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Deer Park, WI

Those of you who have employed multi year cover crop rotations as a means to recharge your soil and/or combat disease pressure, will you please share your rotation considerations?

5/12/2014 9:41:30 AM

Belgium

Tagetes, mustard, red clover,Italian ryegrass

5/12/2014 3:59:24 PM

Anamosa, IA BPIowegian@aol.com

No experience in a pumpkin patch, but 30 years experience working with farmers in production agriculture. The farmers around here with poorer or steeper soils prefer an alfalfa/grass mix to rest and recharge their soil. Alfalfa is very deep rooted to pull up micronutrients from the subsoil as well as to add nitrogen. It doesn't make a dense sod for erosion control, so they add either brome grass,orchard grass or timothy. I never liked orchard as it is a bunch grass. If you use alfalfa and grass you can mow it 2 or 3 times a year to keep it from going to seed and compost it. Alfalfa is very difficult to kill with tillage. A late summer mowing, a month of re-growth and an application of glyphosate (Roundup) kills it easily. The winter freeze-thaw cycle will help loosen the soil. Alfalfa and most grasses are compatible with mycorrhizae, so if you inoculate the seed/soil you can build up a lot of myco in your soil. You might want to follow a late summer roundup with a fall rye to keep the myco going into the pumpkin season. If you start out your cover crop rotation with mustard for disease control, you can do a summer seeding with straight alfalfa. That will allow the alfalfa to establish without competition. Timothy would work well to frost seed the following spring without having to till. If you spring seed alfalfa, you might want to consider a companion crop of oats to help hold down weed competition. Don't seed alfalfa with rye, as the rye roots put out natural chemicals that will hurt alfalfa emergence.

5/14/2014 4:48:15 PM

Paradise Mountain, New York

I plant oats early. Then when there about 8-10 inches high, I till them under. I wait maybe a week and till again. Then I'll wait for a cloud/overcast day and spread couple pounds of Mycorr. Then till in deep. Plant alfalfa and won't turn it under to the next spring. Been doing it a few years now and it's working good. Mt rotation is every other year.

5/14/2014 10:16:51 PM