By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent EAST PEORIA, Ill. — Call 2019 the Year of the Spring Storms, as well as the Year of the Cover Crop. With total U.S. prevent-plant acreage expected to shatter the old record of 3.6 million in 2013, farmers are showing much greater interest in cover crops. This is because of unplanted acreage as well as the introduction of federal and state incentive programs designed to offset the cost of establishing and maintaining cover. “The response from farmers wanting to know about cover crops and which cover crops to plant in a prevent-plant situation is higher than I have seen in a very long time,” said Pete Fandel, cover crop expert and professor of agriculture for Illinois Central College. “With the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) cover crop incentive program rewarding farmers, there has definitely been an uptick in interest this year.” University of Illinois agricultural economist Todd Hubbs is projecting as many as 15 million-18 million prevent-plant acres will be counted across the United States. This is a dramatically higher estimate than many analysts have offered to date, and would drop total projected U.S. corn acreage to approximately 85.2 million-86 million acres, Hubbs said. USDA’s projection is for 91.7 million corn acres. A truer portrait of total prevent-plant acres will not be available until October, when more detailed numbers will be issued by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) based on re-surveying of farmers. The first indicator of how much acreage will fall under prevent-plant could come as soon as this week, however, when USDA unveils its updated crop production data. A pilot cover crop incentive program for prevent-plant acreage was introduced by IDOA this summer, with the initial allotment of 75,000 acres quickly gobbled up by farmers who were unable to plant a crop on part or all of their land. A second offering of 18,750 acres was added in late July. Farmers enrolled in the program will be rewarded with payments of $5 per cover crop acre by IDOA, which cited the need for weed control on prevent-plant acres as the driver behind the pilot. Another, more controversial federal cover crop incentive rewards farmers $15 per acre for cover crop acreage under the USDA’s Market Facilitation Program. The problem? An August 1 planting deadline imposed by USDA found many Illinois farmers still unable to plant cover due to wet or flooded ground. The Illinois Corn Growers Assoc. (ICGA) was among state farm groups to urge USDA officials to extend the deadline; the request was rejected by FSA Under Secretary Bill Northey. “The USDA cover crop incentive program did not serve the farmers of Illinois in the manner it was intended,” said Dean Oswald, a cover crop specialist for Midwest Grass and Forage in Macomb. “In addition, it caused shortages at the retail level in some instances, when farmers who scrambled to plant a cover crop before August 1 left shelves nearly bare.” Oswald’s phone had been ringing constantly with farmers asking questions about which cover crops to plant and how to get them. To better serve those producers, Midwest Grass and Forage is offering a free Cover Crop Guide, downloadable in PDF format, at www.midwestgrass.com/cover-crops Fandel answers farmers’ questions about cover at area producer events sponsored by the Farm Bureau or commodity organizations. He recently fielded a question from someone who wondered what cover to plant if the farmer was planning on waiting for market indications to determine which crop to plant next spring. “I would probably do a mixture of plants with a grass plant of either triticale or winter barley because neither of them will have an allelopathic effect on corn, and neither tend to grow super fast like cereal rye in the spring,” was Fandel’s response. “You can probably mix some other species in there like rapeseed, which wouldn’t affect corn.” He accepts questions regarding cover crop selection, planting dates, herbicide carryover, and other aspects of cover crop production via email at pete.fandel@icc.edu |
