Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>]

A long love affair with cover crops
http://www.newfarm.org/columns/jeff_moyer/0903.shtml
By Jeff Moyer, Rodale Institute Farm Manager

In the midst of the current season’s tribulations, planting cover crops lets 
you think about and prepare for a whole new growing season, with all its 
unspoiled promise.

Jeff Moyer is the farm manager at the 333-acre Rodale Institute research 
farm, and has been here for over 26 years, refining the farm's cover cropping 
and crop rotation systems. The farm has over 1,000 organic apple trees, a 
3-acre CSA, 270 acres in a rotation of corn, small grains, hay, and edible 
soy beans for a Japanese market, and 25 acres of experimental research plots 
that have been used to test and compare the yield, soil health and 
environmental impact of organic and conventional systems for the last 22 
years.

"It's been extremely rewarding to work at The Rodale Institute," says Jeff. 
"Working on projects and with people who are having a positive impact on 
family farm practices, economics, and environmental stewardship is very 
fulfilling. The positive changes I've seen on our own farm over the years—and 
farms around the world— convinces me that we're on the right road."


Posted September 5, 2003: I can’t believe its September already. With summer 
weather coming late to Pennsylvania, and the usual work load it brings, the 
weeks flew by. If you read my last article you already know it wasn’t a 
stellar year for field crops here at the Institute’s research farm. But the 
corn is starting to show the promise of good yields, the apples should come 
through well (barring any catastrophes), and the air is beginning to cool off.

More importantly, it’s time to plant cover crops. I love planting cover crops 
because it encourages me to look forward to another year -- pushing any 
problems of this growing season to the back of my thoughts. You can’t plan 
for next year without feeling a twinge of excitement and the promise that a 
fresh growing season brings. And to get that feeling this early is great.

The primary function of cover crops on this farm is to grow -- or rather fix 
-- nitrogen. For that reason, all my early covers contain legumes. Most of 
the ground going into legumes was wheat ground that was just harvested and 
ground that isn’t slated for hay. For the most part I plant hairy vetch or 
mixes that contain hairy vetch. This year I’m planting some fields to 
straight vetch at approximately 28 pounds of seed per acre. I’m also planting 
a number of fields to a mixture of hairy vetch at 20 pounds of seed per acre 
coupled with oats planted at about 1.5 to 2 bushels per acre. The oats will 
winter kill and give protection to the vetch over the winter.

You may recall I mentioned last spring that most of my vetch failed to over 
winter – a blunder I hope not to repeat. I’m also planting one field with 
vetch and rye and one field with vetch and wheat. Even though I swear every 
year I won’t plant rye with vetch I do a little any way. It really produces 
biomass, but the rye can be a bugger to handle in the spring. As far as grass 
covers go, I’ll be planting those after the corn and soybeans are harvested.

I’ve been working for years on organic no-till systems. Last year I was able 
to no-till the vetch since the wheat crop that came before was so clean. This 
year was just the opposite. The rain we had thru July and into early August 
left the fields far to weedy to give the cover crops a chance. I had to plow 
all the wheat stubble in order to establish my cover crops. I’m hoping that 
by plowing and prepping the fields we’ll get good stands.

Update on the waste water project

I spoke before about our new project for managing the water coming from the 
restrooms of our visitor center. Several of you wrote to me asking for 
updates as the project unfolds so I thought I’d briefly mention how the 
project is going. We have our design team in place made up of folks from 
in-house, universities, private companies, and other non-profits. I’m excited 
about the future impact this project will have on how we manage this resource 
on the rural landscape, where decentralized sewage systems make the most 
sense.

The design team will be meeting early this month to finalize our plans and 
solidify our funding. The core of this system will be a multi-celled 
constructed wetlands to clean up the water leaving the restroom. While we’ll 
be working on research tasks that support and prove the value of the system, 
a great deal of our energy will be spent working on educational components 
designed to reach two major audiences.

On one hand we’ll be working with home owners and those looking at new 
construction to give them the information necessary to make informed purchase 
requests. Our second audience will be those technical people and regulators 
who will be able to endorse and supply the systems the public wants. Our 
time-line is to begin construction early in 2004. I’m really excited about 
the long term ramifications of moving these types of systems into the 
forefront for rural planners. I’ll be giving you many more details and some 
photos as the project progresses.

This summer we built a walking trail around the perimeter of our research 
farm. This trail was originally designed to give our staff a quiet place to 
walk. But we have decided to open it up to the public so everyone can gain 
access to and enjoy the farm. It runs about three miles in length. If you 
plan on stopping buy to visit with us I hope you’ll take the time to walk the 
trail and really see the farm.

This summer was also a time to fix up one of the older buildings on the farm. 
We have a large “Pennsylvania Dutch” bank barn in the center of our farm 
complex. The date stone says it was built in 1819. In fact the staff of The 
New Farm is housed in this barn. Well, it was time for a new roof and a fresh 
coat of paint. This barn really is the focal point of the farm buildings and 
brightening up the exterior has really made the entire farm look great.

September is the month we begin harvesting pumpkins. This year’s crop may be 
a little light in tonnage, and I only planted 2.5 acres of them. But the 
quality looks good, and I’m sure there will be more than enough to get us all 
tired of picking them, loading them, and shipping them.

As fall slowly creeps our way, I wish for all of you a safe and successful 
harvest. Take a moment, jot me an email, and let me know what’s happening on 
your farm this harvest season.

>From One Farm To Another . . .