Planting Green: Delayed Cover Crop Termination As a Tool for Soil Conservation, Water Management, and IPM.

Delaying cover crop termination until cash crop planting (planting green) instead of two weeks prior is a novel management practice used by some Pennsylvania no-till farmers to protect soil and improve soil health, manage soil moisture, and reduce slug damage to cash crops. Allowing cover crops to live longer allows for more biomass accumulation, and we hypothesized that this would: increase soil residue cover, reduce soil moisture and temperature at planting but conserve soil moisture later in the growing season, increase beneficial arthropod populations and reduce slug and pest feeding on cash crops, and have no effect on cash crop yield. A study was performed from 2015-2017 at 5 locations in central and southeastern Pennsylvania to test these hypotheses and quantify the effects of planting green on corn and soybeans under a range of weather conditions, cover crops, equipment, and agronomic management strategies. Cover crop biomass, soil moisture and temperature, beneficial arthropod and slug activity-density and predation, insect and slug injury to cash crops, cash crop populations, and grain yield were measured. Planting soybeans green was successful, with increased erosion protection and residue cover, reduced slug feeding on soybean seedlings in 2016 and no influence on soybean yield in 8 of 9 site-years (2017 data unavailable at this time). Planting green dried soil at planting and conserved moisture later in the growing season—however, this was problematic in the dry 2015 spring. Planting green revealed additional challenges of lowered soil temperature, delayed cash crop emergence and maturity, reduced cash crop populations (especially in 2015), increased slug feeding on corn in 2016, and reduced corn yield 3 of 8 site-years following rye, and 2 of 4 site-years following crimson clover.