Increasing Cropping System Sustainability through the Adoption of Cover Crop and Rotational No-Till Strategies

Increasing Cropping System Sustainability through the Adoption of Cover Crop and Rotational No-Till Strategies

Summary

1. Research results on a tomato trial with rolled cover crops were summarized in two on-line articles, reaching a total of 3,362 readers.

   30 conference participants learned about cover crop and no-till activities and outcomes via a talk and PowerPoint presentation in January 2009 in Baltimore, Maryland.

   72 people attended the 2nd field day at Rodale Institute in July 2009 and learned about project results, and experiences with cover crops and soil testing. Over 92% of survey respondents stated that the field day increased their awareness of environmental benefits of organic practices, their confidence in the topics presented and their motivation to further explore sustainable/organic agriculture practices. In assessing the impact of the field day in advancing knowledge, it was impressive to find that a sizeable 79% (51 respondents) indicated that they learned a new sustainable practice at the field day. And almost all of them indicated that they will make a change in their practices in the next 2 years as a result of attending the field day.

   In a follow up phone survey of the farmers that attended the field day in the first year of the project (2008), we were able to reach and interview 21 of the 36 farmers whose farms spanned a geographical area from Pennsylvania to Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Kentucky and North Carolina and ranged in size from 1 to 2,000 acres. Five of the 21 farms surveyed were managed conventionally, 4 were in transition to organic and 12 were either certified organic or using organic practices. About half of the surveyed farmers stated that they have made changes in their operations, either by planting cover crops for the first time or trying new cover crops, by rolling cover crops instead of plowing them, or by setting up an organic test plot. These changes effected close to 5% (70 non-organic acres and 130 organic acres) of the approximately 4000 acres that were being farmed by the interviewed farmers.

   We identified the farm to host the 2010 field day. Tim and Ann Bock of Kutztown, PA, will make their farm available for a farmer-to-farmer learning exchange.

   The second FST Advisory Panel meeting took place on February 6, 2009. The main outcome of the meeting addressed cultivars used in the trial and the need to start testing the newly purchased high residue cultivator to manage weeds in the organic no-till systems.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Beneficiary Targets: Fifty non-organic farmers will integrate cover crops to reduce herbicide and fertilizer inputs impacting more than 2000 acres. Twenty five organic farmers will strategically utilize rolled/crimped cover crops to suppress weeds in no-till planted cash crops on at least 250 acres. Fifteen county based extension educators will acquire new knowledge of cover crops and rotational no-till practices and incorporate project findings into education programs.

Research Target: Elucidate costs and benefits of different cropping systems in terms of energetic efficiency and economic performance and publish rigorous multi-year comparative soil carbon, yield, labor, and input data from standard- and no-till organic and conventional cropping systems that incorporate cover crops.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Milestone 1 – 1200 NewFarm.org farmer and research readers learn about research results with cover crops and rotational organic no-till via an article on New Farm.org.

Research results on a tomato trial with rolled cover crops were summarized in the following two articles.

Infestation hits first-year multi-variant tomato trial
Heirloom variety outlasts hybrids in test of cover crops, benefical soil fungi, organic fertility and weed suppression.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100119/nfr_Infestation_hits_first-year_multi-variant_tomato_trial

Mycorrhiza Matter!
How land management impacts these microbes and how they can impact the world when soil is living and breathing.
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20090806/gw1

Tracking records for our website show that we exceeded the milestone goal of reaching 1,200 people: The two articles had a total of 3,362 unique viewers.

Two more articles summarizing the Farming Systems Trial results have been written and will be posted in March and April of 2010.

Milestone 2 – 80 conference participants learn about cover crop/no-till activities and outcomes via a talk and PowerPoint presentation

A presentation was given at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Weed Science Society in Baltimore, Maryland, January 5-8, 2009. Title and abstract of the presentation are below:

Weed community response to no-tillage practices in organic and conventional corn.
M.R. Ryan, Penn State Univ., University Park, D.A. Mortensen, Penn State Univ., University Park, R. Seidel, Rodale Institute, Kutztown, PA, R.G. Smith, Penn State Univ., University Park, and A.M. Grantham, Rodale Institute, Kutztown, PA

No-tillage management practices have become increasingly popular in Pennsylvania, with 48 and 62% of corn and soybean, respectively, no-till planted in 2008. These systems have environmental benefits such as reduced soil erosion; however, they require increased weed management and are thus more dependent on herbicides than tillage-based systems. Organic farmers have expressed interest in no-till management but are prohibited from using most herbicides, and those that are permitted in organic production are usually cost prohibitive. A hybrid system has been developed that utilizes mulch from rolled/crimped cover crops such as cereal rye (Secale cereale L.) and hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth) to suppress weeds in place of herbicides. Although cover crops can provide effective weed suppression in these systems, continuous no-till in organic systems is not yet possible due to incomplete weed control provided by cover crops alone. Therefore, rotational no-till systems may be a more realistic strategy for organic producers. Since these systems are still in their infancy, it is unclear how organic rotational no-till practices will alter weed abundance and community composition.

Conventional no-till and organic rotational no-till systems were tested in a long term cropping systems trial that compared two organic grain operations that differed primarily in the source of N inputs (MNR-manure and LEG-legume) to a conventional (CNV) grain operation that utilized mineral fertilizer. The three no-till systems were incorporated into the long-term trial by transitioning four of the original eight blocks from traditional tillage. The other four blocks were maintained as traditional tillage systems, with chisel plow tillage used in the CNV system and moldboard plow tillage used in the MNR and LEG systems. This approach allowed us to assess the no-till systems while conserving the original tillage systems for comparisons. Here we report results from 2008, the first year of the transition to no-till. Our hypotheses were: 1) organic tillage systems would have fewer weeds than no-till systems and 2) perennial weeds would be more abundant in the no-till systems. Interestingly, there was no difference in total weed biomass between the organic tillage and organic no-till systems. This result shows that organic no-till systems can be competitive with organic tillage systems. Perennial weeds accounted for 27–36% of total biomass in the organic no-till systems, whereas they were completely absent in the organic tillage systems. There was no difference in the abundance of perennial versus annual weeds between conventional tillage and conventional no-till. Additional research is necessary to determine whether observed trends in weed abundance and community composition in organic no-till systems remain consistent over time.

This milestone was not quite reached: 30 people attended the presentation.

Milestone 3 – 70 County based educators and farmers attend 2nd field day at Rodale Institute and learn about project results, and farmer experiences with cover crops and soil testing

This milestone was reached: 72 people attended the field day.

The majority of the 2009 Field Day was comprised of a wagon tour of the different research projects at Rodale Institute, with a focus on the Farming Systems Trial, demonstrations of no-till practices and equipment along with various aspects of soil testing, cover crop selection and weed management. Several speakers gave technical presentations about the trial layouts and results. Following is a summary of the survey responses we received after the field day.

Methodology and response rate
The 2009 Field Day at Rodale Institute was evaluated via a survey that was administered on-site, at the end of the event. We administered the survey to a total of 72 participants and received back 64 valid surveys, for a response rate of 89%.

Demographics and background data
The occupational distribution showed that over 40% — 26 individuals — reported full- or part-time farming as their primary occupation. About 9% of survey respondents were educators and 50% reported holding other occupations, most of them with the government.

Key findings
Please note: Missing data is not included in the analysis and the percentages are based on the actual number of responses for each question (unless indicated otherwise), they are not calculated as proportion of the total number of respondents.

Results from the survey were positive, encouraging, and showed interest and involvement on the part of the participants. We first asked respondents to rate the quality of presentation and usefulness of information for each individual presentation at the field day. Results clearly showed variation in assessment across presentations, with some getting as high as 68% of “Excellent” ratings for quality while others getting a more modest 40% of the highest mark. Furthermore, notable differences emerged in the opinions between farmers and non-farmers – with farmers giving higher marks for the field tour and non-farmers giving higher marks for the indoor presentation.

The variation of responses across occupations is of particular interest to our future work as we design events to best meet the educational and training needs of our audience. Results suggest that targeted events – with presentations and activities tailor-made for specific occupational groups — may be of interest especially to farmers who show interest in more practical, hands-on approaches.

In addition to an overall assessment of respondents’ satisfaction with the presentations, we asked a series of questions with respect to perceptions, motivations, and attitudes as well as advancing personal knowledge, and professional needs.

Over 92% of respondents stated that the field day increased their awareness of environmental benefits of organic practices, their confidence in the topics presented and their motivation to further explore sustainable/organic agriculture practices.

In assessing the impact of the field day in advancing knowledge, it was impressive to find that a sizeable 79% (51 respondents) indicated that they had learned a new sustainable practice at the field day. What was even more impressive was that almost the same number (50 respondents) indicated that they would make a change in their practices in the next 2 years as a result of attending the field day. Finally, numerous respondents made suggestions for future topics and/or activities for our educational events which the team can use in designing upcoming field days.

Combined, these findings clearly showed interest in the adoption of new techniques and the need for more information and training in the future.

Other events or developments

1) Phone survey
After the 2008 field day, 43 respondents to our survey indicated that they would definitely make a change in their practice in the next 2 years as a results of attending the field day. In the summer of 2009 we conducted a phone survey with the farmers that attended the field day in 2008. Goal of the survey was to determine whether or not farmers had made any changes in their farming operation since they attended the field day the previous year. We felt this survey would be useful in determining how well we are doing in reaching our performance target.

Approximately half of the field day attendants listed “Farmer” as their primary occupation, a total of 58 people from 36 farms. We were able to reach and interview 21 of those 36 farms which spanned a geographical area from Pennsylvania to Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Kentucky and North Carolina and ranged in size from 1 to 2,000 acres.
Five of the 21 farms surveyed were managed conventionally, 4 were in transition to organic and 12 were either certified organic or using organic practices. About half of the surveyed farmers stated that they have made changes in their operations, either by planting cover crops for the first time or trying new cover crops, by rolling cover crops instead of plowing them, or by setting up an organic test plot. These changes effected close to 5% (70 non-organic acres and 130 organic acres) of the approximately 4000 acres that were being farmed by the interviewed farmers.

Twenty local extension agents were also contacted to determine if they increased their outreach on cover crops or if they have seen an increase in cover crop usage. We will need to follow up on this because so far no feedback was received for this.

2) On-farm research
One 2008 milestone had been to identify 20 farmers who are interested in trying cover crops or the organic no-till system. These farmers were supposed to be identified in an intensive cover crop workshop offered after the 2008 field day. However, only a few farmers attended the workshop (it had been a long, hot day in the sun) and only some of those followed through with our request and planted the free cover crop seed they received that day. Below are reports on two farmers who planted a cover crop and tried the no-till roller on their farm.

Steve Schoeniger has been farming at his New Tripoli, PA farm for 2 years. He owns 29 acres, 22 of which are tillable. He mostly keeps cows (Angus crosses) on pasture for meat production but also has chickens and ducks for meat and eggs. He is not certified organic but uses no mineral fertilizer or pesticides, only composted manure and fish emulsion. The farm is hilly with very shaly soils.
Steve planted the cover crop seed he received from us as a rye/vetch mix in two different locations, one of them approximately ¼ acre, the other one several hundred square feet. Both stands looked very nice in mid May, the vetch had just started flowering.

Steve borrowed Rodale Institute’s roller in early June to roll his cover crop. The bigger area was rolled and no-tilled with millet to be made into hay. The smaller patch was rolled and not tilled to be used as a vegetable garden and for pumpkins (all planted by hand). He got good kill in the larger section where he planted millet but not in the section for the vegetable garden, probably because only the roller went through this part without being followed by a drill or planter. He did use it as a vegetable garden for part of the year but eventually had cows graze it.

All in all, Steve was very pleased with the new system. Hay biomass production in the millet field was twice as high in the part that was planted into the rolled rye-vetch mat and he also noticed fewer weeds in this section compared to the millet planted without a previous cover crop. Steve is very interested in working with us in the future and also has been very committed in educating his neighboring farmers about cover crops and the roller.

Another local farmer who attended our field day in 2008 decided to try the rolled cover crop and no-till system on his farm in 2009. Tim Bock farms 100 acres in Kutztown, PA. He is certified organic and grows mostly grains (corn, soybeans, and some small grains). In the spring of 2009, instead of plowing under his rye and hairy vetch cover crops, he rolled them with his newly purchased roller and no-till planted soybeans into the rye and corn into the vetch, on a total of 25 acres. The soybean crop did really well; populations were high and there were hardly any weeds. The no-till corn did not do as well, mostly due to problems with the planter, which did not cut adequately through the vetch mat and caused low corn populations. Weed suppression of the vetch was also insufficient; the cool spring had prevented vetch from accumulating enough biomass.

Overall, Tim was very pleased with his first try of rolled cover crops. He is interested in working with us more in the future to improve crop establishment and cover crop management in corn. He also agreed to hosting the on-farm field day for this project in the summer of 2010. This field day is supposed to be a farmer-to-farmer learning exchange with Tim as the primary educator to discuss his operation and experiences.

Changes to the original plan of work: To encourage cover crop and cover crop no-till planting system adoption we have actively involved farmers in cover crop research and outreach by recruiting 11 farmers (7 local and 4 regional organic and non-organic farmers) to experiment with enhanced use of cover crops on their farms. Enhanced cover crop demonstration plots and standard management plots were established on each farm in fall of 2009 and their performance will be assessed by Rodale Institute researchers during the 2010 season. Soil samples will be collected and evaluated by the Cornell soil health test, and data will be collected on cover crop production, weed biomass, and crop yields. A workshop on soil sampling, interpreting soil health test results, and a demonstration of Ray Weil’s active carbon assessment (field method) will be included in the 2010 field day on Tim and Anne Bock’s farm, which all recruited farmers plan to attend. We plan to assess outcomes from the new plan of work, described above, through brief online post-field day farmer surveys and winter 2010/2011 in-person interviews with farmers hosting demo-plots. Outcomes will be presented through newsletter-type publications posted on the Rodale Institute website, eOrganic site, and in PA, MD, and NY extension newsletters. Outcomes and farmer perspectives will also be featured in the planned project technical bulletin.

The above plan of work will replace the original plan of work, which entailed recruiting 10 farmers through an intensive workshop following the 2008 Rodale Institute field day and conducting an on-farm meta-experiment on the cover crop system over the succeeding three years. Specifically, researchers planned to measure total soil carbon and chemically labile organic matter effects of the cover crop no-till planting system on the 10 farms. Unfortunately, attendance was low at the 2008 intensive post-field day workshop due to the exhausting nature of the very hot and humid outdoor field day that preceded it, and therefore farmer participants for the meta-experiment were not recruited. Further, the original staff involved in this part of the project were lost. Lastly, advisory board soil scientist, Ray Weil, advised narrative-style feedback from farmers hosting the demo plots would be more valuable than the metrics originally proposed due to the short time-frame of the project (changes or differences would probably not be detected by the originally proposed metrics in the timeframe of the project). Thus we propose the alternative approach outlined above as a superior means of meeting the overall project objective of enhancing cover crop use among conventional and organic grain farmers.

3) Advisory Panel
The Advisory panel for the Farming Systems Trial (FST) was formed to oversee and provide advice on crop, soil, and pest management in the trial. Members of the panel are also encouraged to contribute to the outreach of the project by participating at field days or writing on-line articles or extension bulletins.

The second Advisory Panel meeting took place on February 6, 2009. The following people attended:
Paul Hepperly, Jake Blehm, Rita Seidel, Jeff Moyer, Christine Ziegler (all Rodale Institute)
Bill Curran, Weed Scientist, Penn State University
Joel Myers, Pennsylvania No-Till Farmer
Steven Mirsky, USDA ARS, Beltsville, MD
Dave Mortensen, Weed Ecologist, Penn State University
Bob Muth, New Jersey Organic Farmer
John Teasdale, USDA ARS, Beltsville, MD

After a brief overview of the Farming Systems Trial, we focused on the results from 2008. Based on the comments and suggestions from the Panel members we decided to use shorter-day corn in all the no-till systems; in the conventional system this will allow the rye cover crop to be planted earlier (and therefore accrue more biomass in the following spring) whereas in the organic systems it will accommodate for the late planting/rolling date. We also discussed the advantages of using a high residue cultivator in the organic no-till crops. Rodale Institute purchased a Hiniker cultivator and started testing it in the summer of 2009. Other details from the meeting are listed in the accompanying documents.

The next Advisory Panel meeting will take place on February 19, 2010. At this meeting we will review the results from 2009 and discuss challenges and possible improvements.

Note: Originally the proposal intended to have the Advisory Panel convene twice per year. Given the nature of agronomic research and the busy schedules of the panel members, we decided it would be more efficient to meet once a year to review results and to plan for the coming growing season.

4) Trials conducted in 2009 to refine FST rotations and systems

a) Winter wheat variety trial
The wheat trial was conducted primarily because we decided to go back to winter wheat after soybeans in FST, in both organic systems and the CNV no-till system. We planted 4 different varieties: Great Harvest 4532, Wilken 106, Welter Seed 44, and Vigoro 9723. Overall, average wheat yields in 2009 were between 56 and 64 bu/a, well within (and above) our yield goal. There was no significant difference in yields between the varieties, although Wilken had the lowest, while Great Harvest and Vigoro had the highest yields.

The CNV wheat variety (Seedway 50) is doing well for us so far but might need re-evaluation if weed resistance becomes an issue or if we want to reduce the energy inputs from herbicides used in the no-till system.

b) Oat variety trial
This trial was conducted because the oat variety used in FST in 2008 (‘Spurs’) did not do as well as other varieties in the past. We planted 5 different varieties: Kame, Spurs, Esker, Leonard, and Jerry. Overall, average oat yields in 2009 were very good, between 85 and 104 bu/a with Spurs having the lowest yields and Kame, Esker and Leonard having the highest yields.

In order to reach the yield potential of either of these varieties in FST, we need to improve weed control and fertility (at least in the legume system).

Weed control could possibly be improved by early tine weeding. This could be tested in a separate trial in one of the oat production fields (although weed pressure might not be as high as in FST). In order to increase soil fertility for oats following corn in the legume system, we could set up a trial to test the possibility of over-seeding legumes into corn. This legume would be plowed down the next spring to serve as an N source for oats, eliminating the need to plant a rye cover crop after corn (the over-seeding trial was originally scheduled for 2009 but postponed to 2010 due to staffing and funding shortages).

• FST Advisory Board Meeting 2009 (PowerPoint)
• FST Advisory Board Meeting 2009 (summary notes)

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Beneficiary target:
We still seem to be a long way away from our target, at least according to the numbers we can extract from survey evaluations and direct contacts with farmers or extension agents. However, direct contact with these groups has been limited with this project. After two years, the field days and follow-up surveys got us in touch with less than 100 farmers and extension agents.

On the other hand, we do reach many more people through speaking engagements at various conferences (>3,500 in 2009), farm tours given at Rodale Institute, and through the website (>18,000 viewers of the no-till page in 2009).

Jeff Moyer, Rodale Institute Farm Manager reports that he receives phone calls and emails daily asking for specific information on how to manage cover crops. More and more growers and farmers are seeing the benefits of using cover crops. Farmers who never considered planting them are asking basic questions on what to plant in spring since the wet fall prevented them from getting any fall cover crops planted. Farmers who did plant fall cover crops are looking at innovative practices to manage them this spring, like rolling them for no-till planting. The quests run the gamut from “what species or variety should I be planting and what seeding rate should I use” to the more complex questions of how to judge potential stand survival after snow melt, determine nitrogen contribution or biomass production. It is questions like these, that let us know the work being conducted at Rodale Institute and at other locations, with the goal and objective of training and inspiring farmers, is succeeding.

Unfortunately, we are currently not getting much quantitative feedback on changes that are happening locally and nationally. To resolve this, we will be conducting web surveys on our own website or blogs on eOrganic in order to get more feedback on the changes that farmers or exension agents are making or on the obstacles that prevent them from making any changes.

Research target
Detailed data collection for the different cropping systems in the Farming Systems Trial is on-going to determine energetic efficiency, economic and agronomic performance. We are hoping to do some preliminary analyses of all these sectors in 2010.

Details on 2009 crop results can be found in the attached document.

Plans for 2010
1) Jeff Moyer, Rodale Institute Farm Manager, will be giving a presentation at the PASA conference in February 2010: Innovations in Organic No-Till

2) The next FST Advisory Panel meeting will take on February 19, 2010.

3) Satellite trials to improve rotations and cover crop management in the Farming Systems Trial:
a) Over-seeding of legume cover crops into corn to serve as N source for following oats.
b) Integrating high residue cultivation into the no-till organic production system.

4) Field Day at Tim Bock’s farm to bring organic and non-organic farmers together for a day of cover crops and no-till.

• 2009 FST Crop Summary

Collaborators: