Cover Crop Summit

Here are two excellent videos that represent very well what we saw at the CTIC Cover Crop Summit in Ft. Wayne, Indiana November 20-21, 2013.  The first shows what Mike  Werling does on his farm near Decatur, Indiana.  The second video discusses the tiling controversy in northwest Ohio where the Great Black Swamp was drained.

The tour visited:

 

• Allen Dean Farm, Bryan, Ohio
• Whiteshire Hamroc Farms, Albion, Ind.
• Jamie Scott Farm, Pierceton, Ind.
• Mike Werling Farm, Decatur, Ind.

 

At each operation, producers discussed how they began with cover crops, their approach to using cover crops, benefits of using the cover crops and what they’ve learned about cover crops since they began.

 

The summit caps off CTIC’s Great Lakes Cover Crop Initiative, in which producers in the Great Lakes Basin planted 27,454 acres of cover crops and helped reduce the amount of nutrients making its way into the lakes.

 

The whole Summit was quite informative from Allen Dean's Nitro cover crop seeder to Jamie Scott's plots on his farm.  The swine farm showed how they use cover crops to keep 6 million gallons of swine manure annually in their soils and out of streams.  Mike and Allen's soil pit showed the change in soil quality from their cover crops and Mike's video has some really good footage on how a one man operation can make all repairs and planter improvements while farming no-till with cover crops.

 

I highly recommend the two videos, they are expertly done with great footage.  I hope this gives you a "taste" of all the things we saw and learned at the Summit.

 

Hat's off to the CTIC crew for putting on such fact finding tours.

 

Ed Winkle