Thinking of experimenting with cover crops or reduced tillage? What to know about N availability

University of Minnesota Extension Northwest Research and Outreach Center specialist Lindsay Pease talks to the Red River Farm Network about nitrogen availability with cover crop residue and reduced tillage practices.

transcript

Red River Farm Network: This is the Soil Fertility Minute brought to you by the Agricultural Fertilizer Research and Education Council. Our guest is University of Minnesota Extension Northwest Research and Outreach Center specialist, doctor Lindsay Pease.

Lindsay Pease: A lot of farmers thinking about experimenting with different tillage strategies or adding a cover crop. When you do that, you’re gonna leave a lot more crop residue on the soil surface. We were wondering how that extra residue affected soil nitrogen availability.

We’ve been tracking the nitrogen, you know, in our conventional tillage plots and strip tillage plots both with and without cover crops. And the good news is that the extra residue at the soil surface does not look to be affecting the nitrogen availability, especially early in the growing season, you know, the yields come back much the same, in all the systems.

Residue management in the spring, particularly making sure that cover crop is terminated in a timely manner before it reaches boot stage definitely is much more important than how much nitrogen you’ve applied.

RRFN: AFREC is a farmer led program advancing soil fertility research. Find out more at mnsoilfertility.com.