Cost-share for small grains and cover crops with manure
By Sara Berges, Allamakee SWCD
With low corn and soybean prices, now may be a great time to try something different. Consider adding a small grain to your rotation. Are small grain prices great? No. However, small grains require much less nutrient inputs and therefore have reduced input costs. Oats can be sold locally for animal feed. Several local producers have been producing quality oats that would meet food grade requirements. If you produce food grade oats, they may be sold to Grain Millers in St. Ansgar. There are many benefits to adding a small grain to a rotation that aren’t as easy to quantify, such as improvements in soil health, breaking up pest and weed cycles, and there is the potential to have higher corn and soybean yields the following years. There is cost-share available through the Waukon NRCS office for adding a small grain to a rotation. To be eligible for this cost share, the small grain must be managed for grain harvest, not used as a nurse crop for hay. The signup deadline for EQIP is October 19.
If you follow a small grain crop with a diverse cover crop, you would be eligible for a higher cost-share rate on the cover crop. If you can get a cover crop planted at the beginning of August, the growing season is long enough to provide many options for species to plant and grow significant biomass. Following corn or soybean harvest, we are generally limited to cereal rye or other winter-hardy species. Following small grain harvest, there is a long list of potential species to plant to help break up compaction, scavenge nutrients, fix nitrogen, provide forage, or many other potential benefits.
Another way to get a higher cost-share rate on cover crops is to plant them on fields that have manure application. If the cover crop is planted early enough to get a good stand established in the fall, the cover crop can help scavenge many of the nutrients applied in the manure. The cover crop can be planted before or after manure application. It’s best to get the cover crop seeded as early as possible, even if your manure application won’t be for a while. Manure can be knifed into a growing cover crop if using a low-disturbance injector with minimal damage to the cover crop growth. Manure can also be surface applied to a growing cover crop as long as the rate isn’t high enough to smother the cover crop. One producer last year even mixed the cover crop in his manure tanker and injected it with his manure, which is known as slurry-seeding.
If you have interest in signing up for EQIP for adding a small grain to your rotation and following it with a cover crop or for planting a cover crop on fields with manure application, stop by the Waukon NRCS office in the next few weeks to talk to us about it and mark out maps showing where you’d like to plant them. Call the office with questions at 563-568-2246 ext. 3
