the dust bowl days diminished. However the SCS kept promoting the practice of cover crops, as well as other conservation practices, but they were told they were old fashioned and the cover crops were not needed and an unnecessary expense for the "farmer". Now, with less rainfall some of these growers are beginning to understand that organic matter in the soil will help hold moisture in the soil and one way to get organic matter into the soil is to grow cover cover crops and till them in.
You will still hear some say that spending money on seeds for a cover crop is an unnecessary expense rather than an investment in the future of the soil.
George Santayana said: "those that don't learn from history are bound to repeat it" and we do all the time.
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Post by brownrexx on Feb 9, 2016 8:46:03 GMT -5
You will still hear some say that spending money on seeds for a cover crop is an unnecessary expense rather than an investment in the future of the soil. You would think that the cost of the seeds would be offset by the savings realized by NOT buying fertilizer.
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Post by oliverman on Feb 9, 2016 15:48:37 GMT -5
With the exception of legume cover crops, benefits take several years or more to develop. Legumes are difficult to incorporate into a corn and soybean cropping system without a third short season crop involved. Killing an overwintering cover crop adds expense in terms of herbicide or tillage. If it was easy money, it would be widespread by now.
With $30 per barrel oil, nitrogen fertilizer is becoming cheap again.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Feb 13, 2016 6:52:33 GMT -5
When I used a cover crop, I had the best garden ever.
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Post by kimmsr🕊 on Feb 13, 2016 7:17:21 GMT -5
Using an herbicide to kill off the cover crop is about the dumbest thing anyone can do. Most every grower I have seen prepares the field every spring by discing, if not plowing as well, and that is all that is needed, discing, to work the cover crop in. Better is crimping the crop (Rodale Institute has developed a machine to do that) and leaving it there as a mulch. I have used a disc to turn in a cover crop many times with no problems and found that much easier than doing the same with a rototiller.
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Post by lilolpeapicker on Feb 13, 2016 7:45:21 GMT -5
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Post by oliverman on Feb 14, 2016 0:14:01 GMT -5
Kimm, there are many situations where using an herbicide really is a reasonable thing to do, at least in the current crop producing areas. Incremental change is the only way change is likely to happen at all in my area. On much of the sloping farmland, tillage does more long term harm than an herbicide application. Crimping the crop works great IF the cover crop is an annual that has reached the reproductive stage and has enough biomass to provide adequate ground cover to prevent weed growth. In many cases, waiting for the cover crop to reach reproductive stage delays planting of the cash crop too long. Most of my neighbors would not even think about planting a cover crop if it was going to delay planting by more than a week or so, if even that. I would much rather see them plant a cover crop and spray on an extra shot of Roundup, than leave the soil bare all winter and spring. It's not like they aren't already using herbicides anyhow, and the mulch from the cover crop may well suppress weeds enough that they will reduce the herbicides used after crop emergence. Far from perfect, but progress is progress.
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Post by kimmsr🕊 on Feb 14, 2016 7:17:13 GMT -5
Oliverman, those that complain that the cost of seed for a cover crop is an unnecessary expense and then waste more money purchasing an herbicide to kill that cover crop off do not get much sympathy from me. Research back in the 1930's showed the benefits cover crops and that research still applies today. Many of your neighbors are destroying the soil with the practices they use just as our ancestors did.
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