April 12, 2022
Benefits of cover crops can include improved weed control, reduced herbicide inputs, increased water infiltration and improvement of soil health and water quality.[1–3] Adequate cover crop growth is needed to maximize these benefits, but the window of time for such growth is limited by federal crop insurance rules. When asked about his motivation to conduct this trial, Sam Bennett replied, “To contribute to a dataset that shows that planting soybeans into living rye and terminating that rye up to a month after planting will have no effect on soybean yield and will benefit weed control. I’d like to see RMA [USDA Risk Management Agency] remove the restrictions on cover crop termination dates as they apply to soybean crop insurance eligibility.” Read more…
