Delta farmers for decades, if not longer, have kept an eye on how winter cover crops as well as no-till or reduced-till cultivation methods might protect and improve soil and eventually cut costs.
These days, some farmers are giving these methods another try using research-based information along with trial and error to learn what might work. A good many farmers also have environmental stewardship in mind. They said they want to help make the world a better place.
“We are still experimenting. We don’t have any answers yet,” said Mike Sturdivant Jr. of Itta Bena, who with his family farms soybeans, corn and cotton in Glendora.
Sturdivant’s been farming five decades, so he’s seen trends come and go. This time, no-till and cover crops might become permanent. But he doesn’t know.
At their farm, the aim is to find out what types of cover crops are most effective in different situations. In the last couple of years, the Sturdivants planted field radishes, but now they are concentrating on various types of grassy cereal mixtures. After the 2021 harvest, they planted about 20% of their fields with cover crops. What types they used depended in part on what would be planted afterward. Would it be corn, cotton or soybeans? The right match of cover crop to row crop makes a difference.
In general, the mixes tend to include rye, wheat, barley, oats and triticale, which is a hybrid grain. When planting season rolls along, a no-till farmer skips plowing all together and just drills seed into the ground, leaving the cover crop in place.
Instead, reduced or minimum till is trending in Leflore County and nearby. What farmers want to find out is whether cover crops will help them, for example, cut the number of times a tractor has to travel over a field for various purposes, which might including chemical applications and cultivation practices.
At the Tillman place in the Minter City area, farmer Carty Tillman is excited about the prospects. He and his father, Collier, are now in their third season of experimenting with cover crops. This season, they planted cover crops on approximately 30% to 40% of the 6,000 acres that they farm.
They are trying cover crops out on corn, soybeans, cotton and rice — everything but peanuts, which they also grow.
“We have different blends for different crops,” Carty Tillman said. Eventually, these are sprayed to kill them, but the dead plants remain in place when the market crops are planted.
“Part of the benefit is the vegetative matter that stays on the ground,” Tillman explained. The matter’s nutrients, he said, will seep into the soil and be used by the growing plants. “Some of them will penetrate 4 to 5 feet deep,” he said.
So one of the goals is nutrient retention. The others are prevention of wind and water erosion plus water retention during the hot summer months.
Currently, there are few government-based financial incentives being offered, and converting to cover crops isn’t cheap. While the method has the possibility of reducing input expenses, the cost per acre can actually rise by several dollars at first with the acquisition of the proper equipment and other adjustments, including the cost of seed. Whether these costs will be offset by lowering other expenses and increasing productivity is still in question.
Tillman said they will know more by the time the row crops are harvested. He’s optimistic about ending the 2022 season with a satisfying analysis.
“If you can stick with it, there are some long-term savings — but it would have to be long term,” he said. But, “I think it is the way we eventually have to go.”
- This article first appeared in The Greenwood Commonwealth's 2022 Farming edition, published in May.
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