Virtual Cover Crop Workshop Agenda

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Virtual Cover Crop Workshop

This virtual workshop offers an afternoon of sessions for farmers who currently use cover crops in their farm practices, as well as those considering it. All are welcome to attend! All of the speakers currently live and farm in Nebraska. You’ll hear about grazing cover crops and how to manage cover crops in extreme weather conditions. We’ll also share the basics of how to get started planting cover crops. The workshop will end with a panel of farmers who will offer insights on reducing inputs using cover crops.

Agenda

Sessions

Session 1: Grazing Cover Crops

Presenter: Ruth Ready  

Integrating your crop and livestock systems might seem like a daunting task, especially if you don’t have the infrastructure in place. However, this might be a way to diversify your farm enterprises and increase management options for your livestock, as well as provide the soil health benefits of cover crops. Ruth will discuss the why’s and how’s of grazing cover crops on her family farm.   

Ruth farms with her husband, Sid, near Scribner, Nebraska on land that has been in her family since it was homesteaded in 1870. Ruth and Sid have a no-till operation growing soybeans, corn, alfalfa and incorporating cover crops. The cover crops are fed to their small herd of Shorthorn cows.

Session 2: Managing Cover Crops in Extreme Conditions

Presenter: Daryl Obermeyer  

Description: When Mother Nature throws a curveball will you know how to react in your cover crop management? Daryl has decades of experience with cover cropping and will share with us how he manages his cover crops in years of drought, as well as years of flooding and high moisture.  

Daryl Obermeyer and his wife Jackie have operated a cow/calf and rotational cropping system that includes cover crops in Brownville, Nebraska for several decades. Daryl is a devout no-tiller and has been since the early 80’s. Daryl actively manages the application timing and rate of fertilizer put on his fields to protect susceptible groundwater resources in his area. He also keeps close track of his soil amendments and has utilized the Haney Test to review microbial activity of his soil.  

Session 3: Getting Started With Cover Crops

Presenter: Jason Regier  

Jason Regier has been planting cover crops for five years on both irrigated fields and dryland. He will talk about why he started planting cover crops, and his challenges and successes as well as the benefits he has seen over the years.   

Jason lives and farms in Madrid, NE. He is a former pastor turned farmer, who also has a coffee roasting business. Six years ago, he moved back to Nebraska from Kansas City to transition the family farm, and to raise his family,.   

Session 4: Farmer Panel- Reducing Inputs with Cover Crops

Presenters: Clay Govier, Vance McCoy and Kent Brown  

Cover crops provide many benefits for the health of the land around them. They also have a positive effect on the bottom line for farmers by reducing the number of inputs needed. These inputs can take many forms- fertilizer, herbicides, time and labor. The farmers will discuss what inputs they have reduced because of their cover cropping systems.   

Clay Govier is a fifth-generation farmer in Central Nebraska near Broken Bow. He works on the family farm and assists in its growth and transition to sustainable and regenerative farming practices. Govier Farms has expanded from a corn and soybean farm to include yellow field peas, cereal rye, and alfalfa. Constant experimentation with different farming methods, cover cropping systems, and fertilizers is a large part of their operation.    

Vance McCoy farms with his wife Ronda near Elsie, NE and has been cover cropping for many years, including on his own farm since 2015. He has experimented with many different cover crops, mostly focusing on cereal rye through the winter and oats in the spring. He grows cover crops for seed, which he sells through his business, Triple Creek Cover Crops, and grazes cattle on many of his cover crops.   

Kent Brown of Cozad, NE farms row crops and has been cover cropping 1300 to 1500 acres for more than ten years. Darr Feedlot harvests his silage in the fall, which he follows with a cover crop, usually oats and wheat due to its grazing potential in the fall and continued growth in the spring. He then rents many of the cover crop acres to Darr Feedlot and neighboring farmers for grazing. Kent pays close attention to stocking density when grazing to reduce soil compaction and erosion from loss of residue.