Allowing cover crops to grow two weeks longer in the spring and planting corn and soybean crops into them before termination is a strategy that may help no-till farmers deal with wet springs, according to Penn State researchers.
Planting and growing a strategic mix of cover crops not only reduces the loss of nitrogen from farm fields, protecting water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, but the practice also contributes nitrogen to subsequent cash crops, improving yields, according to researchers.
Registration is open for the second Northeast Cover Crop Council Conference, which will be hosted by Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, Nov. 15-16.
Cover crops long have been touted for their ability to reduce erosion, fix atmospheric nitrogen, reduce nitrogen leaching and improve soil health, but they also may play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change on agriculture, according to a Penn State researcher.
Sieglinde Snapp, a professor of soils and cropping systems ecology and associate director of the Center for Global Change at Michigan State University, will present a talk on March 27 titled “Cover Crops and Perennial Grains for Future Cropping Systems.” Her talk, which will take place at 12:20 p.m. in 101 Agricultural Sciences and Industries Building, is part of the 2015 Sustainable Ag Seminar Series organized by the Sustainable Ag Working Group in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
A piece of agricultural machinery developed by researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is starting to achieve commercial success, the latest example of potentially profitable technology transfer spurred by the college's Entrepreneurship and Innovation initiative.
Planting cover crops in rotation between cash crops -- widely agreed to be ecologically beneficial -- is even more valuable than previously thought, according to a team of agronomists, entomologists, agroecologists, horticulturists and biogeochemists from Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
The latest in cover-crop mixtures, integrated weed management, manure-management strategies and beneficial insects will be featured during a field day and research tour to be held by Penn State Extension and the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
When raising corn, straw left in the field after grain harvesting, along with legume cover crops reduces nitrogen leaching into waterways, but may lower economic return, according to research conducted in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Increasingly, Pennsylvania farmers are using cover crops to limit erosion from fields, control weed growth, fix nitrogen in the soil, feed livestock and produce biomass for energy. But depending on an agricultural producer's needs, all cover crops are not created equally, according to a crop and soil scientist in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
Seeking to be a role model for farmers in the state and across the Northeast, Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences will undertake aerial seeding of a cover crop in late August or early September. This year a cover crop mixture of winter canola, yellow sweet clover and crimson clover will be applied aerially on 200 acres of corn and soybeans located northeast of the University Park campus in Centre County.
