From our side of the fence

Sean Groos

Howard Lake,

Minnesota

Wright County

How long have you utilized cover crops? I've been planting cover crops for about 10 years.

What cover crops do you plant? I have planted winter rye, winter wheat, winter triticale and a brassica blend of radish, turnip, common vetch and clover. Due to a limited amount of crop acres, I strive to get the most out of my acres. I first started planting winter rye for a low-cost feed source for dairy cows and heifers.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. I plant a three-way mixture of winter rye/winter wheat/winter triticale following the fall corn silage chopping and manure hauling. After harvesting spring wheat, I have followed up with a planting of the brassica blend following the wheat harvest and straw baling.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? One benefit is the soil health and soil tilth following a cover crop rotation. The soil works up easily and makes a nice seedbed for the next crop. Another benefit is the availability of a low-cost feed source for cattle. A third benefit is that it helps hold the topsoil in place, especially during the spring thaw, minimizing runoff. Additionally, the cover crop helps to suppress weeds for the upcoming crop.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. Certainly, a drawback to utilizing cover crops is that the following crop may have difficulty getting established due to a lack of moisture. When I have harvested the ryelage at the end of May and drilled soybeans into the root mat, they have often struggled to get June rains and have had poor germination. I have now switched over to planting sorghum following the ryelage harvest as it is more tolerant to dry germination conditions and provides me with an additional feed source for dairy heifers.

Tell us about your farm. Following 25-plus years of dairy farming, we exited the milking business in 2020 when our youngest graduated from high school. We now raise replacement dairy heifers for three large dairy farms. I continue to crop farm and have a small custom chopping business with a neighbor.

___________________________________________________________________

Greg Moes, MoDak Dairy Inc.

Goodwin, South

Dakota

Codington County

2,700 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? Twenty-plus years; when we started, it was called double crops, not cover crops.

What cover crops do you plant? Winter wheat and rye.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. We started with winter wheat and then corn, but it was too late for corn silage. Now we use rye, then June chop for heifer feed, then Sorghum-sudangrass or millet. We cut sorghum twice every year, so it gets dry enough for feed.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? Cover or double cropping rotates away from corn and diseases. Also, it uses up the nutrients from manure and can have somewhere to put manure in the summer. It is a good filler for roughage in heifer rations, not having to buy grass and straw for the animals.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. Getting crops to dry enough to put up right, cutting down the crop.

Tell us about your farm. MoDak Dairy is a dairy, beef and cropping operation located near Goodwin, South Dakota. My brother, Jim, and I are the fourth generation, and my son, Jacob, is the fifth generation to own the farm. We operate the business along with all the families involved in making the operation a success. The farm has been in the Moes family for 130 years. MoDak Dairy milks 2,700 Holstein cows three times a day, farms 4,000 acres, growing corn, alfalfa, sorghum, wheat and rye, and it raises beef-dairy crosses from birth to finish weight. In 2016, MoDak Dairy started selling beef -cross calves, which were Limousin on Holstein. In 2021, we built and finished our new calf and heifer facility. At this time, MoDak switched to an Akaushi cross with Holsteins. In 2022, MoDak Dairy then switched from Limousin to Angus and Akaushi crossbreeding. Currently, MoDak Dairy has 3,000 head on feed from birth to finish.

___________________________________________________________________

Corey

Mulhern

Fountain, Minnesota

Fillmore County

1,000 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? We have been utilizing cover crops for 12 years.

What cover crops do you plant? We primarily plant winter rye. We started planting cover crops for heifer feed.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. Last year, we planted 650 acres and plan on seeding 900 acres of winter rye this year.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? The benefits we have seen from cover crops are holding in nutrients from manure application and improving soil health.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. I used to put in corn after rye, but now, we use rye as one of our main forages for the dairy herd. We now follow the rye with forage sorghum for our dry cow and heifer rations. Any land that gets fall manure before seeding is rolled after and is then ready for no-till corn in the spring. All beans are planted into standing rye, which has helped with weed pressure. We ultimately do about half our spring tillage in the fall.

Tell us about your farm. I farm with my uncle, Greg Mulhern, my son, Riley, and my daughter, Emma. My kids are the fourth generation on the farm. We farm 1,600 acres and raise all our own young stock. We also do custom harvesting, planting and manure hauling.

___________________________________________________________________

Daryl and Andrew Patnode

(not pictured)

Corcoran, Minnesota

Hennepin County

120 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? We began using cover crops in 2018. There were two years when we didn’t plant a cover crop because of it being a drought year in the fall. We didn’t think it would take.

What cover crops do you plant? We plant winter rye after we finish making corn silage. We wanted to try double-cropping soybeans after rye, growing the rye to harvest for forage in the spring. We can get good tonnage for dairy cattle if cut before the rye heads out, usually about early to mid-May. We follow that by planting no-till soybeans.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. After making silage, we apply liquid manure and work it in. We plant winter rye usually about September or October at a rate of 100-120 pounds per acre. We’ve planted even later in the fall, when wet fields have pushed things back, with success. We only plant over corn silage ground.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? If you can harvest good-quality forage for your dairy cattle, you can save on your hay supply. Benefits also include soil quality, erosion control and weed suppression.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. In the fall of 2024, we planted winter triticale instead of rye, but it froze out. This year, we have rye and it’s ready to cut and harvest and get soybeans planted. With the amount of work harvesting all of our crops in the fall, sometimes adding the time to plant rye can be a challenge, but it’s worth the effort. We’ve had years where the soil was too wet to get back in the field, and we’ve had to wait for it to dry up for the right conditions to plant it. Rye is pretty hardy so it worked fine. It’s a learning process when you do this stuff.

Tell us about your farm. We are a father and son team (the fifth and sixth generations) milking Holsteins and farming the land on the original Patnode Farmstead that was established in 1881 here in Corcoran. We have a double-12 swing parlor where we milk 120 cows. We keep and raise our own heifers for the dairy and raise our bull calves as beef steers. We grow corn, soybeans, alfalfa and rye on owned and rental land. We make balage and high moisture corn. Our forage is stored in bags. We have a part-time employee who helps with milkings and feeding calves. Our wives, Lori and Mackenzie, and daughter/sister, Bri, help on the farm when needed. Andrew has three young kids (ages 7, 5 and 3) who keep us busy and enjoying life.

___________________________________________________________________

Kevin Thole

Greenville, Illinois

Bond County

70 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? I started utilizing cover crops in 2017 and went to 100% of acres in 2021. I then started grazing some acres in 2024. At first, cover crops were just a way for me to control erosion, but they have evolved into a whole different system today than what we had 10 years ago.

What cover crops do you plant? I started cover cropping from watching the world change around me. I saw erosion issues, water issues, pest issues, weed issues, and more with no real solution in sight. I never knew what I could do about it until attending an event and listening to Ray Archuleta speak about soil health and working with nature using the soil health principles. After that, the light bulb went off, and I had to give it a go. I planted a single species when I started, but today I try to always plant a variety of species together. Cereal rye, triticale, barley, annual rye grass, oats, crimson clover, balansa clover, hairy vetch, turnips, radish and rapeseed are all common species I use. I always try a new species yearly to see what works for our operation, so the list keeps growing annually.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. I try to follow behind the combine in the fall to get my covers planted. The tractor and drill have become as normal as the tractor and grain cart at harvest. In my area, and harvest timing, I focus on over-wintering species instead of winter-kill species. I have had a few springs that I picked up new acres late, and just getting in a crop of oats to plant green into has been a quick alternative for spring crops and a short window. I am open to anything as long as I can always keep something growing in the soil to follow the soil health principles.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? I am not sure I can even list all the benefits I have seen over the years, but I will try to hit the largest ones: reduced herbicide expenses, less fuel usage, less machinery needs and overhead, weed control, late-season drought protection, and erosion reduction, but there are even more. I started cover cropping just hoping to see some basic results, but as time goes on, there are additional benefits you see.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. I have learned a massive amount from the last nine years of cover cropping, along with a lot of my own trials — testing anything else my brain can think up or that I see someone else doing. I continue to always have adjustments and a curve to follow with acres that are year one, versus acres that are year nine. They act like totally different worlds. Soybeans are easy, and corn is complex. Learning from peers has helped immensely along the way. Bouncing ideas off others who have done this way longer than I have has been a major impact on my success. The biggest things I have learned are to keep it simple and start with low seeding rates and work up from there. To be successful at cover cropping, you need to be learning, looking and listening. I spend many hours a year just on education so I can be successful when I get on the field.

Tell us about your farm. My parents, Philip and Kathy Thole, started farming in 1986 from nothing. They rented the farm for a few years to get by while they saved for equipment to farm themselves. In 1993, my parents decided to get into dairy farming and built a new facility from scratch. The dairy originally had a double-3 herringbone parlor with room to expand to a double-6, which they did after a few years. Our cows are housed in a standard freestall barn, but heifers are kept at another location of ours. My parents continued expanding and added another barn and drive-through feed alley in the back of the original barn. Today, we farm around 500 acres and continue to expand yearly. We slowly transitioned over time to me managing day-to-day operations on the farm, which I have been in charge of for about 10 years. My parents are both active on the farm, and I hope that continues for as long as possible since they both enjoy the farm immensely. I was blessed they gave me the opportunities they did along the way. Not many parents would hand over control of a field and their livelihood and say, “Let’s see what you can do.”  I would not be where I am today without my mom and dad, and to them I want to say, “I love you and thank you for everything.”

___________________________________________________________________

Rich (right) and Eric Olson

Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin

Door County

60 registered Holstein cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? We began planting cover crops in 2020 and are striving to do more each year.

What cover crops do you plant? We grow winter wheat, and following its harvest, we apply manure. We then plant a mixture of oats, winter wheat, tillage radish and purple top turnip. We did this for nutrient uptake and to prevent erosion (water and wind). More recently, we have started planting triticale as a forage for our dairy cows. We plant the first week of September and harvest in late May, before the first crop of alfalfa. We then no-till corn into the harvested fields.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. We generally plant no-till corn into the cover crop fields. It has the best setup for nutrients, emergence and early plant vigor.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? The benefits of cover crops are reduced soil erosion, improved soil health, increased water infiltration and enhanced nutrient retention. All are things we feel very good about.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. We have adjusted our planting rates over time as we found our cover crop residues to be too dense in spring. It seemed to cause the soil to hold moisture, stay cool and made for delayed spring planting. Too much of a good thing can be a problem. By reducing the amount of cover crop seed, we had better results and performance.

Tell us about your farm. We are a fifth-generation family farm with continuous ownership for 154 years. In 2013, we implemented a Lely milking robot and upgraded to the A5 model four years ago. We are a Land O’Lakes milk producer. Our cropping consists of 250 acres of corn, 200 acres of alfalfa, 200 acres of winter wheat, 200 acres of oats, 200 acres of snap beans and 60 acres of Plenish soybeans. In 2025, we installed solar panels with the capacity to power our entire farmstead.

___________________________________________________________________

George Gierok

Independence,

Wisconsin

Trempealeau County

60 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? 12 years.

What cover crops do you plant? We’ve been using cover crops for the last 12 years. It was recommended through BioAg. They have been encouraging these kinds of practices. The theory is that the cover crops are supposed to soak up the nutrients that are left in the soil, hold them until spring and control erosion.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. We plant rye and put oats with it. This goes in after the corn silage, so it is mid-September when we put it in. Sometimes, this is the very day after we make corn silage. I will do half rye and half oats; our poundage varies. The oats take off like crazy in the fall, and the rye takes over in the spring. We put that on our corn-on-corn fields.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? We are growing our own fertilizer. Before we plant our corn, we turn over our cover crops with a disc to groom them for planting. The rye is tender, but it’s underneath, and it’s slowly breaking down now. The corn will use that as it starts to grow, it gradually feeds the plant until it breaks down completely, and it won’t leach out if it rains.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. The first year, we seeded mostly oats and just three bags of rye on 20 acres. I was impressed at how green the field looked in the spring with just a few bags, so I thought we should just step this up. We’ve had good production every year, so we’ve continued to step it up.

Tell us about your farm. I own my farm, along with my wife, Mary. We bought this farm in 1991. We have 285 acres, almost half in pasture. For the rest, we grow about 50 acres of corn and 100 acres of alfalfa. We are milking 60 cows at a time in a small barn. We raise our heifers and sell our bull calves. We raised our kids here on the farm, and when they are off from their day jobs, they help us. One of our sons helps manage a YouTube page, Gierok Farms, connecting the world to agriculture and our farm.

___________________________________________________________________

David

Trimner

Athens,

Wisconsin

Marathon County

3,000 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? We have been using cover crops for 13 years.

What cover crops do you plant? We primarily plant triticale, rye or winter wheat.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. We primarily use winter wheat for our cover crop, which is planted post-corn silage harvest.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? We started using cover crops to better capture fall manure nutrients and protect the soil over winter by helping to keep it in place during the spring runoff. We also wanted to improve soil health and microbial activity to help drive micro-nutrient availability to the plants.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. When it comes to managing cover crops, a critical part of the success is how you plant them, when you plant them and how you manage them in the spring. Getting the covers out early enough is critical for success. Drilling covers in also provides better success, but spreading or air seeding allows for more opportunities because it is faster. In the spring, it is important to terminate the covers before they get too thick and out of hand. If you plan to harvest the cover crops, you need to manage harvesting enough tons and leaving time for the following crop to also have success.

Tell us about your farm. Miltrim Farms is a third-generation dairy farm originally started by Martin Mueller, Tom Mueller and Scott Trimner. Today the farm is owned by Scott’s son, David, along with longtime employee Andy Miller and his wife, Jenny. The farm has grown to 3,000 milking cows and we farm 5,200 acres, all used to grow forage for the cattle. The farm employs 50 full-time employees who oversee all parts of the operation.

___________________________________________________________________

Shawn Wagner, Wagner Farms Inc.

Oconto Falls, Wisconsin

Shawano County

940 cows

How long have you utilized cover crops? Wagner Farms has been doing cover crops for about 10 years now.

What cover crops do you plant? We plant winter rye and triticale.

Tell us about your cover crop rotation. The cover crop rotation is typically after corn silage. We try to put some cover crops in the grain corn and soybeans. The cover crops in the fall are typically planted with a drill. In the spring, we have used an inner seeder and planted into the existing growing corn. That gets planted when corn is about 8 inches tall. We are using a drone to apply the seed for cover crops into the soybeans, just prior to the leaves falling off the plant. Each of those methods allows for some growth before harvest. We also use cover crops for new seeding of alfalfa. In the fall we work the ground before the cover crop is planted; then the field is rolled to have a seedbed that is firm and smooth. Then the rye is planted at a half rate, 15 pounds to the acre, to keep soil in place and prevent washouts. In spring, alfalfa is planted at 20 pounds to the acre. The rye is then sprayed off so that it does not take the moisture and nutrients from new seeding alfalfa. The spraying of the rye in corn-planted ground is done just a day before or a day after planting.

What are the benefits of implementing cover crops? Cover crops are great for soil health. The soil is loose and allows water to properly drain, worm holes are created, and water and nutrients can get to the plant. It also keeps soil from leaving the fields through erosion. It saves on fuel and labor in the spring; we can no-till corn into them compared to making multiple tillage passes before planting. The rye also keeps other weeds from growing, allowing better management of that crop for that year.

Fill us in regarding your learning experience with cover crops. We have learned that having a growing crop keeps the nutrients where the roots can reach them, instead of those nutrients going to waste.

Tell us about your farm. Wagner Farms Inc. is a fifth-generation dairy farm, established in 1896, milking 940 cows. We are proud of the animal care systems we have built that support strong health and growth. Our motto is “People. Animals. Environment.” That order matters to us. We are most proud of our people; our family and team are the heartbeat of Wagner Farms. We believe when you invest in people first — through leadership, communication, training and trust — excellence in animal care naturally follows. Long before sustainability became a buzzword, our grandparents and great-grandparents understood that if you take care of the land, it will take care of you. To us, sustainability means not only environmental stewardship but also passing down the values of hard work, responsibility and care for the resources entrusted to us. We continue that mindset by implementing precision technology like autographed irrigation systems to apply water and nutrients more efficiently.