A northern Illinois farmer is working with cover crops for the first time.
Ryan Frieders of Waterman in DeKalb County tells Brownfield he had an aerial applicator plant oats into his soybeans about three weeks before harvest last fall.
“Over the winter the oats absorbed some of the nutrients in the soil and held them there better than if the ground was unprotected. It also helped with some water erosion just having more plant mass protecting the soil from runoff.”
This spring he is going to use a no-till approach and plant directly into the cover crop, which will be a new concept on their farm.
