Making Lemonade Out of Lemons – OSU eFields Seeks Farmer Collaborators for Cover Crop Establishment Study

By:  Stephanie Karhoff

To risk sounding redundant, 2019 has been a challenging year. According to the Farm Service Agency, adverse weather conditions resulted in 1,485,919 Prevented Planting acres across Ohio. With challenge, however, comes opportunity.Sudangrass

The OSU eFields program is seeking farmers who have or will be planting cover crops to participate in their on farm study, aimed at capturing much needed information about cover crop establishment and emergency forage quality in Northwestern Ohio.

OSU Extension personnel will measure percent ground cover, weed presence, canopy height, and biomass in 3-5 fields of a cover crop species. Farmer collaborators will be responsible for providing field location and planting information (planting date, seeding rate, and etc.). Field size is flexible, but fields of 10 acres or more of oats, corn, sorghum sudangrass, or other common cover crop species are preferred.

This is your opportunity to learn from the cards that Mother Nature dealt us this year, and have the information necessary to make decisions if (heaven forbid) we are faced with a similar situation in the future.

If you are interested in participating in this study, or have any questions, please contact Stephanie Karhoff at either 419-636-5608 or karhoff.41@osu.edu.

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