Drought could reduce cover crop adoption

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Drought could reduce cover crop adoption

The head of the Midwest Cover Crops Council says rainfall can be a dividing factor for farmers in the region to adopt the conservation practice.

Senior program manager Anna Marrow tells Brownfield the increasing drought in the western Midwest can make it difficult to establish cover crops.  She says the farmers who can sometimes have to do so through irrigation but are finding more than just soil health benefits.

“Some folks are having a lot of success using a cover crop as a snow cash crop to retain moisture over the winter months and if they get enough growth, they can use it as a mulch in the summer,” she explains.

The council has an online selector tool to help farmers find the right cover crop recipe for their location and crop mixes, and Marrow says her organization continues to explore research on sequestering carbon through cover crops.

The Midwest Cover Crops Council is housed at Purdue University.

Brownfield interviewed Marrow at the recent Ohio Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference.

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