Tiny Cover Crops Have More Power Than You Think

By: Tom J Bechman

Joe Rorick dug up a clump of cereal rye cover crop plants. Then he poked through the soil, going down 4 to 5 inches. He found plenty of tiny roots already growing beneath the surface, even though the plants were only a couple of inches tall and just over a month old.

“This is a perfect example of how a cover crop can produce roots that grow through the soil and help microorganisms, too,” he said. Rorick is a conservation agronomist with the Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative, or CCSI. He travels Indiana answering questions for farmers interested in conservation tillage and cover crops.

Rorick dug up the cereal rye plants on the Boone County demonstration site near Lebanon, Ind., to show how cereal rye plants, even planted late, can produce roots. Cool temperatures had limited top growth so far.