Eastern Iowa Farmer Spring 2017

managing your soil
year,” he said, homing in on the point that
“biology” is king when it comes to soil.
In Iowa, corn generally is planted in April
and harvested in September, so the roots are
growing in that short time frame, he said.
“If we get a cover crop out there, we can
extend root growth into the winter season,”
Steele said.
Cereal rye is one cover crop that can grow
during wintertime, he said, and if there’s
snow cover, some of those roots will even
grow during the winter.
“That is feeding what I like to call ‘soil
livestock’ underground. We all know what
pigs, cows, horses and sheep look like above
ground, but nobody realizes how much of the
livestock – earthworms, nematodes, protozoa
– is below ground,” he explained. Those
species are affected by what a farmer does
with cover crops and tillage.
Federal and state programs offer some
assistance and cost sharing for cover crops,
said Chandra Shaw, NRCS soil conservationist
in DeWitt.
“We would love to talk with you about the
options,” she told the audience.
Steele also talked about the importance of
residue management to protect the soil from
Soil scientist Jason Steele conducts
a demonstration to compare the
runoff from a sample of no-till soil
planted with a rye cover crop to
a sample of conventionally tilled,
unplanted soil. There was no runoff
in the no-till, cover-crop planted soil,
while the tilled soil showed runoff.
Steele is the area resource soil
scientist for the Natural Resources
Conservation Service office in
Fairfield, Iowa.
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86 Eastern Iowa Farmer | spring 2017