Interseeding Cover Crops into Corn with Producer Rob Olson and Daughters

Producer Rob Olson and Daughters Nicole and Kari demonstrate inter-seeding cover crops into corn on their farm in Clay County, MN. Videography by Dan Balluff.
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[@kevinpoole4323]

Brilliant Ladies Helping Dad your Family is Blessed.

[@minnesotanrcs]

A new update video on their progress will be coming out soon.

[@Bernie5172]

Wow, Not often you see young women following in daddy's footsteps and taking over the farm one day. Good on you girls.

[@stevhanhughes673]

I am just so impressed with Nicole and Kari, two young ladies that know and understand farming practicing new innovations. What a couple of outstanding role models for other young women they are.

[@petermcalpine9380]

Kari and Nicole, I wish you success and an abundance of blessings!

[@Realdavidart]

THE FUTURE! Great job Dad in raising the next generation of soil stewards. These ladies are ON POINT.

[@ross6343]

GREAT to see young women stepping in to continue the family farming tradition! I grew up on a farm that followed some of the J. I. Rodale ideas regarding soil conservation - cover cropping was one. Today's ag scene calls what I learned 'regenerative' agriculture. Taking care of the soil's microbiome is the secret any good soil farmer knows. It'd be interesting if Rob, Nicole and Kari have investigated the merits of incorporating the Johnson-Su bioreactor method into their operation. Keep going the direction y'all are going - the soil's microbiome will reward your efforts! Stay safe - be well - many blessings.

[@dannybarrera7637]

Thank you for doing soil conservation. It is a breath of fresh air. It will benefit you in the long run in having a resilient soil.

[@bilgaljr]

Thank you very much for using cover crops to save our planet by taking carbon out of our air and putting it in the soil where it belongs. Cover crops martian moisture in the soil and promote rainfall for our earth! I am really happy to see these young ladies😊 take an inertest in farming and carrying on your tradition. GOD loves you ! GOG bless you!

[@minnesotanrcs]

Thanks!

[@rgolianeh]

Nice to hear things like this.

[@piperdoug428]

great ideas, love the set up to get the job done.

[@stevegermain1222]

Great job really impressed

[@jellison333]

Also experimenting with cover crops now. This is an inspiration!

[@warrencorcoran9824]

Awesome video, very informative, well stated, crisp clear voices easy to understand and comprehend. Keep posting please

[@kentkeller1743]

As this movement continues to grow it will be interesting to see if the Bob White quail makes a comeback! I believe you ladies will do a wonderful job!

[@sergekasuku6276]

Beautiful family and amazing team work, kudos to the Olson's family.

[@minnesotanrcs]

We agree!

[@TerraFirmaX]

very awesome video

[@troyadamswaymarfarm5224]

Great video..,👍👍👍 Fantastic to see these Guy's moving the farming practices in to cover cropping. Here in Australia we also are aware of the need to protect our valuable top soils. Here we inter plant legumes into our sorghum and maize. After harvesting the primary cash crop, we then can either run cattle on the field or we can bail the fields....This system works well for us and can build up the organics and nitrogen, which in turn reduces fertilizer costs.. Keep on farming..🌾🌱💚🇦🇺🇺🇸

[@joesoap5227]

troy adams Hi troy where in oz are you and what is your precipitation and how is it spread. I'm in Namibia and hoping to learn from your experience

[@shahroozkharaghani1781]

Love your efforts

[@tomk2147]

Cover Crops are very interesting the need to have a cover over the soil 365 days a year. HOWEVER just as important is the benefit to the soil. Especially NO-TIl of the soil. The plant roots are natures way of tilling the soil PLUS the GOOD microorganisms and other factors happening within the soil. With droughts in the midwest and others areas its so important to keep moisture in the soil as well. Bravo Rob your two daughters Nicole and Kari could have done anything other than farming. Kudo's to both of them for farming!!!

[@Mahia965]

A lot of pressure at 10:39. You girls have got this. Kudos.

[@jayvanwyck4717]

AEA is a great company with a whole line to help farmers with covers and crops and SAP analysis. Advancing Eco Agriculture. There support staff is awesome!

[@monkisethojane2218]

Wow this was wonderful to watch. The passion they have for farming wonderful to witness. Great video guys 👍

[@minnesotanrcs]

Thank you

[@seshafarmspalmarosa1267]

Inspiration !

[@TimesAgriculture]

Great to see

[@joeyoliver579]

Good people, smart girls.

[@dudeduderinoduderino9689]

Great to see and hear that farmers are not so reliant on chemicals. Very interesting to see no tillage allows crops to actually grow out of that soil?

[@jonstevensmaplegrovefarms3754]

the covers will be a great way to venture towards organic benefits. roll the rye for no till organic beans and use chemical if you have to for clean up of rag weed. other covers make a great pre emerge for corn before planting.

[@mythoughts1................1]

excellent video. very informative too.

[@minnesotanrcs]

Thanks

[@Myxlplyk]

It's about time that there's a movement by farmers to take care of the soil.

[@TheDirtyyoungman1]

I think they've always wanted to, just a matter of learning the best way to do it under all the different variables. It can get complicated.

[@dannica8834]

for me the interseeading and the cover crops are the new concept. i want to make a seader and to make a good job

[@merleelsing2400]

I’m building my interseeder from a DMI Nh3 bar with yetter double coulters and a gandy seeder.Should be able too build it for under 7500.00

[@dannica8834]

in this spring i want to do a lot of things in the field

[@sheilasmith1109]

God bless all of your family! We’re SO IMPRESSED with all your doing and have done! Your family IS the HOPE for our FUTURE!! How can we meet you to learn how to influence our neighboring farmers to SEE and DO what your family is doing? We want to help!!

[@kariolson6181]

Thank you so much, Sheila! We appreciate that.

[@seano8927]

@@kariolson6181 Pretty awesome, but be careful too many radishes they are in the Brassicaceae family, which has members that poison some livestock, and can leave akyloids in the soil. You should also be looking at legumes to create some nitrogen in the soil, like sanfoin may be a good one. Vetch and other pea family members are pretty common as well. You may end up in a position where you will want some ultra-shallow tillage equipment to knock down and break up the cover crops. Then you are about a half step away from organics.

[@daledenisetheel7290]

Nice video. I want to add a air seeder to my 28% applicator. I was wondering how you like the Gandy? Had you looked at a Valmar at all? I am undecided between a Gandy and a Valmar. thank you Dale

[@daledenisetheel7290]

I would like to see an update on what you are doing and how it is working for you. Thank you

[@TheNewMediaoftheDawn]

That’s fantastic. Oh there is a dollar amount, healthier crops, less pest problems, better water holding capacity, less fertilizer, higher yields, and it will only get better in time:) Well done!

[@dannica8834]

thanks and hope you will answer

[@dannica8834]

thanks

[@aliabtahi2313]

nice team work . what happens to those radishes ?? I wish can find a farm with almost no chemical ( No dairy) to volunteer work N or NW of Chicago for few weeks.

[@timkirkpatrick9155]

How much woodland do you have right now, 2020? Don't throw anything heavy, but Rx Fire can help as part of the weed/invasives management and with too thick residue issues, have you tried it?

[@MacroAggressor]

Great video, very helpful. Just fyi, the dialogue audio is all on left st. channel, and it's a bit agitating with headphones. Minor gripe, thanks for the doc.

[@minnesotanrcs]

Thanks for the tip!

[@babur320]

Fascinating! It isn't explicitly stated, but it seems that the interseeded crops are not harvested at all-- their only uses are for erosion control and soil building, right? It would be too labor intensive to harvest, I'm guessing. Were these farmers influenced by the similar work Colin Seis is doing in Australia, or is this an example of parallel development? Great video and great example of a farming family using technology and wisdom to stay competitive and take care of the land.

[@karlrovey]

It depends on the interseeded crops. Some are used for grazing. Some are bailed for hay. Some pairings can be harvested together and separated later.

[@sophiab6486]

Question, when you interseed with radishes, rye, and rape seed, do you allow them to just grow and then die composting in situ? Or do you harvest all of it with the corn? Does interseeding make it harder to harvest corn? is it possible to interseed wheat?

[@kariolson6181]

Hi! We allow the radishes and rape seed to winter kill, add organic matter, and keep the soil covered. On the other hand, the cereal rye does not die off in the winter and grows in the spring. The rye creates a nice cover as well as absorbs excess moisture in the spring allowing is to get into the fields earlier to plant the next crop. We drill our soybeans into the live stand and kill it off with an herbicide pass after. Interseeding hasn’t had any effect on harvesting the corn as these cover crops never grow tall enough to the height of the combine header. As far as interseeding wheat, I have no experience or knowledge on that quite yet. Sorry!

[@jjime1175]

Does the plant leaves tell you it needs nitrogen? Are you adding N just because that’s the norm? Have you done a plant SAP to determine it’s Nutrien needs?

[@JD-qx6qw]

Does the rye you interseed in the corn, make it through the winter, and regrow in the spring, or is it grown to much and gets winter killed?

[@timberlinefarms6857]

I'm wondering the same. We no-till all of our corn here, looking to interseed more this year but wondering the same if the rye will winter kill or not. From my experience it wont because once the corn gets about 2' tall it'll shade the rye and it will go dormant and come back alive in fall when corn starts to dry down when more sun can get to the corn.

[@kariolson6181]

Yep, Timberline Farms is correct. We interseed the rye in June when the corn is at about 4-5 leaf. The rye gets established and as the corn takes off, it goes dormant until fall. At leaf drop, the sunlight allows the rye to start growing again until freeze and then takes off fast in the spring. It is a great tool to hold the soil in place and control moisture in the spring.

[@wgab005]

Thanks for doing cover crops! Way to help the environment by filtering out excess chemicals that can go to rivers, absorbing CO2 in the air and providing everyone with more oxygen.

[@dannica8834]

you have experience and i like that

[@kevinpoole4323]

Advanced Technology Amazing

[@daledenisetheel7290]

Does the rye go dormant and come back the next year?

[@shahroozkharaghani1781]

You can make the char from your own bio mass and use the collected energy from pyrolisis

[@dannica8834]

pks if you have somm tips for me...pls tell me.

[@marlan5470]

I hope you wean out of adding nitrates too. Great job.

[@bismarkanloadey289]

isn't there anything you can do about the seed planter destroying the crops as you're driving through? I think that is a big issue

[@rustinpeace7466]

Young plants are very flexible, he wouldn't willingly destroy his crop.

[@NalamPenu]

How does this vehicle move without damaging the corn field?

[@greighenning9091]

GPS Controlled Traffic

[@NalamPenu]

@@greighenning9091 I mean like how does the tyres and the vehicle weight doesn't crush the corn plants.

[@greighenning9091]

@@NalamPenu The tractor is fitted with a Control Traffic gadget prior to planting. This gadget takes over the steering of the tractor and drives in a predetermined direction. When any additional tractor work is done, the GPS system takes over from the farmer and steers the tractor for him, along the identical wheel tracks as when the crop was planted. Wheels don't crush the crop because the row spacing at the wheel-tracks are set wide enough so that future tractor work will not damage any plants. As for the implement at the back, the spacing on the planter is recalibrated to fit in between the row crop. You can observe perfect plant-tracks left behind the planter due to high precision accuracy of the GPS controlled steering.

[@NalamPenu]

@@greighenning9091 thanks Greig

[@johne7123]

is this video not broken for everyone else?

[@PandaArmy-fy5zh]

👍

[@zachhodgson4113]

Someone should look up what the Native Americans grow with Corn. I remember it being a squash. I don't remember which ones. I bet that too would change throughout the field. Say Water melon when in flood areas, and pumpkin in another... Also you should see if you can make more swells. Maybe create a run off system. Another idea I have, is to make your own nitrates, and see if they like some mushrooms.

[@kevinpoole4323]

NRCS is Good

[@minnesotanrcs]

Thanks!

[@incorectulpolitic]

Roundup ready gmo corn?

[@dannica8834]

i am a farmer from Romania, Europe

[@dannica8834]

hy. nice job you done there. i you could give somme information... i want to comunikate with you personal.

[@FoodwaysDistribution]

All i want to know is how is that massive tractor driving and turning in the field not being a concern damaging the plants

[@vax_gax_lax_bax_max_vax2578]

ikr?

[@markcrowley7489]

You run over very little if you're good at it.

[@farming50s57]

Calculated loss 3-5 bushel increase over a couple hundred acres is greater than the acre lost in end rows.

[@shahroozkharaghani1781]

Terra pretta

[@jkprops]

This work is so much better than buying a $250k chemical sprayer just to kill weeds, weeds are only a plant that we do jot want in our fields so why not grow cover crops that work for us and the plants and choke out the “weeds”

[@muratgokirmak6132]

What is purpose of this?

[@dannica8834]

i want to lern

[@MrDannyboyy11]

An inch of topsoil every 10,000 years in nature. A really good gardener, not farmer can grow an inch in as little as 3 years provided they have the best practices in place (resource example John Jeavons) Farmers can make an inch in 10 years I do believe.

[@dannica8834]

to comunicate

[@dannica8834]

P.S. : sorry for my english

[@dannica8834]

i changed the wholl work..

[@dannica8834]

that is i do

[@dannica8834]

:))

[@shahroozkharaghani1781]

Where is the biochar integration

[@shahroozkharaghani1781]

Boichar will take you into black gold territory also known as tera preta, just make sure to charge the char with a tea from your own soil before adding to the land

[@dannica8834]

and that

[@kevinpoole4323]

Educated Family

[@dannica8834]

if you have an e-mail adres

[@hadiabdiyusuf8735]

Greeting from Somalia, dougthers can heir me

[@PandaArmy-fy5zh]

anything to rid yourself of chem

[@mdsloads]

Another poor farmer but doing good work

[@dannica8834]

and that