Farmers in the Upper Midwest might be wondering how mild winter conditions could impact cover crops.
University of Minnesota Extension crops educator Liz Stahl says there’s concern a lack of snow and temperatures above freezing will result in some germination.
“And then, you know hey it’s Minnesota (and) we could return back to cold temperatures, could we get some winterkill (or) things like that. So that’s really hard to say, what is the weather going to continue to do.”
She tells Brownfield soil moisture deficits are also a consideration.
“We had a really dry fall and had a tough time getting some cover crops established, or just didn’t have the biomass we’d really like to see. But we had this happen the previous year, 2024 we got a lot of moisture in the spring and boy those cover crops really took off.”
Stahl says she’s hopeful there will be good spring establishment with cereal rye because it’s a very resilient cover crop species.
Brownfield interviewed Stahl from the Soil Management Summit in Mankato Wednesday.
