Cover crop walks in Berks, Northampton and Montgomery County were well attended by farmers interested to learn more about cover crops. There is a good deal of interest in cover crops and farmers were happy to see new species and interested to hear about the advantages and challenges. It is good to see interest in cover crops because they cross many different production styles and management, field crop and vegetable grower and organic and non organic growers alike.

Had a discussion today about very late seeding of rye for straw production. We concluded based on our reading and discussions with colleagues that even a late December seeding would germinate and be vernailized to produce a rye crop next spring. Obviously this is not the best way to seed cover crops, but sometimes seems to be the only option following late corn and soybean crops in a wet fall. Does any one have any first hand experience with this late seeding of rye?

Greg

In the Fall of 2008 and Spring of 2009 about 10 coordinated cover crop strip demonstrations were planted in South Central PA on participating farms. We observed some interesting trends in winter hardiness and spring termination. A detailed description along with lots of great comparison photos are available at: http://cmeg.psu.edu/cover_crop/

Jeff Graybill, CCA Agronomy Educator, PSU Lancaster Co. Cooperative Extension Service

Our summer cover crops were mostly terminated by the cold weather last week and downed by the earliest snow in history recorded in our area.

Find more photos like this on Pennsylvania Cover Crop Network
The newspaper noted that the earliest snow was recorded in State College on October 18th, 1901, and last week's snow started on October 15th. We were also hit by a good killing frost - at lea… Continue