 Modern agriculture, especially in the Midwest, is being forged to confront tremendous challenges of soil erosion, nutrient loss from runoff, herbicide resistant weeds, water quality issues, and depleted soil organic matter, all of which point to conventional agriculture being in the process of degradation. The concept of perennial living mulch systems, or perennial ground cover systems as they're commonly referred to, address some of these issues because the system is based on sound basic conservation principles of non-disturbance, armoring the soil, increasing plant and microbial species diversity in the crop rotation, and keeping living plants in the field as long as possible. The last principle, continuous living plants in the form of perennial, low growing cover crops between the rows of the cash crops, was the focus of this SAIR farmer research, farmer rancher grant, awarded in 2019 and conducted on a small farm in West Central Illinois. Periclover, along with a number of other perennial cover crops like white clover, dwarf bluegrass, fescue, or dandelion, are increasingly being incorporated into cropping systems for their weed suppressing potential, soil wall-holding capacity, erosion control, and the ability to increase water infiltration rate. Because clover has small seed size, we learned the hard way that the conventional method of creating a clean weed and clump-free firm seedbed with a shallow planting at the recommended planting rate and light soil cover is best for uniform germination and establishment. Early establishment closely followed by corn planting worked well for this project, minimizing the competition from shading and light quality interference, obtained the highest quality seed and freshest inoculum available. Don't scrimp on seed costs. Periclover is slow to establish and spread, usually taking at least three years. For this project, the first year resulted in spotty emergence and poor stand establishment due to heavy spring rains and cold wet soils. Following the above protocol, the second year produced a more satisfactory and uniform stand. For comparison purposes, the immediate neighbor and experienced sweet corn griller, John Rawls, cooperated by selecting the sweet corn varieties and using his labor and equipment to plant sweet corn in both his plot and the curiclover plot for the 2020 season. His plot was conventionally tilled, while the curiclover plot was stripped tilled prior to planting the field using a coon crowd's gladiator strip tiller, set to 8-inch strips on 30-inch centers. Young plus dag of Cameron, Illinois performed this custom field operation. I've been going from the cab and obviously you should do your scouting on your boots, not from the tractor cab, but from the cab, I could see it and now you can certainly see it. The biodiversity that's going on with the mixture of covers that Charles has, you can just see this beautiful structure that can settle after that one-inch rain and then plant into it. Now the key will be, even with the good gladiator that's been set, the planter is going to need to have, you know, floating residue managers to kind of level it, so like right here. We took that guy out, which is fine, but it'll need a little bit of a rain to take that off and then you're still going to have a little bit of unevenness here. The planter is going to have to address, but it did everything we wanted it to do. We went through, this flail chopper did a good job. Honestly, I've been pretty impressed with this rig. I know that young plus dag, our partner who's letting us utilize their equipment, I know they've never done anything like this with their strip tiller rig. I wonder if it would have worked even without flail chopping, but the flail chopping solves other issues, right? It puts the nutrients back where we want it. It gets that growth down to sort of a reset. So we should still be doing it, but it says a lot about the rig that he's got, that Coon-Crow's gladiator, that it did what it did. The sweet corn was then planted into the strips, leaving the cura clover, white clover, dandelion mix between the rows intact. This left almost 74% of the interrow covered with living plants. Established cura clover from the 2019 seeding suppressed early weeds by covering them between 20 to 80%, depending on the stand density. That's a beautiful stand establishment right there. And this is simultaneous establishment. This was planted this spring along with the corn. And so it has gotten established. It's really nice and thick in certain places. That's giving these grasses a run for its money. Inadequate weed suppression was not surprising. In-row weeds also remained a problem. A prototype interrow-cripper unit was ineffective due to guidance and sway and drip problems on the 45-year-old tractor used. After taking out some of the corn plants, a self-propelled push mower was used and said. Mowing was effective, but very time-consuming and tedious. This is the same method researchers have used on small plot cura research elsewhere. Agricultural engineers across the nation are working on weed management technology to address these issues. The University of Missouri has developed an open-source interrow mower design. A SARA farmer grant was also awarded in 2018 to an organic farmer in Missouri to develop an interrow mower that reportedly works well. In-row weeds will continue to be a problem without resorting to herbicides. Recent research has revealed that light reflecting into the corn from the green cover crop can decrease the growth and yield of the corn. In the future, some form of cover crop suppression at critical times of crop development, such as emergence and early growth, will be needed, as well as auxiliary means of weed control. Cover crops alone will not work. In-pure cura seed, pornoculin, volunteer clover and other crops, and especially the reseeding balansa clover from previous years, all detracted from the observed effects of the cure clover mix. Keep this in mind when considering the overall results of this project. Pre-plant soil temperatures in Rawlins' Tildes soil averaged about 4 degrees warmer than the living mulch covered soil. Farmers that attempt this system would need to take into account cooler spring temperatures when scheduling their planting season. Using a standard rain infiltrometer, significant increases in the average infiltration rate times were noted between the soil in the conventional sweet corn compared to the perennial living mulch field. The infiltration rate for the perennial living mulch system averaged 3.3 minutes per acre inch, compared to 17 minutes per acre inch on the conventional field. Furthermore, rain events sealed the soil surface and crusted over in the conventionally tilled plot, sealed soils hamper plant growth. The perennial living mulch plot reduced the impact of rain on the soil surface, reducing the chances of water runoff. Soil tests comparing the conventionally tilled plot and the perennial living mulch plot indicated greater overall soil biological activity with the perennial living mulch. The perennial living mulch soil showed higher numbers of phospholipid fatty acid content, which is a measure of the total living microbial biomass in a soil sample. Likewise, mycorrhizin, soil respiration, soil organic matter, and the overall soil health index numbers were all greater than the perennial living mulch system. Weeds were able to grow through the cover crop and in the crop row at all phases through the growing season. Because of weed competition, most of the sweet corn in the perennial living mulch system failed to develop even mature ears. Even so, those ears that did mature were comparable in size and quality as measured by the sugar content with a refractometer. So to summarize, for me this ear is indicative of the potential that can be achieved if we combine the cover crops with the fertility management and the timing along with the technology. It's definitely a system where all the components have to work together. The ultimate goal of this perennial living mulch system is to integrate livestock for regenerative soil building, enterprise stacking, and overall system resiliency. After harvesting the sweet corn, the plot was fenced off and cattle were allowed to graze the corn stover, cover crop, and weed mix over a two-day period for a total grazing time of 20 hours. Free graze and post-graze forage biomass was air-dried and weighed and averaged over three samples. The average pre-graze biomass was 14,520 pounds of dry matter weight per acre. The average post-graze biomass or residue was 9,317 pounds per acre. For a net average forage removal of 5,203 pounds per acre of dry matter weight. The cattle will go after the plants that they need the nutrition from. First, select clean, pure, high-quality seed and fresh inoculum from a reputable seed source. Second, follow standard seeding rates and establishment methods onto a firm, cleat seed bed. Do not use a nurse crop. Keep weeds mowed until the cash crop is established. Use GPS equipment if at all possible and match all implements to the same room number. Consider wider strips or wider row widths instead of the 8-inch strips or 30-inch rows used in this project. Try planting the cash crop into the standing clover crop and rower crimping or flail mowing just as the crop is emerging. Look into some of the more innovative tools in weed management. In-row mowers, in-row crimpers, pre-plant roller crimpers, but try before you buy. Some of the equipment are still experimental prototypes. Have a weed control backup plan. Most importantly, consult experienced farmers and researchers before beginning and start on a small scale. Remember, this is still a leading-edge agricultural technology. To me, this is the most photogenic part of the whole field. It's not the greenest corn, it's not the tallest corn, but it is about as consistent, especially down these two rows and except for these ugly water humps that are invading the picture. We've got a pretty uniform stand that's not very tall. It's what, four and a half, five inches off the ground. Again, the corn didn't get off as fast as we'd like. We've talked about that issue, but it's choking out all the other weeds that are going to go to seed. Save a few big ones like this and the corn is even. The system has married if we can just figure out how to scale it. There is a future in perennial living mulch systems for both conventional and organic cropping systems. Once seed and inoculum improvements are made, and the technology and management protocols are worked at. Researchers across the Midwest are busy developing this cutting-edge management system to address the critical issues of soil conservation, water quality, and herbicide-resistant superweeds, farmer profitability, and overall agricultural sustainability. For a more detailed description and summary, please refer to the SAER Final Report, FNC 19-1178. Thank you for watching.