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does every March for corn, soybeans, wheat and Don Hineman farms near Dighton, Kansas,
other spring-planted cash crops. where he sees just 19 inches of rain annually. He
But a cover crop intentions survey would ide- tried cover crops from 2012 to 2014 but gave
ally be done the previous fall and winter to give up on the practice and told Agri-Pulse it doesn’t
seed companies the information they need, said make sense for the government to promote the
LaCrosse Seeds President Dan Foor, who chairs practice in that region.
an ASTA’s sustainability working group. “They’re misguided if they’re going to push

Even with an early warning of farmers’ plans, them for semiarid areas like we live in out here,”
weather also will continue to be a factor in Hineman said. “Frankly our best sort of cover
demand for seed. “If the fall is conducive to crop out here is standing wheat stubble … We
planting then obviously we see more acres (of absolutely see an increase in yields for corn and
cover crops) planted,” Foor said. milo (sorghum) when we plant into standing
wheat stubble.”
Knock downplayed concerns that the need
for cover crop seed production would have a Winter wheat is typically growing at the same
significant impact on acreage for corn or soy- time as cover crops but doesn’t count as a cover
beans. Citing data from GO Seed Inc. in Ore- crop if it’s harvested.
gon, Knock said producing enough rye, turnip, Chandler Goule, CEO of the National Associ-
radish, and clover seed to plant cover crops on ation of Wheat Growers, said he is concerned
every acre of the U.S. corn crop (more than 90 about the “optics” in the future for the wheat
million acres in total) would require just 350,000 industry when reports come back that wheat
acres of seed production. growers are growing far fewer cover crops than

In his ASTA remarks, Weller also cautioned producers of other commodities.
against relying excessively on cover crops to He said it’s often difficult for wheat growers to
address sustainability goals, including reducing show enough environmental benefits from their
greenhouse gas emissions. practices to qualify for payments under the Con-

“Too often we lean on a single silver bullet of a servation Stewardship Program, which has been
cover crop and expecting cereal rye to be the sav- one of USDA’s two main ways of funding cover
ior; that’s not going to happen,” he said. “What crops and other climate-related practices.
you need is a holistic agronomy solution.” Tim Lust, CEO of National Sorghum Produc-

That, he said, will include conservation tillage as ers, says planting sorghum or leaving wheat or
well as improved breeding of cash crops. sorghum stubble on fields can serve a similar
purpose to cover crops, including protecting the
Wheat .and .sorghum .growers: . . soil from wind erosion. Like Goule, he said the
Don’t .leave .us .out $25-per-acre payments would do little to help
his members.
Farmers in drier areas of the country, includ- “We are interested in creative solutions to how
ing the western Plains and the Pacific North-
west, often say cover crops don’t work for them incentives can help our members implement the
because of the valuable soil moisture that they climate-smart practices that fit their environ-
consume, but those producers also fear being left ment,” he said.
out of a surge of funding that’s directed to cover Farmers planted 44.5 million acres of wheat
crops. Wheat and sorghum are popular crops in in 2021, including 30.5 million acres of winter
areas with limited rainfall. varieties, and 5.9 million acres of sorghum. By

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