How to make cover crops work in Montana

Learn from Montana State University researchers Dr. Perry Miller and Dr. Kent McVay how cover crops affect wheat yields, crop rotations, livestock forage and more in Montana agricultural systems.

Researchers:
Dr. Kent McVay, Montana State University, Billings
Dr. Perry Miller, Montana State University, Bozeman
Interview by William Curran, Emeritus Professor, Penn State University

Video by Claudio Rubione, GROW

[paulrebich]

I really appreciate all you do on this channel to bring awareness to better ways to control weeds. Diversity in a cover crop mix is the key! Both these professors leave that very important point out. Also, if possible, don't terminate with chemicals, but plant annuals and let the winter terminate. The moisture from the plants will find it's way back into the soil. Watch Green Cover Seed's "Cover Crops and Moisture Usage". It's a short 11 minute video that shows very different test results between single species and multi-species cover crops.

[PerryMiller-ykdw]

Paul, thanks for comment. Where do you farm? We failed to emphasize in our research with covers that we did use cover crop mixes ... 8-species in our work and I think similar for Kent. in our case, we worked at plot scale (10 cover treatments) over 8 years and also monitored soil water and N and crop yield results in 8 different farm fields as part of a WSARE project. Plant water use is a 1-way street ... only way a plant can be turgid is to pump soil water via its root system out through the leaves in the plant into the atmosphere. Transpiration. Not all soils have good capacity to store soil water, or rainfall is higher in some areas, such that water use by covers in the previous year may not be important. But it can be hugely important in dry areas with good capacity to store soil water when a crop is not growing, as we have seen in the major wheat growing region of Montana.