Agriculture has its share of innovators who set their own pace and adopt practices that initially have others shaking their heads. But then the new practice works, and they’re happy to share their experiences.
That applies to Reuben Stone. Operating a farm value-added business near Cobden, Ont., Stone grows several specialty crops, including Daikon radish, vetch seed, peas and hemp, and he’s servicing a growing cover crop market. That’s where he’s made a satisfying discovery: broadcasting cereal rye into standing soybeans works wonders as a cover.
Planting winter wheat as a follow up to soybean harvest may be the standard practice, but Stone thinks it’s “a bit of a stretch” for his region of Eastern Ontario. Some nearby growers can make that rotation work, but he maintains broadcasting rye four to five weeks prior to soybean harvest creates a relay-cropping effect, with a fully established cover crop once the soybeans come off.
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“I was introduced to a lot more of it from farther south in the U.S. and if it works down there, why can’t we be looking at it here?” asks Stone, who operates Valley Bio Ltd. alongside his wife Keanan and their children. “Rye is certainly a favourite, just because of the winter hardiness and the aggressiveness in the spring. You can grow it between October to the middle of May and we can put on three tonnes of biomass — maybe four — and I don’t know of any other crop that can do that type of production through the coldest part of the year.”
They’ve taken small steps to get where they are today, from drill to broadcast and broadcasting over the top. In 2021, they covered 450 acres in six hours during the first week of September, finishing a significant amount of work in a short time.
The addition of a broadcast rye cover crop has several other advantages: at four weeks, Stone’s observed that it provides an improved equipment-carrying capability, cleaner soybeans (no “dirt-tagging”) and warmer soils at the onset of winter.
“You can see quite a difference, where the soil is warmer it takes longer to freeze up and the snow still melts,” he says, adding that weed suppression with rye is another advantage. “There’s plenty of data now, whether from the U.S. or here in Ontario. The numbers out of the U.S. say it’s a one-year payback and that in and of itself can pay for the entire rye cover crop coming out of soybeans, just in the suppression of weeds.”
Good for beef cows
Stone has also taken advantage of the opportunity to feed cattle with the cover crop although he concedes there’s a give and take — harvesting at early boot stage means more protein, yet its maximum volumes come with a slightly later harvest.
“We have our own experiences that tended to be a little on the later side of the forage harvest window, getting on to what would be termed over-mature,” he says, noting there are data to show it’s very acceptable as feed. “It’s gone to beef cows but there have been no complaints and it’s certainly gone over well with the small herd that we have.”
They’re also harvesting it as wrapped silage because there’s a timing issue — getting things off the field and getting on to managing subsequent crops. That means most of a rye cover crop is harvested in the second half of May, so most of the feed for his operation is taken care of early and allows Stone to get ahead on planting. There’s even the option of harvesting it as a grain crop, along with terminating early, later at planting, or the forage option.
“You can make some assessments as far as market conditions or crop rotation plans,” says Stone. “There’s quite a bit of flexibility with a rye cover crop like that to come up with a plan, and there has to be a plan whenever you’re doing these things.”
Stone tries to get into the field at the first hint of yellowing in the leaves and seed it before leaf drop. He also plants a moderate- to short-season maturity soybean variety on most of his acres, although he wants to try the practice with a longer-maturity bean. In seeding rates, he’s seen them as low as 10 pounds per acre and as high as 120, and has tried adding Daikon radish seed.
The long game
Rye as a cover crop works in the short term, but its benefits for soil health are what Stone refers to as “the long game.” Walking the fields a month after harvest, he’s found less mud sticking to his boots and a visible difference in soil textures. Research is connecting higher organic matter with green living roots, compared to returning soybean straw to the soil.
“You’re probably not going to set soybean yield records, but that isn’t the goal with this,” says Stone. “These practices help you to be more efficient with nutrients, with moisture, with overall farm profitability when you’re double-cropping a cereal or forage crop with soybeans the same year. It’s efficiency and overall profitability that are the goals.”
There are some drawbacks, including tramping and seed costs. In a worst-case scenario, Stone estimates a loss of three or four bushels due to tramping — depending on equipment. There’s also a fairly high opportunity cost, but as he’s quick to reiterate, it’s a long game.
“The type of biomass that goes to cattle is great, especially if you can keep the manure source or the animals grazing on the acres,” he says. “There are challenges in these systems but there are more growers with more experience and there’s getting to be a great cohort of growers in Ontario that are getting very comfortable with these practices. A big jump last year was to work with the Ontario Soil Network Class Three, and that’s a great cohort of producers.”
Stone praises the peer support of the organization, especially with the focus of cover crops and soil health. Having members from across the province also provides examples of what’s possible, regardless of where in Ontario growers might be trying this. If it can work in parts of New York, Pennsylvania or points farther south, it’s not a huge stretch for parts of southern Ontario. Stone notes Temiskaming’s Soil and Crop Improvement Association Twilight Tour also addressed rye as a cover crop into soybeans for 2022, although they’re working with oats, not soybeans.
“There’s a huge number of heat units and growing degree days that are wasted at either end of the season — before and after,” says Stone. “Some people look at cover crop growers as ‘plant-green’ guys going out into those extreme situations and planting corn into rye but those are leading-edge practices and the growers who are doing that successfully are pretty impressive. That’s the advanced learner’s course, but broadcasting rye into soybeans isn’t that difficult, so it’s a pretty easy way to get started with cover crops.”
Further reading
- Ontario Soil Network
- Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) cover crops fact sheets
- Midwest Cover Crop Council
– This article was originally published in the October 2022 issue of the Soybean Guide.
