Before you can even begin planting cover crops, you need a plan to kill them off.
Cover crop termination plans are critical in ensuring that cover crops work effectively to suppress weeds without jeopardizing crop yields. To help create that termination plan, Penn State weed scientist, Dr. John Wallace, collaborated with GROW researchers to create a series of cover crop termination factsheets detailing:
These factsheets aim to make cover crop termination planning easier for farmers, Wallace explains. “We hope that these factsheets serve as a useful reference for farmers and practitioners as they develop cover crop management plans for their system,” he says.
A Cheat Sheet for Cover Crops
Cover crop use comes with a management learning curve, Wallace notes.
“There are several moving parts when it comes to developing a cover crop termination plan: cover crop species selection, potential weed pressure within cover crop stands, targeted termination dates, cash crop varieties or seed traits, and cover crop residue management,” he says. “Having a Plan A and Plan B going into late spring will be important for consistently being successful.”
This factsheet series is intended to be accessible to farmers no matter their cover crop experience level, and can be treated separately or as a unit, depending on the farmer’s needs. “We wanted to cover both the basics for the producer that is just starting to integrate cover crops, as well as scenarios that frequently come up in more advanced (or intensive) cover crop management,” Wallace says.
Wallace focused on the topics that most often present hurdles for farmers. “These fact sheets summarize either known information or results from field trials that were conducted in response to frequently asked questions by producers who have integrated cover crops into their no-till production systems.”
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