Cover crops were once touted as a good idea for farms small enough to get them planted in a timely fashion each fall. But, as we told you in part one of this series, now even large-scale farms are getting in on the act – with great results.

Aaron Johnson and older brother Bryan, cousin Doug Johnson and Aaron’s dad Larry, co-owners at River View Farms in Orleans, Ind., are real world examples. Along with corn and soybeans on 3,600 acres, the family raises 8,000 farrow-to-finish sows, 150,000 turkeys, 400,000 layers and 2.5 million pullets. The farm employs nearly 70 people so there’s never a dull moment.

"If you have a cover crop on your farm, you keep those nutrients that you paid for on your farm," says Orleans, Ind., farmer Aaron Johnson.

Last fall the Johnsons were able to put a cover on every acre, in part because of improved equipment. Their local cooperative now has a multi-product variable rate applicator that uses air-flow, not the traditional spinner, to deploy fertilizer or seed. That allows the Johnsons to apply P and K with a variable rate, along with cover crops, in one pass.

The combination of yield monitors, variable rate fertilizer/seed apps and grid soil sampling helped unlock vital information on where to apply nutrients.

“We want to be a least cost producer, so these technologies help us not put fertilizer where we don’t need it,” he says. “And, as we go across the field with the fertilizer rig, it provides a free application to sew the cover crop mix.

“At first people thought I was nuts to have an air flow machine on my farm instead of a spinner,” he adds. “But I wasn't convinced spinners were accurate for N, P or K. The air flow has a fluted meter that meters out the product and blows it out tubes and hits a plate to apply it evenly. So if it does that with seeds, my thought process was, it will also do that with fertilizer.

“Once a lot of our neighbors saw how well those cover crops came up, several won't let a spinner on their farm now either, because they want the more accurate application patterns.”

Cover benefits

The big question for cover crops on larger farms is timing for both planting and cover elimination in spring. But Johnson doesn’t see either as an issue.

“The trend I see in larger farms is, we either get big enough to do it all, or big enough to hire a lot of it out,” he says. “In my case I can pay the co-op and they have the manpower and the machine.”

Lower commodity prices might cause some farmers to avoid cover crops, but Johnson says the practice is too valuable to his bottom line.

“On a soil test you have 2 million pounds of soil in the top 6 inches of an acre of farm,” he explains. “If a soil test comes back 140 to 150 ppm of phosphorus, that's the actual phosphorus in the ground and it’s tied up and unavailable. Cover crops can break those bonds and make unavailable nutrients available to your crop. The deep rooting covers will go down and capture nutrients that have leached down over time and pull those to the top. So if you're aware of these things you should see lower fertilizer costs.

“Next, look at organic matter – it is water holding ability. If you can hold an extra inch of water, especially in a drought, it means a lot. Why do they want buffer strips around lakes and rivers? It's because that growing material captures so much of that extra fertilizer. If you have a cover crop on your farm, you keep those nutrients that you paid for on your farm.”

Weed suppression is another advantage, he says. “I have definitely been able to control several of the Roundup Resistant weeds, like marestail, by smothering them.”

Trying new practices and technology has always been a family tradition with the Johnsons, ever since Aaron's great grandfather settled this farm years ago. That willingness to try something new will pay off in better soil health for the next generation to farm this land.