 My name is Hans Kandel, I'm an extension agronomist at NDSU. North Dakota farmers have been growing traditionally a lot of spring wheat. At the end of the season in August or beginning of September, many of the growers decide to work the fields because we don't know what the conditions will be in the following year. And black soil tends to warm up faster than when there is a stubble. In the past horses were used to work the ground, to work the wheat stubble. Nowadays of course we have big equipment and traditionally it can be blackened very quickly. In this particular field we have worked the ground substantially. However we would prefer to think about more a live cover and increasing the soil capacity, the soil health. So today we are going to talk about cover crops after wheat. Instead of having black ground we want to mimic nature more and in this particular example we have had the spring wheat harvested. Some of the seeds came out of the combine and we have here a situation of volunteer spring wheat. As you can see we have a green cover. This is an experimental site and previously I had spring wheat on small plots but I had also alleyways where we did not have any crop. And we can see the color difference in these two areas where I am standing it is fairly light green. Where the alleys were we see a dark green because there is more nitrogen. So the plant can take up some of the nitrogen that is still in the soil and capture it instead of having some of that nitrogen leaching away. A live crop is very important for soil health because we have a living root system. We have the crop growing and it is now able to add some more organic matter. Also for soil erosion control this field will have very limited soil erosion compared to a black soil. Today we are talking about cover crops. We saw that we can have a crop growing just as the volunteer spring wheat. But in this case we also planted some different cover crops into the stubble. We used a planter that was able to plant right into the stubble and we chose a number of different legumes as well as broadleaf crops. We are looking here at a legume because legumes tend to be able to fix some extra nitrogen. Field pea is one of the legumes that has a great ability to fix biologically nitrogen. So in the particular plot that we are looking at here we see the legume, the pea also surrounded by the volunteer spring wheat. So here we make use of the natural residual seed that came out of the combine for the wheat and we just planted in this case field peas. Another group of plants that we are testing are the brassicas. Brassicas have the tendency to grow really well into the late season, the cool season crops and we have here some radishes. The radishes again here are planted into the stubble of the wheat and we see a mixture of radish and the spring wheat. This is about a month after planting. Radishes in this case have the ability to make a deep tap root and loosen the ground. And just for just a month growth we already see a nice little tap root starting to develop. We still have some time on the clock and this root will only grow bigger. So before the season really ends this plant will still be maybe twice as big as it is now. Brassicas can grow late into the season but there are two types of brassicas. Those that can survive the winter and those that cannot. Here is one of the types that can survive the winter which is winter camalina. In this case we planted the winter camalina into the wheat stubble and we see a combination of the spring wheat and the camalina. In this case the camalina is relatively small but it will survive the winter and will start to regrow. All the small grain is spring wheat and will die off. So we will have a cover next spring. The plants are relatively small at this time and they stay what we call in the rosette stage. Another cool season brassica is canola. Canola can also grow late into the season. This particular canola is a roundup ready canola. The reason why I selected roundup ready is that would give you an option to spray this field and eliminate the spring wheat if you desire to do so. But I was also interested in seeing the competition between the canola and the spring wheat and you can see where the canola is growing. It grows nicely and it is developing still late into the season and it will continue growing till we get a frost but it will not survive the winter. In this plot we see that cowpea. Cowpea is a legume but it is also a warm season crop. It typically is seeded if you plant early in the summer but there is a big risk if you plant late into the fall. This year we had an early frost in the first week of September and the cowpea which is very sensitive to cold temperature froze. So it is not recommended to use a warm season crop in your mixture when you plant at the end of the season. Another legume we tried is the warm season crop soymine. Soymine also is not very suitable in cool conditions. With the frost the plants nearly died all of them but a few remained and tried to struggle to live but it will not amount too much. Therefore we should not grow the warm season soymines into this system planting it late in the fall. A common winter annual is winter rye. In this case we planted the winter rye and we have the volunteer spring wheat. The winter rye is established right now and it will survive the winter whereas the winter wheat will die. So next spring the rye will continue its growth and will cover the ground throughout the season. So in this case we have a mixture of two grasses the spring wheat and the rye. We have looked at several of the cover crops how they grow in the fall. Some of those over winter and now we are looking at the second year looking at growing soybeans on top of the cover crops. So in the area where we are standing we had cover crops as I showed you previously. In this region we planted the soybeans on top of some of the residue but also in some of the live cover the Camelina and the rye. And we planted some spring oats. The objective of this part is to see what is the effect of the cover crop from one year to the next crop the soybeans in the second year. So we have seen where soybeans are grown into a standing cover crop the rye or the Camelina. In this case I want to show you how you can use a cover crop at the end of the season. Behind me is a plot of soybeans and in those soybeans in the rows as soon as the lower leaves of the soybeans start to turn yellow we can put in some rye or Camelina. And the rye or the Camelina can grow in the canopy and then once the soybeans are harvested there is ample light for the rye to continue growing late into the season and it will survive through the winter and now we have a cover in the winter and it will start growing into the spring and we can grow another crop into either the rye or the Camelina. In summary cover crops can be utilized in the fall, go into the winter and cover the soil. We can have some growth in the spring depending on the species. The benefits are to cover the ground, to take up some residual nitrogen and in certain cases add some extra nitrogen if we use a legume. Do not use the warm season crops into the late fall but warm season can be used early in the season in June, July, August. There are many options for cover crops and it depends on your intent of the cover crop which species you should select. Thank you for watching.