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Cover crops reduce herbicide costs, improve weed control

Ag economist and farmer Alan Weber says planting cereal rye in the fall ahead of soybean planting has helped manage herbicide resistant weeds in the next growing season.

“Marestail, waterhemp and maybe it’s not a true hinderance, but we have a lot of winter annual weeds like henbit on our farm in Pettis County.”

He tells Brownfield the cereal rye is terminated after soybean planting.

“We’ve changed to planting green and will plant into standing rye and then, the next day, we’ll spray a burndown application.”

Weber says in the first few years of using cover crops, his farm had a 30 to 40 percent reduction in weeds. Cover crops have also helped him save money by reducing the need for more herbicides.

“We’re typically a two-pass system where we have a burndown, plant no-till and have a post-emergence spray on soybeans,” says Weber. “In that initial burndown, the weed control we get from cover crops has allowed us to reduce the amount of herbicides or chemistry we’ve included in the tank mix.”

He says that alone has offset the cost of cover crop seed. However “we do make a point of scouting every field and when we are able to reduce costs, it’s not every field every year. It’s a field-by-field situation and I strongly encourage everyone scout individual fields.”

Brownfield interviewed Weber at the Missouri Soybeans Cover Crop Field Day in mid-Missouri.