One of the barriers to incorporating cover crops into corn and soybean systems is timely planting, which occurs during the midst of the fall grain harvest season. Furthermore, many cover crop species are not well-researched. The ideal planting dates and survivability across the wide range of weather conditions across the state are still largely unknown, or not well documented. The goal of this project is to evaluate the performance of different common cover crops prior to and after soybean in the crop rotation at different fall planting dates and seeding rates across Illinois. With this data, regional recommendations can be refined to provide more detailed information on the relationship of planting date, winter survivability, and resulting spring stand of various cover crops. Furthermore, this data will improve seeding rate adjustment recommendations based on planting date and region to help producers achieve optimal performance of their cover crop.

Resources to come…