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The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast explores efforts to reduce nutrients in Illinois waterways from agricultural runoff to municipal wastewater with host Todd Gleason and producers Rachel Curry, Nicole Haverback and Luke Zwilling with University of Illinois Extension.
Read the blog at extension.illinois.edu/nlr/blog.
**Episode 75 | Cover Crop Conversations, Management Advice**
Norm Deets, Cover Crops Farmer
John Pike, Cover Crops Farmer
Brian Corkill, Cover Crops Farmer
Rachel Curry, University of Illinois Extension
1) Episode 74 - Cover Crop Conversations | Barriers to Entry
2) Episode 75 - Cover Crop Conversations | Management Advice
Todd Gleason: This is episode 75 of the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast, Cover Crop Conversations: Management Advice. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Today, we'll hear the second of a two-part series. Each is an excerpt pulled from a July 2025 meeting led by Extension Agriculture and Agribusiness Educator, Rachel Curry. In the first program, we explored barriers three farmers had and sometimes still face as it's related to deploying cover crops on the farm. Today, Rachel continues that conversation with Brian Corkill, John Pike, and Norm Deets. She'll ask them about the things they've learned over the years and how these influence the management advice they provide others interested in using cover crops.
Rachel Curry: Let's move on to cover crop management and experience. So, one of the questions that was submitted asked, how many seeds per acre or pounds per acre do you plant for different cover crops? Norm, you want to go first on that one?
Norm Deets: Well, it's pretty simple. I'm pretty much cereal rye up here. And currently I'm doing 50 pounds cereal rye per acre. I could probably cut that back a little bit, I think. I probably will experiment with that, maybe get down to 40 pounds. You could say that saves on the expense side, but I do want to have enough cover out there to help my erosion problem. So kind of pretty simple, straightforward for me.
Rachel Curry: John?
John Pike: It's going to depend on what species of cover crop we're looking at because everything has different seed sizes to it. So that's going to, 10 pounds of one thing is going to equate to a lot more seed and ground coverage than 10 pounds of something else. But I think just in general, I always encourage people when they're starting out to stay on the at a more modest seeding rate. And because many times I'll go out to a field and that is from a first time early adoption cover crop and a farmer mentality is something that we want to plant something out there and we want to see a good stand, a solid vigorous growth of things. And our cover crop fields don't need to look like a well-managed wheat field or oat field. If we've got, depending on the species that we're dealing with, if we would have maybe, you know, eight or 10 seeds per square foot in some cases that might give us a good suitable cover crop in a particular situation. Sometimes we might want 30 seeds per square foot depending on what that is. But I would start at a more modest rate because many the speakers that I see at conferences and things that are featured, they tend to be the more advanced folks. And they've got their equipment all fine tuned and their goals are usually different than what the someone that's taking the first couple steps in the initiation process would be. And I think staying a little bit on the modest seating rates and then working up if we see the need to do that as we go down the line will help to avoid unneeded challenges.
Rachel Curry: Brian?
Brian Corkill: Yeah, I think John summed it up pretty well. Obviously depends on species. So like I talked about, I plant triticale, I plant that about 50 pounds to the acre. And then I also throw in some winter Camelina and that's only like maybe two pounds per acre. So species is, and then, you know, if guys like radishes, you know, that might be a pound and a half per acre. Then also, you know, and he spoke to that as well, you know, what are your goals? Where are you at in your journey? So I'm far enough along and I actually, I was up a fair amount higher rate on some of my grass stuff, and I've been gradually easing it back again. You know, if you're looking for weed control, and I do that, so that's part of my, my weed control program is my cover crop. So, you got to kind of find that happy balance on where you have a good enough stand to help suppress weed germination. And, but at the same point in time, you don't want so much out there that you have trouble planning your cash crop, because at the end of the day, part of sustainability is making money and you're growing a cash crop is your first goal. All these other things are things that we're trying to do to enhance that profitability, so.
Rachel Curry: Somebody else submitted a question which asked which cover crop species are best suited to Northeastern Illinois? And so Norm, since that's closer to your neck of the woods, do you want to take a stab at that one?
Norm Deets: Well, you mean, I think if you really want to have a cover crop and you want to have it established over the winter, cereal rye is the go to. I don't have enough experience on some of the other things. Now I have seen a lot of people, they experimented for a year and maybe they flew on oats or radishes, something that will get a winter kill because they think they're afraid of what we talked about in the spring, it growing too fast and not being able to control. So if you want to dabble in that and take a risk, a little risk out of it, maybe fly some oats and radishes onto your soybeans and see what happens or plant them in after you harvest them.
Rachel Curry: John or Brian, do you have any other thoughts?
Brian Corkill: Well, my experience the last couple years of using winter Camelina, I think that's something that kind of fits our geography. I was a little concerned about it at first, but, especially like this last year, we had a pretty good test of it. We didn't have a lot of snow cover, and we had some really, really cold temperatures a couple couple of different times in the winter and it survived the winter very well. So if you're looking at some diversity, that's something that you could put in there and it's easy to manage in the spring has been my experience. But I agree with Norm. I mean, cereal rye is, I mean, that stuff will grow, that stuff will grow if the soil temperature is like 34 degrees. If you have a little snow cover in the wintertime, like I've been amazed in years where it's gotten well below zero, but we had good snow cover and the snow melts off. I'm like, holy cow, that's like an inch taller than it was six weeks ago. So that it is very good. Triticale is pretty close to being as good and a little easier to manage in the spring, but yeah, cereal rye up in Northern Illinois is probably gonna be the top contender.
John Pike: I concur with everything that's that's been said. I'm curious too about the winter Camelina. And even as we move south in the state is as that was something that might pair well to get help allow us to get a cover crop on some of our double crop beans that are following wheat that as it stands now, it's pretty dicey on getting any of that, uh, getting anything in there. So I, I'm going to try some of that this year, but I think that's good. You know, no doubt as you move to the North, your options are reduced a little bit. But one of the things to remember is whatever anything that we can do to get this, get the crop seeded quicker is going to help. We need to have some establishment to ensure the best standard of winter survivability and even up in there the right conditions can take that out. So early along with what's been said species wide, think anything to do that we can establish that stand earlier is something to think about too.
Rachel Curry: We've had the next couple questions are questions that have been submitted. John, I'm gonna put this one to you first. What is a good cover crop that will get established after beans ahead of corn to cut erosion on rolling ground?
John Pike: I think when we're talking about erosion control, cereal rye is the first thing that comes to mind because of the quick germination and biomass establishment that you get. But then you're confronted with a lot of the problems that you hear about with rye creating for corn with nitrogen tie up and those types of things. So the way I approach that is that I don't everything that I do is a is is in a mix, and I want to have a plan to where I can get that cover crop seeded, whether I'm going to put it on over the top with a drone or an airplane or I've got a plan to get a field harvested sooner to get a cover crop established to have enough a seating window to establish a cover crop that's more than than cereal rye. But I think one of the misnomers with cereal rye is the fact that people hear things about problems that cereal rye creates and they automatically think that cereal rye can't play a role in a cover crop mix ahead of corn. So I think that cereal rye is a good base component for a lot of that. Uh, I use a lot of annual rye grass in my situation and mix that with cereal rye in some cases, and and that can kind of mitigate some of that. But I think with having a plan on how you're going to manage that cereal rye, so we can have cereal rye in a mix. And if we go into the spring, we need to probably have a plan in wherever we're at in the state to terminate that relatively soon, because if we terminated in the small vegetative stage, whatever nutrients and nitrogen, especially that's held up, that is going to be less and it's going to be released back into the system quicker and be more available. We don't want to be in a situation where we're planning corn into headed out cereal rye at anthesis like we see pictures of beans. So I think cereal rye would be a base component, but yet have that in a mix and have a plan to manage that to take it out early. And, you know, in the spring, it might be a situation where it's not a total termination. Maybe we can take that cereal rye or whatever grass crop out with clethodim and let something like crimson clover grow a little bit more in plant into that, you know, later into the season. But that's my best guess at that.
Norm Deets: Pretty much up where we're at, cereal rye is it. Um, uh, going on soybean ground. Uh, and I would say I've, I've flown it on, I've drilled it, you almost have to, really to get what you want for soil erosion control, uh, on bean ground, harvested bean ground is you need to drill it in. And here's, here's one thing I have learned, tried, takes a little bit extra labor, and I know labor is a big issue, but in my fields, any place that will carry water, or I think will carry water, I go and I drill that first, and then I drill the whole field. So I get a double on any place where I think water will run, and that makes a huge difference. In fact, it's, it's so good in managing soil erosion that I've eliminated a number of grass ditches just by doing that.
Brian Corkill: I would echo what Norm said, that's kind of what we do too when we, when we seed ourselves. And, um, you know, I, I can remember in, and even in the first, well, if we started in 2000, say the first 10 years that we're doing cover crops, we still had issues with, um, with draws in fields eroding. Um, but now that we've been much more consistent on doing, like Norm said, double seeding basically those areas, I haven't had to pull a field cultivator or anything out of the shed in the last five years and, and those are actually improving and you know I don't have to do anything with them. Um I will say in my case like ahead of corn I used to do cereal rye and and I have run into a year or two where I planted into headed out cereal rye with corn and it turned out okay but it isn't ideal. So I, I go to um I either use triticale or winter barley so they don't grow as aggressively in the spring but if you can get 'em established early enough they can still kind of accomplish the same things. And then um some of our our fields that we know we're going to do later um we've actually started also putting in winter camelina which has been very winter hardy. Um annual rye grass around here I do love it but I would say probably it's 50 50 on whether or not it'll um survive the winter. I would rather use that because it isn't nearly as competitive with corn in the spring but trying to get it to overwinter is is a big issue here. So I think triticale and winter barley are are are better than cereal rye at least in my experience and what I've tried um just because they just aren't quite as aggressive in the spring as what cereal rye is once cereal rye gets the right condition and well then cereal rye will grow all winter long but man when it starts to warm up in the spring man it can get out of control in a hurry and uh if you have wet conditions and can't get in to terminate it and stuff like that there can be some issues. And then another thing um to consider and and that's what we've ended up doing is uh we used to we've always put starter on as long as I've been on the farm but um that was more info stuff now we've uh I've refitted our planter so now we're putting our nitrogen on at planting. So we put on about 45 pounds of nitrogen to to try to overcome some of that tie up issue until it starts becoming um available as the growing season goes on as well.
Rachel Curry: What is the number one myth that you hear about cover crops? And what do you wish folks would know? So John, we'll go with you first.
John Pike: I think that one of the biggest myths is, is that it's, it's a two-sided coin. Either there, there's a group that runs through the valley that says that cover crops are nothing but, uh, roses and butterflies, and to throw out some seed, that'll solve every problem that you have. And then you've got the other side of the movement that said that anything to do with a with a cover crop is is terrible. And it all relates to management. And the good part of any any system is kind of coming to the middle and sorting out the shades of gray about what works in a particular situation. So I think sometimes some of the meetings that I've been involved with in the past, uh they're too uh they they get too fixated on terminology like regenerative or sustainable or something. Well, all I want to do is farm successfully. And to my point that I forgot a minute a minute ago, it's the fact that when some people hear about regenerative, they often think it's a minimalist approach. And I don't know what regenerated is and sustainable. I think I know how to grow corn and soybeans and wheat pretty well in Illinois, but I want to use cover crops and no-till systems and all the things involved with that to put together a way to to to grow a more successful, higher yielding uh higher profitable crop. And if we look at this that we're going to all the sudden do something and that's going to reduce the need for us to use modern technologies, if we can get around that, that that's fine. But I look at it as a component that I can add to the rest of my operation and use that effectively with the with the seed, herbicide, uh equipment, and all the other technology that we have to do things better and to to make my soils better and and more productive. And uh making things better and and productive, uh you know, the root of that is to keep it in place. And if we don't see as much muddy water and we can control uh erosion of all types, that's a that's a good thing. And as we have more severe weather patterns that come through, especially in the early spring, where we can have maybe two or three, three or four inch rains at a time before the crop rooting system gets to the point where it can hold it, well, in a reduced tillage situation, it's going to be more likely to withstand that uh punishing rain system than as if the ground is worked up like a lettuce bed. And you know, we've got planter technologies that don't require that to get good seed to soil contact and to uh offset all the other reasons why we did tillage. And I'm I'm not against tillage. I think it has a place, but we need to find the best package that we have to move forward. And I think finding that middle ground somewhere in the shades of gray is where we need to be looking to find the best for what works for us.
Brian Corkill: This maybe isn't necessarily a myth, so one thing I hear about from a lot of farmers in my areas they just purely look at it as an expense. That's all they think about, it's going to cost me this much money. And granted it does cost you money, um so I always try to tell guys that well there are programs where you can get started, um that'll offset some of that cost. And there they're the longer I've been doing this the more that I find you know there's government programs, there's non-government organizational programs, there's all kinds of places where you can get some um financial help to to get started in that journey but um I guess I was fortunate when I started you know farming was was pretty profitable at that time and I always viewed it as as an a maybe not the first year or two but after I started to learn more about other things viewed it as an investment. Um so the stuff that I've been doing over the last 15 years now I'm I'm to the point where I'm able to cut back on applied fertilizer and I'm able to cut back on some herbicide applications and things like that so I I put that investment in now I'm starting to to reap the benefits of that so. It's always about having and I think Norm probably mentioned this earlier if I remember right, um having not only having a goal but having a long term goal um and where do you want to get to. And like I'm to the point now where I'm starting to reap the benefits of what my long term goal was, so I guess that would be maybe not a myth but but things that I hear that that guys say about it getting started.
Norm Deets: You know, I I think Brian sums it up. Um, you know, the the myth of expense uh really it isn't, it can become a profit center uh from the standpoint. I think the myth that oh, my yields will go down. Well, the yields are gonna go the other way if you stick with the the program. Um probably the biggest myth if I'd have to say there is a myth is you can't do cover crops for one year and it's going to be wonderful. I mean it's a commitment to a multi year thing to get your crop or to get your land uh conditioned and and get it uh ready and and you to understand the system and the management. That's when it's going to pay off, much like Brian said, it's an investment in the future.
Rachel Curry: There was one more question that was submitted that maybe each of you can hit on a resource um that examines the financial impact of some of the different regenerative farming practices like cover crops, no-till. Especially this person is interested in the reduction in costs from additives and drainage solutions. And they were also wondering, how do you communicate these to your friends and your co- like co-owners or landowners?
John Pike: I'll take a stab at it first. I think that uh in in some of the informational meetings that I've been involved with, the the Soil Health Institute has has put together several good case scenarios of uh cost and production uh issues around a bigger part of the of the Midwest, but they they've talked to several people throughout uh Illinois and over into Indiana that would be applicable. Uh the SARE program, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program that's housed at the University of of Missouri, they in the uh this um North Central region here, they've done a series of case studies and have some information about that as well. And I think the PCM data is something that I I would keep in in mind. And that uh that that's been a a good program. And I think as their data set increases and covers more acres, and we get producers that are involved in that program that have a longer history with cover crop management and and changes, especially in central Illinois, that that will help a lot. Because right now, I think that they're probably there's some jading to that information as far as the the the very, very best soils in central Illinois aren't something that is are getting cover crop uh thought right now anyway. So as we look at uh at the acreage in those regions that are getting cover crops, they're probably something that's a a little bit on the marginal side anyway, so it's not always an apples to apples uh direct correlation, but I think that the PCM data is is sure a good component to to keep an eye on for our specific Illinois information for sure.
Brian Corkill: Add one other source real quick because those were gonna be some that I was gonna that I was gonna mention but um and they're Practical Farmers of Iowa has a lot of good um resource information and they are starting to do more outside of the state of Iowa so I've I've working with them this year on some nitrogen rate trials on a farm. But they do all kinds of different things with nutrients, cover crops, all that kind of stuff. They have a ton of field days, they have a lot of data and information available from field trials and things like that so that'd be another good source.
Norm Deets: Yeah, I use PCM. Actually the the thing I I think I think a lot of the data still I know they're trying, it's I I don't know how provable it is at this particular point.
Brian Corkill: It's hard to collect.
Norm Deets: Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to collect. The one thing I look at, to be honest with ya, I look at my soil tests over the years of when I started no-till and when I added cover crops. And uh, you know, my organic matter has gone up 2.6% since adding uh cover crops. And I can equate that to being able to grow better crops because when I can increase my organic matter, I have a better farm.
Todd Gleason: Norm Deets is a farmer in the state of Illinois. He was joined during the July 2025 Cover Crops Conversations Farmer-to-Farmer event hosted by University of Illinois Extension by John Pike and Brian Corkill. It was hosted by Rachel Curry. Today we've been listening to an excerpt from that event. It is the second in a two-part series. In the first program, the four explored the barriers each found as they began their cover crop journeys. The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension under the guidance of Rachel Curry, Nicole Haverback, and Luke Zwilling. You may find it and many other UI Extension podcasts online. Search Illinois Extension podcasts. I'm Todd Gleason.