MSU Weeds.com Blog

-E. Taylor

Here’s a brief update on the cover crops we have planted for our organic dry bean project.

Medium red clover

• Planted July 17
• Came up with a good looking stand
• Mostly died by mid-August due to lack of moisture
• Replanted August 17

Buckwheat

• Planted July 17
• Flowering by August 13
• Mown August 13 and August 20 to about 4-5″ hoping for regrowth
• Where buckwheat was run over with tires it has died
• Some leaves emerging from mown plants, but it may flower again right away

Oilseed radish

• Planted August 17
• Emerging by August 23 (we had some rain after planting)

-E. Taylor

This summer we received news that our grant submitted to the USDA NIFA Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) programs was recommended for funding. This grant is a collaboration among Karen Renner (weed science), Jim Kelly (dry bean breeding), Christy Sprague (weed science), Dale Mutch (MSU Extension, KBS), Dan Rossman (MSU Extension, Gratiot County), Chris DiFonzo (entomology), and me. Our project has the following 6 objectives:

1. Identify dry bean varieties that are best suited for organic production, including nitrogen fixation through nodulation, the ability to tolerate prolonged mechanical weed management, and dry bean production and seed yield in cover crop systems.
2. Measure soil nitrogen availability in dry beans planted in rotation following cover crops.
3. Determine if cover crops prior to dry beans influence weed emergence and growth and mechanical weed management.
4. Evaluate key insect pests in organic dry bean production s influence by variety and cover crops prior to planting.
5. Expand dry bean breeding activites to select for traits that are best suited to organic production.
6. Educate growers and the agricultural community on organic dry bean production through extension efforts.

To address objectives 1, 2, 3, and 4 we will be conducting studies looking at organic dry bean production following medium red clover, oilseed radish, rye, and a no cover treatment at the the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) at the Horticultural Teaching and Research Center- Student Organic Farm (HTRC-SOF), and in 6 on-farm sites (one cover studied at each site). This first year will be a little unique because we did not know if the grant was funded in time to frost seed the clover treatments. Therefore we will be working at KBS in an organic field that was in wheat and was entirely frost seeded to clover. Now that the wheat is off we will plow the clover in the areas where we want to plant our other cover crop treatments. At the HTRC-SOF we are working in a field that is in transition to organic. There was no crop currently growing there so we have worked the ground and on Monday we planted our clover treatments. We also planted buckwheat in the portions of the field that will be used for years 2-3 of the experiment. We will be planting the oilseed radish and rye treatments sometime in August and September at both of these MSU sites.

At the grower sites we will let the growers choose which of the cover crop they are the most interested in studying.

We will plant the dry beans for all of these sites in June 2011. In the spring of 2011 we will precondition the year 2 sites (covers in 2011, beans in 2012) at the MSU locations by planting oats in all treatments and frost seeding clover with the oats in the clover treatments.

For objectives 1 and 5, Jim Kelly and Jim Heilig (PhD student) have begun working on advancing dry bean generations and seed increases of the varieties and lines of interest. Their work is taking place in Tuscola county on a grower’s farm. In 2011-2013 they will be working again with this grower and also at KBS, with some additional work in Puerto Rico during the winter months.

We intend to regularly update the progress of this project on this blog, through the New Ag Network, and also through eOrganic (a community within eXtension).