Authors: Don Robison, Seed Administrator, Indiana State Seed Lab, Office of Indiana State Chemist Cover crops have increased in interest and acres planted substantially in the past decade. Indiana has now had three consecutive years of over one million acres of cover crops planted. While cover crops are beneficial, there is an underlying issue among some of the species being utilized by Indiana farmers. Weed seeds in the cover crop seed! The Indiana State Seed Lab, which is housed in the Office of Indiana State Chemist, conducts hundreds of seed tests on cover crop seed each year. These tests include investigations for the presence of noxious weed seed, seed purity, germination, seed count and other quality measures. The vast majority of cover crop seed sources are passing these tests at a high rate. There is one glaring exception – cereal rye. Starting with 2016 and continuing through ’17 and ’18[Read More…]
