Page 16 - Ebook_CoverCrops2022_Final

Chapter 2

Making .cover .crops .

pay .off: .what .it .takes .

to .cover .the .cost

By .Noah .Wicks

issouri producer Macauley Kincaid — both in terms of soil health and potential
started planting cover crops in 2014, profits — don’t appear quickly or uniformly.
Mprimarily for the financial benefits he And some farmers who rent their land may have
thought they would provide. It took time, but trouble getting landlords on board.
they paid off. On average, it takes about three years for pro-

By 2020, he noticed a 70% reduction in the ducers to break even with cover crops, said
amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium Rob Myers, the national liaison on cover crops
that he needed to apply to his fields, said Kin- and soil health for the Sustainable Agriculture
caid, who plants cover crops on all of his 650 Research and Education (SARE) program and
acres of corn and soybeans. the director of the University of Missouri’s Cen-
ter for Regenerative Agriculture.
And even with the reduced fertilizer usage, he’s
been averaging 120 bushels of corn the last four In the first year or two, producers may see some
years, which is over his county’s trend-adjusted of the most apparent benefits, such as reduced
actual production history (APH) for corn at 112 erosion and increased weed suppression. How-
bushels. ever, some of the longer-term benefits, including
improved soil health, take longer. By the third
“We’re over the county average, but our year most producers should see the economic
expenses are probably less than half of the benefits offset the costs, and then in the years
average farmer in our area,” said Kincaid, who following, they should return a net profit, Myers
farms near Jasper in southwest Missouri. “So the says.
cover crops have really saved us a lot of money.”
“What happens is the yield of the cash crop
That’s music to the ears of any farmer who’s gradually increases in a modest fashion,” Myers
considering whether to undertake the practice said. “For example, soybeans after three years
and all the complexities and challenges cover will be about 3% higher [and] about 5% higher
crops can bring. But the benefits of cover crops after five years, on average.”

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