Integrated Crop Livestock Research in Montana – Challenges and Challenges.

Integrated Crop Livestock Research in Montana – Challenges and Challenges Producer interest in cover cropping is growing in semiarid Montana, as it has across the USA. In 2012, we initiated basic research questions about how eleven different combinations of cover crop species affect soils differentially. That remains a longer-term initiative that will be complete in 2019 after four cycles of cover cropping; thus far, legumes are affecting soils differently than non-legumes, as expected. Interest in engaging cover crops for forage has been an early and consistent theme stated and acted upon by most interested producers. The use of dryland cover crops/green manures in Montana has not changed recently, averaging around 5,300 ha in 2014-2016. However, harvesting of annual crops for forage has increased 42% from 66,000 to 94,000 ha in the same time interval, and grazing of annual crops has nearly doubled from 5,500 to 10,000 ha. Clearly, for cover crop usage to increase in Montana, it must include a livestock component. Coincidentally, CRP area, an important emergency forage stock, has declined from a peak of 1.41 million ha in 2007, to a low of 0.57 million ha in 2016. We will present findings on grazing impacts of sweet clover (biennial) in a 5-yr organic crop rotation, preliminary research examining graze timing in a no-till cropping sequence, and producer experience in grazing cover crops, mainly in irrigated systems.