Farmer says he continues to see cover crop benefits  

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Farmer says he continues to see cover crop benefits  

A central Indiana farmer says he’s seen the benefits of cover crops on his farm.

Ryan Moore and his father began planting cover crops about eight years ago.

“We started out small with just a few acres but as time went on we were evaluating yield and seeing if we could get this to work across the farm,” he says. “Right now, we’re 100 percent no-till and cover crop except for a few 120-foot strips of tillage to continue evaluating not just yield but trying to figure out the soil health benefits of all this as well.”

Advice he has to other growers considering cover crops is “take it slowly and maybe start off with an oat-radish blend. Start off ahead of soybeans. A lot of farmers are leery about no-tilling corn. If you can get to no-tilling soybeans and evaluating that on the farm in the first year, then maybe you’ll get more comfortable no-tilling corn.”

Moore grows corn and soybeans in Tipton County.

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