Activities in Iowa (cont.)

Cover Crops Program at the USDA-ARS National Soil Tilth Laboratory

The Iowa Learning Farm (ILF)

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI)

The cover crop program at Leopold Center

The Cover Crops Program at the USDA-ARS National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa is directed at incorporating winter cover crops and living mulches into production agricultural systems in the upper Midwest, which are mostly corn and soybean based.  To do this, our program has and will continue to document the environmental and soil productivity benefits of cover crops in production agricultural systems and will develop new management strategies to address the problems and costs of incorporating cover crops into these systems.  Our winter cover crop research has concentrated mostly on the small grains; spring oats, winter rye, winter wheat, and winter triticale.  Our living mulch projects have used a variety of species including: forage grasses, turf grasses, forage legumes, and small grains.  Our past studies have measured the effects of cover crops on soil carbon, erosion, and nitrate leaching.  Other studies have looked at overseeding small grains into soybean at leaf drop, reseeding of small grain cover crops by allowing some of the cover crop to produce seeds, and the impact of various living mulch species on insects, weeds, and main crop yields.  Ongoing studies are examining living mulches in corn systems with stover removal for bioenergy and differences among winter cereal cover crop varieties for biomass production and effect on corn yield.

Visit their website here.

The Iowa Learning Farm (ILF)  is a statewide initiative, begun in 2005, involving farmer cooperators, agency partners, and project personnel. The goals of this initiative include:

To build a Culture of Conservation that strengthens our individual and collective commitments to a set of values, beliefs, and attitudes about the centrality of natural resources to our standard of living and quality of life

• Demonstrate field trials so producers can evaluate agronomic and economic information, share local wisdom, and provide a place where "seeing is believing"
• Utilize locally-led networks
• Conduct a state-wide educational program on the importance of residue management
• Perform water quality modeling for estimating pollutant load reductions
• Offer educational materials related to the social, agronomic, environmental and economic aspects of residue management and other conservation practices.

Visit their website here.

Practical Farmers of Iowa (PFI) is a non-profit, educational organization that began in 1985 and has over 700 members in Iowa and neighboring states. Their mission is to research, develop and promote profitable, ecologically sound and community-enhancing approaches to agriculture. They carry out diverse programs to assist farmers with both production and marketing needs, to raise public awareness of where food comes from and how it is grown, and to educate youth about agriculture and the environment.

PFI supports a number of on-farm farmer-conducted research projects and field days to address practical questions raised by their members. Currently, projects are being developed to address how cover crops compete with weeds and how to control weeds in cover crops.  Additionally, they are trying to determine which cover crop species work best on individual farms.

Their key to success has been our on-farm research program which has conducted over 600 experiments since 1987 and helped farmers answer questions about their farming systems. Twenty-six farmers have conducted cover crop research projects since 1987.

Below is a list of questions they've asked:

• 1987 Began winter cover crop experiments for: weed control, nitrogen production, soil-improving qualities, ground cover and erosion control

• 1988-2007 26 farmer cooperators conduct cover crop experiments to test:
• Methods and time of seeding
• Winter cover crops or brassicas planted before and after corn and soybeans; effect on cash crop yield
• Cover crops species assessment: rye, vetch, oats, canola, medic
• Cover crop effect on weed populations
• Cereal rye on ridges
• Herbicide versus cover crop for weed control
• Nitrogen variability with conventional tillage compared to ridge-till with and without herbicides
• Fallow versus cover crop effect on quackgrass in corn
• Flame weeding and cover crops for weed control

• 2008 Assessment of winter cereal grain establishment and spring grazing potential in a corn on corn system

The cover crop program at Leopold Center is part of the ecology initiative, which supports a wide range of research and demonstration anchored in the development of ecologically friendly production systems, systems that are more resilient and less costly to farmers, communities and the environment. This includes identifying how farming practices can use free ecosystem services, enhance biodiversity, and use natural processes as models to increase agricultural productivity.  The Leopold Center also manages the Iowa Learning Farm network that has had and will have on-farm cover crop demonstrations.

Adobe Reader is required to view all pdf documents. To download, visit get.adobe.com/reader/.