My first thought is this season isn't going to be as good as last season. It's been wet now for three weeks. Though there was a lot of corn planted in April from the 17th to the 23rd. For the most part stands are OK. There are some wet spots that will need to be replanted.
The timing for my cover crop fields didn't work well with the weather this spring, as they are not planted yet. In early April I did not spray yet because it was cool and I wanted a little more growth. I did spray them on April the 22nd. Than it rained. I had a two day window on May the 9th and 10th, but the ARG fields going to corn weren't quite fit to plant. Partly due to the fact that they had been sprayed and were dying and were not pulling moisture out of the ground.
I did however plant soybeans into cornstalks some bare and some with ARG cover that are in the pictures. The stalks with ARG cover were sprayed on Sunday and planted on Monday the 10th. Conditions were good and hope to get good stands here.
These timing issues are one of the bigger hurdles to overcome with cover crops. In my opinion that's why I don't think a producer can do 100% cover crops and still manage it. Somewhere between a half and one third seems to be my comfort level.
Due to wet conditions last fall I did not get strip till performed in my cover crop fields. If you read my posts last year this is a concept that can open that planting window up a little bit. I was considering doing spring strip till at the 4" depth but that window hasn't presented itself this year. One tractor does everytthing in my operation. So if its planting I'd have to stop to do spring strip till, and I'd rather be planting something whether it's corn or beans.
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