Field Notes
Illinois Farmers Get Paid for Citizen Science Cover Crop Research
Cover crops are becoming increasingly popular as a key strategy for improving soil health, water quality, and climate resilience across a wide variety of farming systems. Many cover crop benefits depend on successful cover crop growth, or biomass. However, cover crop biomass can vary widely across farms because plant growth is influenced by multiple factors like climate, soil, and management...
ISAP Soil Health Specialist Offers Advice on Cover Crop Species Selection
Let’s look at cover crop species selection: Even though we commonly hear about farmers being encouraged to plant “cover crops”, cover crops are not one single species or crop. Anyone following the conservation movement has heard of at least a few of the different options available: Cereal rye, Tillage Radishes, Crimson Clover, and perhaps you remember someone in your family...
ISAP Training Graduate Brings Expertise to Lake Springfield Watershed RCPP
The Illinois Sustainable Ag Partnership has launched an interactive Conservation Story Map to showcase sustainable agriculture efforts across the state and tell the stories of farmers, service providers, conservation specialists, ongoing research, and demonstration sites that are successfully adopting, exploring, or promoting conservation cropping systems and conservation drainage management. The ISAP Specialist Network is made up of conservation advocates who...
Maximizing Camelina’s Potential as an Overwintering Cover Crop
The Illinois Cover Crop On-Farm Network (ICCON) continued their four-part winter series exploring new and emerging cover crops in January with a presentation on Camelina. This month, Dr. Joel Gruver, Associate Professor of Soil Science and Sustainable Ag at Western Illinois University, joined ICCON’s monthly cover crop call to share his experience growing Camelina as a cover crop on WIU’s...