This was our first time ever planting cover crops. Our cover crop of choice was cereal rye for several reasons: we can see it ourselves, it's east to kill, and it's the lowest cost option to get our feet wet. The thought of cover crops of to keep the soil alive as much as possible. The roots will grow deep to scavenge fertilizer below the surface and when we kill it we will be building organic matter. Have a crop rooted in the soil will also help to reduce erosion. The rye was seeded into 7.5” rows at a rate of 50 lbs./acre. It will be interesting to see the result. In the fall of 2014 we tried just a few hundred acres as a test, already we can see a benefit and plan on doing more in the future.
