Cover Crops 101

You've heard about cover crops... but where do you start? Perhaps you heard that you should be using cover crops, that they can benefit your soil, and help prevent erosion. Or perhaps you heard a horror story about a farmer who tried cover crops, but used up all the moisture for his cash crop and experienced a yield drag. We want to be frank with you-cover crops can be challenging to manage. But with the right plan, and careful management, we know that cover crops can benefit your farm. We've seen it over and over. Farmers have increased soil organic matter, decreased input costs, and increased profitability. Farms have become more resilient to adverse weather, pests, and weeds. And farmers have rediscovered the joy of farming-of making their own decisions, experimenting with new techniques, and watching their soil improve. We wrote this book to help you get started on a journey, not just of implementing cover crops, but of regenerating your soil. At Green Cover, our purpose is to help people regenerate, steward, and share God's creation for future generations. We hope that this book will be a stepping stone to help you to regenerate your piece of God's creation.

About the Authors

Keith Berns and Kate Smith

Keith Berns Co-Founder Business Development at Green Cover Keith Berns combines over 25 years of no-till farming with 10 years of teaching Agriculture and Computers. In addition to no-tilling 1,800 acres of irrigated and dryland corn, soybeans, rye, triticale, sunflowers, and buckwheat in South Central Nebraska, he also co-owns and operates Green Cover, one of the major cover crop seed providers and educators in the United States. Through Green Cover, Keith has experimented with over 120 different cover crop types and hundreds of mixes planted into various situations and has learned a great deal about cover crop growth, nitrogen fixation, moisture usage, and grazing utilization of cover crops. Keith was honored by the White House as a 2016 Champion of Change for Sustainable and Climate-Smart Agriculture. Keith also developed the SmartMix® Calculator, one of the most widely used cover crop selection tools on the internet. Keith has a Masters Degree in Agricultural Education from the University of Nebraska and teaches on cover crops and soil health more than 30 times per year to various groups and audiences. Keith also was appointed by Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts to be part of the Nebraska Healthy Soils Task Force and had the privilege of serving as the chairman. He enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife Audrey and their 7 children and their families, including the 11 grandkids! Kate Smith Marketing at Green Cover Kate's fascination with human health led to a fascination with soil health. Kate grew up in rural southern Wisconsin and spent most of her time outdoors and working on various farming operations. During this time she developed a deep appreciation for plants, animals, food, agriculture and natural resources and the way in which they all work together. Kate went to college at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln studying Animal Science and Grazing Livestock Systems. After college, Kate started working full time for Green Cover as a Sales Representative, gaining experience in the cover crop world. After a couple sales seasons, Kate transitioned to the marketing team helping write articles and organize processes. Kate and her husband, Ben now reside in Monroe, Wisconsin. Kate enjoys spending time outdoors, with her family, and seeks every opportunity to visit a lake during the summer. She enjoys leaning about soil, plant, and animal health and how it relates to human health.