Cover Crop Innovators Video Series
Barry Martin plants peanuts, cotton, corn, soybeans, wheat and grain sorghum, and uses strip till. Rye is his main cover crop, which he burns down before planting peanuts to minimize problems with the cornstalk borer, which appears to thrive in heavy vegetation. He plants other crops directly into his cover crop by first rolling and then planting with a subsoiler attachment. His main reasons for using cover crops are to minimize germination of Palmer amaranth, or pigweed, which has begun to develop herbicide resistance; to build organic matter; and to capture and retain more water.
Watch more videos in this series about cover crop innovators.