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April 5, 2018DES MOINES, Iowa |  By: INS

Cover crops prove financially beneficial to Iowa farmers

New research says that depending on the size of their farms, Iowa farmers can save between $350 and $40,000 dollars per year by grazing cattle on cover crops. The two-year on-farm research project is being conducted by Practical Farmers of Iowa in order to put a price tag on the forage produced by cover crops. The goal was to quantify the value of grazing cattle on cover crops and showed the total economic gain from feeding those crops to cattle ranged from $2 to $60 per acre. Bill Frederick is one of three farmers participating in the project in west central Iowa.

During a "field day", Frederick addressed crop grazing mixes and seeding rates, fall and spring grazing management and spring cover-crop termination. Frederick is one of the three cow-calf producers in the North Raccoon Watershed to participate in the research. He's seeded oats, cereal rye, turnips and even radishes as part of the experiment and says he more than recouped his costs and also improved his soil health.

Fredrick notes that by integrating livestock into cover-crop cultivation, many farmers can realize sizable monetary benefits within the first year.

Cover crops were used for nearly two hundred years before World War II, and Frederick says while they might not work for every farmer, their increasing popularity is a good sign.

The practice of seeding fields with cover crops between harvests keeps topsoil in place and reduces nitrogen and phosphorus runoff.