Improved Management of Rye Cover Crops for Organic Soybean Production

Improved Management of Rye Cover Crops for Organic Soybean Production

Summary

Don DeWeerd of Pipestone, Minnesota, has been farming organically since 1977. With a new $16,150 grant from the SARE program, DeWeerd and two other researchers will now use their expertise to discover important new information that could be used by countless other sustainable farmers.

DeWeerd’s project seeks to improve winter rye cover crop management in a soybean production system. This project is incredibly important for organic farmers, DeWeerd points out, because “for many organic producers, soybean is our most profitable crop.”

DeWeerd’s research aims to find the best way to use rye in a soybean field. To do this, five different methods will be tested at three farms in southwestern Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. Other farmers assisting in the research include Joe and Richard Rolling, who farm on 197 acres in southwest Minnesota, and Neal Ronning, who grows a variety of organic crops and raises livestock on 960 acres.

The grant money will be used for on-farm experiments, on-farm demonstrations, and educational tools that will communicate their findings to other farmers and the public. Because they will receive assistance from Matt Harbur at the University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center, their results will also be published on the Center’s organic agriculture web site at http://swroc.coafes.umn.edu/

In order to improve winter rye cover crop management in an organic soybean production system, the project will alter planting dates and rye control methods on three different farms with four treatment strips and a control strip on each farm. Rye will be used for erosion control and weed suppression.