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Cover crop benefits with spring moisture

A farmer in southeastern Minnesota is hopeful cover crops will help him return to spring fieldwork sooner following recent rains.

Ed McNamara of Goodhue says cover crops dry the soil out.

“It basically acts like a dehumidifier because as the plant is green and growing, it’s sucking moisture out. So any moisture that you get, it’s removing moisture into that plant material.”

He tells Brownfield the flipside is once the cover crop is terminated, all that moisture becomes available.

“It also forms a thatch to help keep the soils from drying out when we get dry, and also there’s more pour space in the soil when the roots are dying for water to store in that soil profile.”

McNamara says he considers planting green, which is seeding a cash crop into a standing cover crop, a hedge against weather extremes.