Logan Dwyer of Chetek, Wisconsin, drills diverse cover crops each summer after small grain harvest. While the exact mix changes each year, barley and cereal rye are typically at the base, and he aims to graze the cover crop with his family’s 100 head of beef cattle. “My goals are early fall growth and some overwintering. I don’t want the cover crop brown the next spring, but I don’t want it super lush either,” Logan says. Other species that are a part of Logan’s summer cover crop playbook are red clover, peas, rapeseed and turnips, and he mixes the seed himself on farm.
Don’t lose GDUs: “I like to drill my cover crop as soon as the small grain straw comes off,” Logan says. “That’s typically one week after small grain harvest.” In his neck of the woods, delaying seeding too long will cost him biomass. Depending on the weed pressure in his fields, Logan sometimes makes an in-season burndown pass of glyphosate and Express to help control broadleaves without residual herbicide, which could inhibit his cover crop germination.
Meter carefully: Logan aims for a seeding depth of 1 - 1.25 inches for his cover crop mixes. Seed size varies amongst species, but he hopes that larger seeds can open soil trenches for smaller seeds to emerge. Logan swears by using his Shoup seed meter on the drill to calibrate his seeding rate. And while the drill box can hold enough seed for 30 acres, he’ll only do five acres at a time, which helps ensure his seed stays evenly mixed.
