Cover crops growing in popularity across Iowa

Mark Schleisman’s father and uncle always planted about 70 acres of cover crops for their cattle to graze west of Lake City.
When Schleisman took over the family farm seven years ago, he started researching cover crops and experimenting with different plants. He wasn’t just looking at the environmental benefits, though those are great. Schleisman said he started finding an economic benefit from the practice.
“It really has a payback where cows are,” Schleisman said. “There’s payback with the soil, but it’s less quantifiable. It more than covers the cost of seeding it and we get soil benefits.”
Thanks to research help from Practical Farmers of Iowa, he can show the monetary benefit to his cattle operation – last year, he earned $70 per acre of cover crops. He’s hoping another research project, repeated sampling of the soils on which he plants his cover crops, will show the soil quality improvements that translate into broader economic safeguards. 
Read more in the March 22 edition.