Integrating Cover Crop into a Continuous Corn Production System.

Sustainability is becoming the key to maintain crop profitability in modern agriculture. The use of non-renewable resources in agricultural production is likely to limit where food will likely be grown within 100 years. In the US corn-belt region corn is still grown in a monocropping system and cover crop has the potential to help adding diversity into this system. Cover crops may improve growing conditions in many different ways; it can improve soil organic mater and physical properties; it can bring nutrient from subsurface horizon to near the root zone of plants; and it can also provide physical protection against erosion during the early spring days when the primary crop is not growing. The challenge for cover crop in Minnesota is the establishment due to the cold falls and cold and wet springs. This study investigated a few different aspects of adding cover crop into a continuous corn system. Treatments included corn residue removal compared with no residue removal, cover crop and no cover crop, tillage and no till, and also cover crop in a soybean-corn rotation system. The cover crop planted was a mixture of rye and hairy vetch. The experiment was set up in a randomized block design and replicated four times. We are currently measuring cover crop emergence and will evaluate corn and soybean yield at the end of the season.