We have used cover crops for over twenty years. What we found that terminating the cover crop under knee high works best. We spray it to terminate. We can get into the fields with the sprayer even when it is wetter. We can run duals on the sprayer is we have too. Rye is the most common cover crop we use. If you let it get as big as you have, in our area, you will have the ground so dry the planted crop will not germinate. We run a vertical tillage machine in the fall to size the old residue before we plant the cover crop. We found using an air seeder with JD single disk openers plants our cover crop the best. We then roll the cover crop to smooth the ground. We do not run any row cleaners. We run a single disk 3/4 inch wave coulter in the front. Also you need an active down pressure system, air or hydraulic. We use a Germinator closing wheel in most of our soil types. We have some hard clay that we use old style cast iron wheels in because the ground is a vary hard lumpy clay. Nothing else will knock it down. Side wall compaction is not a concern in that soil unlike our loam ground. Also 75% of our ground gets liquid manure applied with a hose drag system. We have hog and cattle on slat floors. So we do not need nitrogen fixing cover crops. Here is the deal. Nothing is going to work on all farms and crop conditions. One operator to another can mean a totally different out come from using the same equipment. So fine tune what you find that works. It we interesting to see all of the different type of row attachments you tried. It boggled my mind the cost of all of those combinations.
You’re exactly right. It will be very different for each individual operation. Keeping an open mind and being willing to adapt to the situation you’ve been dealt is the most critical part. Thank you for sharing the planter setup you use. The options are endless it seems. What kind of planter do you use?
@@GiffinFarms We run JD 1770 and 1780 planters. We bought older planters when guys updated to get new tech. So they had good bones but were not the fancy high tech/high speed planters. We do run electric drives but regular vac meters. We have found that high speeds do not work well on our slopes and soils In tough ground conditions just slowing down will often greatly improve your planter performance. We found that we can easily get 98-99% stands by planting at 4.5-5 MPH with regular vac meters. It is not economically practical to spend $50k in updates just to drive twice as fast. We plant about 9-10K acres each year between our own and custom acres. We have less than $75K in our three 16 row planters. I have ran Older White toolbar fold planters in the past. I have found that just about all of the modern planters will plant corn well if operated and maintained correctly.
@@GiffinFarms We do not use any fertilizer on the planters anymore. We used to but with bigger planters carrying liquid fertilizer really puts a load on the planter and tractor. When we were running 12 row planters we used saddle tanks and carried liquid fertilizer. The genetics on the new hybrids usually do not show much yield response using started fertilizer on our ground. It does make it look better early but it does not seem to translate into higher yields. We are in North-East Iowa. We are blessed with very fertile ground for the most part. About twenty years ago they installed a cross country gas line across some of our ground. They still tried to keep the line fairly flat. So they dug the line deeper on some of our small hills. In one place the line was 14 feet deep and was still in topsoil. That deep is rare but 4-6 feet is not uncommon field wide on many of our fields.
As a no till cover crop guy, you are best off planting green, and the planters with the wheels in between the row units plug up more. The DB style work much better. As far as frills on the planter… take them all off. No coulters, no row cleaners. Have pristine disc openers and at least Air Force down force. Terminate after you plant. By the 3rd year, you’ll need delta force. It can lift the units, not just push them down, and your soil will be so mellow they will spend more time lifting than pushing.
I couldn’t agree more on the planting green part. Our hand was forced to plant this way because be had nearly 45 days of non-stop rain during my planting green window. The cover fully matured. My only options were to get rid of it or find a way to plant through it. Normally I would agree that disc openers only are the way to go. Believe me, I wish it would have worked in this scenario because I only had disc openers on and was forced to reinstall everything I had just taken off 😅 the cover crop in this video is a cake walk compared to the biomass I had to plant through that will be in our next video. I would have never gotten a stand of beans with only disc openers in that biomass. This is year 3 for us on very heavy biomass. I don’t think I’ve seen that much result. What do you think we’re missing?
In seeing what other regenerative farmers are doing, including Matt Griggs, you should plant in the same direction as you crimp. That should make your row unit setup work the best and have the most of the cover crop residue still connected to its root, so it will not blow away, should it storm. Hair pinning should be minimized if you plant in the same direction as you crimp.
I couldn’t agree more! Unfortunately this year the weather didn’t allow me the opportunity to do so. We had so much rain and wind that the cover crop blew down in all directions. The crimper wasn’t successful in getting it all laid down in one direction. He’s the link to how it ended if you want to check it out! th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=O79yDg9KhrMXoION
I'd recommend widening your double-over into a 3/4" spacer with a nickelson bilge spreader.. Once you get it down by about 1/8th fathom it'll start cutting nicely just be sure you watch out for your triple shanks turning into a rammerjammer.
We considered it but we found a combination that seemed to work pretty well. We have another video coming soon showing the result of what we used and how it all worked out!
35 years no till in southern Brasil. The residue must be dry and crispy. Otherwise the seeds will be wraped in the furrow with the residues. Seed must be in direct contact with the soil.
Completely agree! It can definitely be challenging to achieve good seed to soil contact all the time. Here is a link to how it turned out if you want to see! th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=O79yDg9KhrMXoION
I have a love/hate relationship with vetch. I have mixed emotions on seeding rate too. I like the high biomass to help suppress weeds but understand growing a cash crop is the priority. Both are good points! Here’s a link to the solution we came up with and how it all worked out! th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=qZ7bacW8A04i_1_y
Everything looks good when reading books in saving the enviroment with no till, have to use a ton of herbicides to make up for not prepping the ground properly but you will go broke in a hurry.
@@GiffinFarms plow, pack, and seed in one motion. The old timers were pretty wise . Bury the tangled mess, then pack the moisture in with burying the weeds, and have beautiful seed to soil contact.
I’ve never known of any row crop farming practice that allowed you to plow, pack and seed in one pass. I’ll say the old timers did the best they could with what tools they had and I respect them for that. Many of their practices still came with an expense in the form of erosion, fuel, and time. I’ve witnessed the erosion problem firsthand over the years. It’s a shame to see your soil wash away into the creek, never to return. That’s why I believe in notill and cover crop use. I’ve had some of my best yields using these practices with half the chemicals all while protecting our land asset. Tillage in most of today’s farming practice requires chemicals too and if you’re not using a chemical, odds are you’re doing repeat tillage which is constantly exposing your soil to erosion and creating other problems.
Yes I think so. It might cause a little compaction but I don’t think it would be detrimental. I wish I would have tried that on these farms before it went to seed. I kept hoping it would quit raining. Will definitely try that in the future.
It does pretty well on everything except the oats and rapeseed. Crimson clover is hard to kill also but it was already pretty well done at the time of this video. The next video will show what was left after the crimper when the beans were small before a herbicide pass.
We considered it before we started but found a solution on the planter that worked well. We’ll have another video up soon with the results. We can lay it down with the crimper a lot faster and more efficiently. Plus we are able to use the “straw mat” that’s left after crimping as a mulch layer to suppress weeds and hold in moisture when the summer gets hot and dry.
Are you doing cover crop to help ground erosion ? Guys in my area have went from no til and cover crop that they done for 20 years back to a rotation of tillage.
Erosion was my first reason when we started but since then water infiltration and building organic matter have been at the top of the list too. There are many other reasons we do it. Tillage is becoming popular around here too again. It’s a real shame too because the road ditches are full of muddy water every time it rains. Are you seeing that in your area?
@@GiffinFarms in my area it’s fairly flat. Everyone farms almost to the road side to be honest. Actually been hearing more guys doing some plowing where weed pressure is hard to control. Organic matter isn’t an issue with all the livestock in our area. Just never seen the advantage of trading working the ground for chemicals to kill cover crop.
@@pleasantviewfarms2084 one of the biggest reasons I like to stay no-till if at all possible is because of the soil structure you create over time with heavy cover crop use. Water infiltration is huge and that is jeopardized with tillage in my opinion. Also, leaving the cover crop on top of the ground keeps the ground cool all summer and holds moisture if it gets dry. It’s amazing to see how much our soil structure has changed in just three years of heavy biomass cover crop. We’ve been utilizing covers longer than that but not to this extent. What part of the country are you located?
As a no tiller for 45 years i dont get it. I know things can get away from a guy, but with atv sprayers, floater tires just shouldn't be very often that these situations arise
Our intentions were never to kill this cover crop early. We like to plant green through mature cover so we let it grow until early May. We have had great success doing this in the past and have our planter setup well for that situation. This year was different because it was too wet to plant it, not too wet to kill it. We could have killed it at any point since the beginning of May, but we would still be in this exact situation with lots of tough, dead biomass. Do you ever use cover crops?
@GiffinFarms yes we primary use cover crops after soybeans, but do some after corn as well. I prefer to plant green when possible. We have had good luck when not planting the cover crop too thick. We have some fields that have had no mechanical tiilage for 40 years.
@GiffinFarms it just keeps getting better as far as tilth, "sponge effect" and really have been pleased with the yield. Our biggest issue in no tilling is not compaction from tractor, but compaction from flooding waters in bottom ground. We have had to dip rip spots to let the tile function properly
![[Sub Thai] APT. - ROSÉ & Bruno Mars](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bYjhzP8x_uc/mqdefault.jpg)
Don’t give up, your soil is worth it! You’re doing the right thing!
Thank you, I appreciate the positivity!
We have used cover crops for over twenty years. What we found that terminating the cover crop under knee high works best. We spray it to terminate. We can get into the fields with the sprayer even when it is wetter. We can run duals on the sprayer is we have too. Rye is the most common cover crop we use. If you let it get as big as you have, in our area, you will have the ground so dry the planted crop will not germinate. We run a vertical tillage machine in the fall to size the old residue before we plant the cover crop. We found using an air seeder with JD single disk openers plants our cover crop the best. We then roll the cover crop to smooth the ground.
We do not run any row cleaners. We run a single disk 3/4 inch wave coulter in the front. Also you need an active down pressure system, air or hydraulic. We use a Germinator closing wheel in most of our soil types. We have some hard clay that we use old style cast iron wheels in because the ground is a vary hard lumpy clay. Nothing else will knock it down. Side wall compaction is not a concern in that soil unlike our loam ground.
Also 75% of our ground gets liquid manure applied with a hose drag system. We have hog and cattle on slat floors. So we do not need nitrogen fixing cover crops.
Here is the deal. Nothing is going to work on all farms and crop conditions. One operator to another can mean a totally different out come from using the same equipment. So fine tune what you find that works. It we interesting to see all of the different type of row attachments you tried. It boggled my mind the cost of all of those combinations.
You’re exactly right. It will be very different for each individual operation. Keeping an open mind and being willing to adapt to the situation you’ve been dealt is the most critical part. Thank you for sharing the planter setup you use. The options are endless it seems. What kind of planter do you use?
@@GiffinFarms We run JD 1770 and 1780 planters. We bought older planters when guys updated to get new tech. So they had good bones but were not the fancy high tech/high speed planters. We do run electric drives but regular vac meters. We have found that high speeds do not work well on our slopes and soils In tough ground conditions just slowing down will often greatly improve your planter performance.
We found that we can easily get 98-99% stands by planting at 4.5-5 MPH with regular vac meters. It is not economically practical to spend $50k in updates just to drive twice as fast. We plant about 9-10K acres each year between our own and custom acres. We have less than $75K in our three 16 row planters.
I have ran Older White toolbar fold planters in the past. I have found that just about all of the modern planters will plant corn well if operated and maintained correctly.
@@JDseller1 I couldn’t agree more! I respect that mindset. Are y’all running any liquid on the planter?
@@GiffinFarms We do not use any fertilizer on the planters anymore. We used to but with bigger planters carrying liquid fertilizer really puts a load on the planter and tractor. When we were running 12 row planters we used saddle tanks and carried liquid fertilizer.
The genetics on the new hybrids usually do not show much yield response using started fertilizer on our ground. It does make it look better early but it does not seem to translate into higher yields.
We are in North-East Iowa. We are blessed with very fertile ground for the most part. About twenty years ago they installed a cross country gas line across some of our ground. They still tried to keep the line fairly flat. So they dug the line deeper on some of our small hills. In one place the line was 14 feet deep and was still in topsoil. That deep is rare but 4-6 feet is not uncommon field wide on many of our fields.
As a no till cover crop guy, you are best off planting green, and the planters with the wheels in between the row units plug up more. The DB style work much better. As far as frills on the planter… take them all off. No coulters, no row cleaners. Have pristine disc openers and at least Air Force down force. Terminate after you plant. By the 3rd year, you’ll need delta force. It can lift the units, not just push them down, and your soil will be so mellow they will spend more time lifting than pushing.
I couldn’t agree more on the planting green part. Our hand was forced to plant this way because be had nearly 45 days of non-stop rain during my planting green window. The cover fully matured. My only options were to get rid of it or find a way to plant through it. Normally I would agree that disc openers only are the way to go. Believe me, I wish it would have worked in this scenario because I only had disc openers on and was forced to reinstall everything I had just taken off 😅 the cover crop in this video is a cake walk compared to the biomass I had to plant through that will be in our next video. I would have never gotten a stand of beans with only disc openers in that biomass. This is year 3 for us on very heavy biomass. I don’t think I’ve seen that much result. What do you think we’re missing?
Can you do a follow up video on how the crop looks ?
Yes! That video should be coming out this Friday or Saturday. Stay tuned and thank you for asking!
have you considered using a flail mover to reduce the particle size of the cover material left over. Great video with an unbelievable wealth of info.
Thank you!! I’ve never thought of that but it may be worth a try. We don’t own a flail mower so I’d want to try to borrow one to test the theory.
Beautiful job
#regenerativefarming
Thank you for sharing
Thank you and thank you for watching!!
In seeing what other regenerative farmers are doing, including Matt Griggs, you should plant in the same direction as you crimp. That should make your row unit setup work the best and have the most of the cover crop residue still connected to its root, so it will not blow away, should it storm. Hair pinning should be minimized if you plant in the same direction as you crimp.
I couldn’t agree more! Unfortunately this year the weather didn’t allow me the opportunity to do so. We had so much rain and wind that the cover crop blew down in all directions. The crimper wasn’t successful in getting it all laid down in one direction. He’s the link to how it ended if you want to check it out!
th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=O79yDg9KhrMXoION
Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to seeing the results.
Thank you! We’ll have the results up soon, stay tuned!
@@GiffinFarms You're welcome.
I'd recommend widening your double-over into a 3/4" spacer with a nickelson bilge spreader.. Once you get it down by about 1/8th fathom it'll start cutting nicely just be sure you watch out for your triple shanks turning into a rammerjammer.
You’re talking over my head! 😅 double-over? Triple shank?
you might need to brush hog it all down, gl with it all
We considered it but we found a combination that seemed to work pretty well. We have another video coming soon showing the result of what we used and how it all worked out!
Great comparison. Your dad is a trooper.
@@cattleandcovercropsHe really is! Thank you, we’ll show how our decision turned out in our next video!
35 years no till in southern Brasil. The residue must be dry and crispy. Otherwise the seeds will be wraped in the furrow with the residues. Seed must be in direct contact with the soil.
Completely agree! It can definitely be challenging to achieve good seed to soil contact all the time. Here is a link to how it turned out if you want to see!
th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=O79yDg9KhrMXoION
The soil will start to look really good in just a few years with that amount over cover crop to feed the earth worms
I sure hope so!
I switched from vetch to clover. The vetch can get out of control in a hurry. Also might cut your seeding rate a little.
I have a love/hate relationship with vetch. I have mixed emotions on seeding rate too. I like the high biomass to help suppress weeds but understand growing a cash crop is the priority. Both are good points! Here’s a link to the solution we came up with and how it all worked out!
th-cam.com/video/8GJfwoUipw0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=qZ7bacW8A04i_1_y
Everything looks good when reading books in saving the enviroment with no till, have to use a ton of herbicides to make up for not prepping the ground properly but you will go broke in a hurry.
What kind of ground prep are you referring to? Go broke in a hurry with which practice?
@@GiffinFarms plow, pack, and seed in one motion. The old timers were pretty wise . Bury the tangled mess, then pack the moisture in with burying the weeds, and have beautiful seed to soil contact.
I’ve never known of any row crop farming practice that allowed you to plow, pack and seed in one pass. I’ll say the old timers did the best they could with what tools they had and I respect them for that. Many of their practices still came with an expense in the form of erosion, fuel, and time. I’ve witnessed the erosion problem firsthand over the years. It’s a shame to see your soil wash away into the creek, never to return. That’s why I believe in notill and cover crop use. I’ve had some of my best yields using these practices with half the chemicals all while protecting our land asset. Tillage in most of today’s farming practice requires chemicals too and if you’re not using a chemical, odds are you’re doing repeat tillage which is constantly exposing your soil to erosion and creating other problems.
Would it be ok to go over the cover crop with the crimp roller right before it goes to seed, even if it's to wet to plant right away?
Yes I think so. It might cause a little compaction but I don’t think it would be detrimental. I wish I would have tried that on these farms before it went to seed. I kept hoping it would quit raining. Will definitely try that in the future.
How well does that crimper kill off everything
It does pretty well on everything except the oats and rapeseed. Crimson clover is hard to kill also but it was already pretty well done at the time of this video. The next video will show what was left after the crimper when the beans were small before a herbicide pass.
I think what Hoyt really wanted to say you cant put on TH-cam. haha
Thats crazy !!!!!! 🤪
Makes ya feel crazy too!! 😅
I guess it makes no sense to mow it before?
We considered it before we started but found a solution on the planter that worked well. We’ll have another video up soon with the results. We can lay it down with the crimper a lot faster and more efficiently. Plus we are able to use the “straw mat” that’s left after crimping as a mulch layer to suppress weeds and hold in moisture when the summer gets hot and dry.
Laercio o agricultor
Are you doing cover crop to help ground erosion ? Guys in my area have went from no til and cover crop that they done for 20 years back to a rotation of tillage.
Erosion was my first reason when we started but since then water infiltration and building organic matter have been at the top of the list too. There are many other reasons we do it. Tillage is becoming popular around here too again. It’s a real shame too because the road ditches are full of muddy water every time it rains. Are you seeing that in your area?
@@GiffinFarms in my area it’s fairly flat. Everyone farms almost to the road side to be honest. Actually been hearing more guys doing some plowing where weed pressure is hard to control. Organic matter isn’t an issue with all the livestock in our area. Just never seen the advantage of trading working the ground for chemicals to kill cover crop.
@@pleasantviewfarms2084 one of the biggest reasons I like to stay no-till if at all possible is because of the soil structure you create over time with heavy cover crop use. Water infiltration is huge and that is jeopardized with tillage in my opinion. Also, leaving the cover crop on top of the ground keeps the ground cool all summer and holds moisture if it gets dry. It’s amazing to see how much our soil structure has changed in just three years of heavy biomass cover crop. We’ve been utilizing covers longer than that but not to this extent. What part of the country are you located?
@@GiffinFarms just north of you in west central Ohio
@@pleasantviewfarms2084 did you David Brandt?
what do you plant into the mess?
This was intended to go to corn but it stayed so wet for so long that we had to plant soybeans.
@@GiffinFarms Thanks for answer. How is the soybeans growth? Would be interesting to see the field now.
@@christianhollauer881 we’re going to post another video here soon that will show the results and what the soybeans look like now!
@@GiffinFarms good plan 😃
👍🇺🇸
🤘🏼
As a no tiller for 45 years i dont get it. I know things can get away from a guy, but with atv sprayers, floater tires just shouldn't be very often that these situations arise
Our intentions were never to kill this cover crop early. We like to plant green through mature cover so we let it grow until early May. We have had great success doing this in the past and have our planter setup well for that situation. This year was different because it was too wet to plant it, not too wet to kill it. We could have killed it at any point since the beginning of May, but we would still be in this exact situation with lots of tough, dead biomass. Do you ever use cover crops?
@GiffinFarms yes we primary use cover crops after soybeans, but do some after corn as well. I prefer to plant green when possible. We have had good luck when not planting the cover crop too thick. We have some fields that have had no mechanical tiilage for 40 years.
What differences are you seeing on the farms with 40 years of no-till?
@GiffinFarms it just keeps getting better as far as tilth, "sponge effect" and really have been pleased with the yield. Our biggest issue in no tilling is not compaction from tractor, but compaction from flooding waters in bottom ground. We have had to dip rip spots to let the tile function properly
@@joekeusch5995 interesting! Do you deep rip many acres?