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

The goals of this project are to 1) increase cover crop use and decrease herbicide use among non-organic farmers, 2) increase adoption of rotational tillage among organic farmers, and 3) foster communication and information sharing among organic, sustainable, and conventional farmers in the Northeast to encourage development of innovative farming systems that require less labor, less tillage, and fewer energy and fertilizer inputs.

• Progress on the project was reported in two on-line articles, reaching a total of 1,492 readers.

• 50 conference participants learned about cover crop and no-till activities via a talk and PowerPoint presentation at the 5th Annual Organic Grain & Hay Production Meeting, in Centreville, Maryland.

• 30 people attended the 3rd field day in August 2010 at Wills Daal Farm in Kutztown, PA . Tim and Anne Bock made their farm available for a farmer-to-farmer learning exchange regarding organic no-till for corn and soybeans. 9 out of 10 people attending the field day said that as a result of the field day they will change or adopt a new practice in the next two years.

• The third FST Advisory Panel meeting took place on February 19, 2010. The main focus of the meeting were outstanding deliverables for the project. We received valuable suggestions from the panel members on how to proceed with the energetic and economic analsyes and how to best disseminate results.

• A trial with no-till soybeans planted into a rolled rye cover crop was set up to test the high residue cultivator. Results from this trial were very promising (reduced weed biomass and increased yields with the cultivator) and we will continue our efforts to improve weed management strategies with the high residue cultivator in organic no-till systems.

• For the on-farm portion of this grant we will focus on monitoring soil carbon content on local farms before and after conversion to conservation practices, using our newly developed mobile field lab.

• Data collection for the energetic and economic analysis of the different cropping systems in the Farming Systems Trial is on-going. We signed a collaborator agreement with the Pennsylvania State University to conduct the portion of the energetic analysis for this project.

• Work on a manuscpript to be submitted for peer-reviewed publication was started in September 2010.

• For the last year of the project we will concentrate our efforts on conducting web surveys on our own website or blogs on eOrganic to get qualitative and quantitative feedback from farmers and extension agents.

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.

Milestones reached:

Milestone 1 –1350 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.

Project updates were summarized in two on-line articles, posted in May and September 2010:

1) Wise counsel guides Rodale Institute organic farming research (May 2010), http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100405_nfr_Wise-counsel-guides-Rodale-Institute-organic-farming-research

2) Tillage and Toxins (Sept. 2010),
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100917_tillage-and-toxins

Tracking records for our website show that we exceeded the milestone goal of reaching 1,350 people: The two articles had a total of 1,492 unique viewers (as of November 30, 2010).

Milestone 2 – 50 conference participants learn about cover crop/no-till activities and outcomes via a talk and PowerPoint presentation

Jeff Moyer gave a presentation on March 9, 2010 at the 5th Annual Organic Grain & Hay Production Meeting, in Centreville, MD: “Weed Control, Reduced Tillage, Soil Fertility and Marketing”.

This milestone was reached. 50 people attended the presentation.

Milestone 3 – 50 Farmers, educators, and researchers learn about project findings at 3rd field day hosted by 1 of the original 20 beneficiaries receiving cover crop seed.

This milestone was not fully reached: About 30 people attended the field day on Wills Daal Farm in Kutztown, PA on August 5, 2010. For more details see the article
Tillage and Toxins (Sept. 2010), http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20100917_tillage-and-toxins

• Wise counsel guides Rodale Institute organic research
• Tillage and Toxins

Accomplishments/Milestones

Each of the three milestones listed for 2010 focused on presenting and outreaching information to farmers, extension agents and the general public. We reached the goals for milestones 1 and 2 but did not quite reach our goal for milestone 3 (30 instead of 50 people attended the field day).
The original proposal did not list a milestone timeline for various other accomplishments of this project. Therefore, besides from the milestones listed above, the following is an overview of additional endeavors from last year:

a) Advisory Panel Meeting
The Advisory panel for the Farming Systems Trial (FST) meets annually and 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 third Advisory Panel meeting took place on February 19, 2010.

After an overview of the Farming Systems Trial and the results from 2009, we focused on specific challenges encountered during the 2009 growing season (weed pressure in organic oats and soybeans, nitrogen deficiency in corn etc.) as well as outstanding deliverables for the project. We received valuable suggestions from the panel members on how to proceed with the energetic and economic analsyes and how to best disseminate results.
Suggestions included:
• setting up a meeting with Tom Richard (Penn State) to learn about the energy model they use; maybe arrange an agreement with one of Tom Richard’s graduate students to conduct the energy analysis;
• using the Mississippi State Budget Generator and help from Jay Harper and Bill Curran (both Penn State professors) to conduct our own economic analysis;
• engage extension agents by participating in in-service trainings, sending out information for extension newsletters and holding a specific workshop for extension agents.

The next Advisory Panel meeting will take place in February 2011. At this meeting we will review the results from 2010 and discuss challenges, possible improvements and necessary actions to wrap up the project.

b) Trials to refine FST rotations and systems
In the 2009 report we suggested satellite trials to improve rotations and cover crop management in the Farming Systems Trial. This season we conducted the following trials:

B1) Over-seeding of legume cover crops into corn to serve as N source for the following oats:
This trial was set up in a field adjacent to FST and cover crops were over-seeded into a standing corn crop. However, due to the pro-longed drought in 2010, none of the cover crops emerged. We might be able to repeat this trial in 2011 but we will not be able to determine cover crop effects on oats until 2012, after this project is concluded.

B2) Integrating high residue cultivation into the no-till organic production system:
A factorial trial with no-till soybeans planted into a rolled rye cover crop was set up to test the high residue cultivator. Treatments included:
• Control (no supplemental weed management)
• High residue cultivator 4 & 5 weeks after planting
• High residue cultivator 5 & 6 weeks after planting
• High residue cultivator 7 & 8 weeks after planting
• Mowing 3 weeks after planting
• Mowing 5 weeks after planting
• Mowing 3 & 5 weeks after planting
• Hand weeding

Key observations in this trial were:
• Mowing the weeds did not reduce the amount of weeds whereas the high residue cultivator did. In terms of soybean yields, the high residue cultivation treatment at 5 and 6 weeks after planting yielded the best, comparable to yields achieved by hand weeding (34 bu/a vs. 28 bu/a in the Control treatment).
• More detailed data analysis for this trial is still underway but results are very promising and we will continue our efforts to improve weed management strategies with the high residue cultivator in organic no-till systems.

c) On-farm research
Changes to the original plan of work:
The original plan of work 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 cover crop effects on total soil carbon and active organic carbon 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 took positions with different institutions. Lastly, advisory board soil scientist, Ray Weil, advised that narrative-style feedback from farmers 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 three-year timeframe of the project).
Last year we proposed to make changes to the original plan of work by collecting data from cover crop demonstration plots on local farms. However, as 2010 progressed, a revised approach seemed more sensible: With funding from another agency, we were able to develop a mobile field laboratory that allows us to effectively measure soil carbon more quickly and inexpensively than is possible with existing technologies. Thus, we suggest using this newly developed technology for this SARE grant, taking the equipment directly to farms to conduct on-site soil carbon analysis. We will focus particularly on monitoring the carbon content of soil (total carbon and active organic carbon) before and after conversion to conservation practices like cover cropping or no-till. If funding allows we will also add on the Cornell soil health test, which will enable us to get more insight about the effects of different practices on overall soil health.

For the remaining year of the project, the main on-farm activities will therefore include an initial site assessment, followed by a baseline sampling, and then follow-up sampling at the end of 2011. We began the initial sampling in November 2010 on several local farms and are hoping to continue this baseline sampling on as many farms as possible.

We plan to assess outcomes from this new work through brief online farmer surveys or in-person interviews. Outcomes will also be presented in newsletter-type publications posted on the Rodale Institute website or the eOrganic site, and in the planned technical bulletin.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Beneficiary target:
Tim and Anne Bock who participated in our Field Day in 2008 were so intrigued by the no-till roller/crimper technology that they decided to purchase their own roller for their organic farm. After two years of using the roller for soybeans planted into rolled rye they are now so pleased with this system in terms of weed control, labor reduction and, last but not least, yields, that they decided to use this system from now on and not grow soybeans with tillage any more.
Tim and Anne Bock hosted 2010 on-farm Field Day and their soybean fields planted with the no-till roller system seemed to convince other farmers of the potential of this technology, too. In a post-field day survey, 9 out of 10 people said that as a result of the field day they will change or adopt a new practice in the next two years.

Aside from the above mentioned outcome, we have to re-iterate our statement from last year: We still seem to be a long way from our beneficiary target of 50 farmers adopting cover crops and other project-promoted technologies, 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 three 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 off-site speaking engagements at various conferences and trade shows (>15,000 in 2010), farm tours given at Rodale Institute (400 people for custom tours plus over 2,000 general visitors in 2010), and through the website (>18,000 unique viewers of just the no-till page in 2010).

Also, the demand for the roller/crimper based on sales information from one local manufacturer can help us quantify how many farmers are implementing this technology. Jake Blank, owner of I&J manufacturing, shared his most recent sales numbers with us, indicating that they sold approximately 40 rollers (various sizes) in 2010, have sold over 100 in the last three years and are taking advance orders for 2011. These numbers do not include other manufactures, people who built their own roller or farmers who rent or share equipment.

We will therefore concentrate our efforts for the last year of the project on conducting web surveys on our own website or blogs on eOrganic. These will hopefully get us qualitative and quantitative feedback from farmers and extension agents on changes that are happening locally and nationally or on the obstacles that prevent them from making any changes.

Research target
Detailed data collection to determine energetic efficiency, economic and agronomic performance for FST’s different cropping systems is on-going. We signed a collaborator agreement with the Pennsylvania State University to have graduate student Gustavo Camargo conduct the portion of the energetic analysis for this project. So far he has received initial data and put together first tables. All analyses are scheduled to be finalized in 2011.

Work on a manuscpript to be submitted for peer-reviewed publication was started in September 2010.

Plans/ remaining tasks for 2011
1. FST Advisory Panel meeting in February 2011.
2. On-farm soil sampling
3. On-line surveys and farmer interviews
4. Continued data collection in FST for energetic and economic analysis
5. Write technical bulletin
6. Work on technical manuscript

Collaborators: