Ontario Grain Farmer April/May 2021

ONTARIO GRAIN FARMER 27 APRIL/MAY 2021 The experiments involve a corn-soybean rotation with two cover crop treatments (no cover crop and cereal rye) and a corn-soybean- wheat rotation with six cover crop treatments (no cover crop, underseeded red clover, oat, oat/radish/crimson clover drilled, 10-way, and 10-way/cereal rye). N rate effect is also being studied as 50 pounds of N per acre is applied to some plots. “The main questions we have are about the long term effects of implementing a cover crop strategy. There is very little data in the literature looking at various cover crop intensities in the long term, but this is what growers need,” says Hooker. In the first four years of the trials, he has found no evidence that cover crops increase corn yield or that cover crop mixtures outperform monocultures. Applying N after wheat has shown to increase above ground cover crop biomass by an average of 50 per cent, increase the N in the cover crop biomass and reduce the carbon-to-N ratio. Farmers could also grow red clover or apply manure to ensure the cover crop is not N deficient, he says. “There are other studies showing us that if you don’t want to grow winter wheat, maybe grow something else in the fall as a cover crop,” says Raizada. “Just the N benefit alone is really significant and perhaps there is this resiliency benefit. We know the climate is changing and we have increased hot and dry periods in the summer. What a great potential insurance policy this is and perhaps cover crops do represent the future for us here in Ontario.” l 1-833-632-7637 | AgraCity.com CANADA’S LARGEST SELECTION OF AFFORDABLE CROP INPUTS CROP PROTECTION CROP NUTRITION A New Era of Affordable + Performance is Coming! This article is based on information provided during a session of the Ontario Agricultural Conference. Grain Farmers of Ontario was a sponsor of this conference.