Cover Crop Essentials: Expanding cohort-based virtual learning and resources to support emerging practices

Commodities

Practices

• Crop Production: cover crops
• Education and Training: decision support system, extension

Cover crops have public and on-farm benefits known to decrease erosion and nutrient loss, reducing surface water contamination and saving farmers valuable fertilizer inputs. They require adaptive management and as such, most farmers need technical service and educational resources. The Midwest Cover Crops Council (MCCC) will provide professional development on cover crop management for educators, including Extension, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), and industry. A pillar of MCCC's mission is to support a network of conservation professionals, and this proposal is no different. Each of the activities in this project seek to increase knowledge and the professional network of participants. This network will serve educators with conservation practices beyond cover cropping.

The highlighted activity of this project is to expand Cover Crop Essentials, a self-paced virtual cover crops course for early career educators. This course is unique in that it is cohort-based to facilitate networking and includes hands-on activities in a demo plot with seed shipped to all participants. The updated course will include an in-person component for educators near a central location. To guide updates to management recommendations in the cover crop decision tool, MCCC board members from four states will host meetings for cover crop experts. In one of the meetings, Michigan vegetable specialists will develop cover crop recommendations for vegetable crop rotations. Early interseeding, an emerging practice, will be incorporated into the decision tool when appropriate. MCCC will produce approximately five Cover Crop Chronicles episodes detailing Midwest farmer motivations and practices.

Activity 1 - Cover Crop Essentials

MCCC will offer Cover Crop Essentials to two cohorts of twenty participants each of three project years. This will be a total of 40 participants each year or 120 for the duration of the project. Candidates must apply for the course to ensure they are Midwest educators (Extension, NRCS, SWCD, industry). In past cohorts, participants with limited cover crop experience were preferentially accepted. These are the candidates that will receive the most benefit from the program, and must be enforced to ensure that cohorts are small enough to encourage participation. Each cohort will be selected to have a variety of geography, experience, and organizations represented which enriches cohort discussion and network building.

A subset of a cohort will include approximately 10-15 participants each year from the same regional geography to take part in an in-person field demo day. These participants will be recruited specifically for the in-person event and their ability to attend.

Activity 2 - Decision Tool

MCCC will update data in three state cover crop decision tools. The outputs of this activity are twofold. Updates to the decision tool itself serve as educational material freely available to farmers, educators, and advisors. The process of updating the material serves as professional development for the cover crop experts involved. Decision tool update meeting invitations will be extended to cover crop experts across the state including Extension specialists, educators, NRCS, SWCD, seedsmen, and farmers with strong cover crop experience. The number of experts in these meetings varies by state, but we plan for 12-15 per state. With this estimate we will provide professional development to approximately 40 cover crop specialists across three states. The discussion that takes place in these sessions allows experts to share their experience and deepen knowledge.

In addition to the three decision tool updates, MCCC will verify practice recommendations with state specialists for early interseeding of cover crops for a minimum of two states (Ohio and Iowa). MCCC will expand the winter survivability goal for at least one state (Ohio). This will also require experts to share their experiences with various cover crop species and document their expertise in the cover crop decision tool.

MCCC will follow the same process as the decision tool for row crops to update the data in the decision tool for Michigan vegetable producers. This will strengthen networking and cover crop knowledge for vegetable specialists as it does for row crop specialists and document recommendations for vegetable producers in the state.

Activity 3 - Cover Crop Chronicles

MCCC will produce 1-2 episodes of this video series per year, with a goal of five episodes over the course of the project. These videos, which will also be posted as audio-only files for a podcast experience, will support educators and farmers alike. They will highlight success stories and how farmers worked with advisors to overcome challenges with hopes of sparking creative problem solving and collaboration.