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Heavy rain in Southwest Michigan highlights benefits of cover crops, MSU says

Conservation research at Michigan State University is helping to understand what management practices are needed to handle wetter springs.

Director of MSU’s Long-Term Agroecosystem Project Phil Robertson tells Brownfield, “Unlike elsewhere, we’re not getting less precipitation.”

 “We’re getting a bit more precipitation, and more importantly, that precipitation is coming in bigger events, bigger rainfall events, bigger storms,” he says. “We’ve certainly seen that in Southwest Michigan.”

The Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners has received more than 15 inches of rain since the beginning of March, with several intense downpours.

Robertson says areas with cover crops and no-till are noticeably different.

“It’s hard to detect that there’s been any unusual water movement, just because the water seems to be soaked up and infiltrated into the drainage very quickly,” he says.

He says fields under conventional management have had significant soil erosion, and planting will be delayed up to two more weeks because of the wetter soils.