As herbicide-resistant weeds continue to be a growing problem for farmers across the U.S., more and more producers are turning to a “growing solution.”

A new report from Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education says that a survey of 2,012 farmers nationwide showed acreage planted in cover crops has nearly doubled over the past five years, not only to get better soil health, but also to help control stubborn weeds.

For Barber County farmer Chris Boyd, the weed control may be more important that even the soil biological benefits.

Boyd says he plans to plant cover crops in February with a goal of having them up and growing to protect his field from the invasive weeds that crop up later in the spring.

In 2016, he aerial-seeded cover crops just ahead of corn harvest and grazed them through the winter. He says that the corn crop he planted behind the cover crops required only one herbicide application while other fields needed three to get good weed control.

Boyd says he had less luck attempting to plant cover crops behind wheat to keep the ground covered during the heat of summer.

“We just got too hot and dry, and cover crops didn’t grow,” he says. “It’s even worse if you don’t have a clean field right after harvest. A lot of years, we have problems with late-season weeds in the wheat, and you need a burndown to plant anything. Then you have a two- or three-week wait before a cover crop will germinate because of the herbicide residual effect. By that time, moisture is gone, and you don’t get a cover going.”

Boyd says he prefers to think of his winter wheat crop as a cover crop for late-planted cash crops and plants corn, soybeans or milo behind wheat.

“I have found that works a lot better than trying to plant a cover crop after wheat harvest,” he says. “I’d like to try in some years to plant forage cover after wheat harvest and have that available to graze cattle right at fall calving season. But our climate seems more geared to late-winter and early-spring cover crops and fall row crop. And, if you plant wheat for that cover crop, you have two harvests a year.”

He says the rapid development of herbicide resistance has been one of his biggest worries, and he is encouraged that cover crops may be a valuable tool in keeping resistant weeds at bay.

Among the famers surveyed by SARE, 69% of respondents said that cover crops always or sometimes improved control of herbicide-resistance weeds and 85% reported improvements in soil health, according to Rob Myers, regional director of Extension programs for north-central SARE at the University of Missouri.

Kansas grower Boyd says he is planning to plant a mix of oats, rapeseed and radishes in February of next year and plans on planting corn in April.

He says he will be planting all dicamba-tolerant soybeans, although he is concerned about seeing dicamba resistance in a year or so.

He says he plans on keeping a close eye on the combine yield monitor to see just how much damage he incurred from dicamba, although his experience last year was that the damaged beans yielded just as well, or in some cases better, than undamaged beans.

He says he planted one pivot of regular Roundup Ready beans because of agronomic issues with the soil in that field and concern about whether the genetics in the dicamba-tolerant beans were right for that field.

It was that field where he noticed the most damage from dicamba drift.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how the yield was impacted,” he says. “I have a lot more damage this year than I did last year.”