From Caitlin Congdon, our Field Crop Specialist: There are a number of cover crops that would fit well into the window of time following garlic harvest, depending on your goals. Some examples include brown mustard if wireworm is a problem in the field, or sorghum-sudangrass if you’re looking for a high biomass cover crop to sequester carbon.
My goal is to right after harvesting garlic mid July to get a warm season cover in terminate it at the end of September then plant a cool season cover I’m just thinking what would grow fast enough to smother out weeds before terminating for the cool season cover
From Sonny Murray, our Berry Specialist: Both Pearl millet and Sorghum Sudan grass are going to kill at the first hard frost so in some cases it may be nice to have spring or winter triticale or winter rye establishing underneath to fill in the late fall and early spring period. The challenge would be to achieve seed to soil contact with the seed with the heavy crop residue. This could be accomplished by broadcasting and then mowing afterwards, increasing the seeding rates or using a heavy no till drill while the crop is still standing. It could be done but I do not have experience with it in practice. Keep in mind that winter rye and trit will over winter and will need to be terminated in spring before the next crop is established. Hope that helps!
The main problem with Triticale is obtaining the seed. They are just harvesting/processing the years crop when you would want to incorporate it ( assuming you want winter triticale and assuming you want to plant it with the SSG)
Question would be what could I put in after harvesting my garlic in July
From Caitlin Congdon, our Field Crop Specialist:
There are a number of cover crops that would fit well into the window of time following garlic harvest, depending on your goals. Some examples include brown mustard if wireworm is a problem in the field, or sorghum-sudangrass if you’re looking for a high biomass cover crop to sequester carbon.
My goal is to right after harvesting garlic mid July to get a warm season cover in terminate it at the end of September then plant a cool season cover I’m just thinking what would grow fast enough to smother out weeds before terminating for the cool season cover
Does anyone oversow with Trit?
From Sonny Murray, our Berry Specialist:
Both Pearl millet and Sorghum Sudan grass are going to kill at the first hard frost so in some cases it may be nice to have spring or winter triticale or winter rye establishing underneath to fill in the late fall and early spring period.
The challenge would be to achieve seed to soil contact with the seed with the heavy crop residue. This could be accomplished by broadcasting and then mowing afterwards, increasing the seeding rates or using a heavy no till drill while the crop is still standing.
It could be done but I do not have experience with it in practice. Keep in mind that winter rye and trit will over winter and will need to be terminated in spring before the next crop is established. Hope that helps!
The main problem with Triticale is obtaining the seed.
They are just harvesting/processing the years crop when you would want to incorporate it ( assuming you want winter triticale and assuming you want to plant it with the SSG)