Continue testing the best ideas from the farmer board for protecting soil after soybean on the University of Missouri research farm. We will evaluate how well they protect soil, along with how they affect yield of a following corn crop.

This project focuses on solutions to soil erosion after soybean that have been identified by a farmer board as the most promising ways to solve the problem. It includes a range of cover crop species, a range of cover crop management practices (including planting rate, planting pattern, and kill date), and nitrogen management practices for corn. These systems move beyond the approaches that I have previously tried, and also beyond what other Missouri researchers have tried.

1. Use a farmer board to guide the approaches that we try. Initial treatments were chosen this way in August 2019 but the board will be used to decide whether to revise any treatments based on outcomes and new information.

2. Continue testing the best ideas from the farmer board for protecting soil after soybean on the University of Missouri research farm. We will evaluate how well they protect soil, along with how they affect yield of a following corn crop.
a. Cover crops planted in fall 2021 after soybean will be placed in the same plots where the same cover treatments were planted in fall 2019. A lot of people say that even though cover crops may cause corn yield loss in the first year or two that they are used, that this yield penalty goes away as the system comes into equilibrium with cover crop
use. We can test this.
b. Photos from every plot will be taken to evaluate soil protection for different treatments at least 5 times between soybean harvest and mid-June (when the threat of soil erosion goes down due to corn approaching full canopy).
c. Corn will be planted in 2022 following the cover crops to evaluate their impact on corn yield.

3. Feed the best-performing systems from the research plots to the Missouri Strip Trial program for on-farm testing

1. Short list of approaches that best met the objective of protecting soil after soybean without reducing corn yield

2. Work with the “MU Certified” strip trial program to move this short list of approaches into their full-scale on-farm tests

3. Educational program (newsletter articles, farm press, presentations) to communicate the impact of erosion in Missouri
and the best strategies to combat erosion after soybean

This project will benefit soybean farmers by helping them to protect both their soils and their income.

Soybean farmers in Missouri have lost, on average, half of their original topsoil. They depend on their soil for their livelihood, and their soils can no longer infiltrate, hold, and deliver water the way that they could 200 years ago. Lost topsoil costs Missouri farmers, on average, 5.5 bu/acre of soybean and 22 bu/acre of corn every time they grow these crops, and this number is going up as we continue to lose more soil. A lot of historical erosion happened after harvesting soybeans.

Soybean is well-suited for Missouri but even with no-till management leaves little residue to protect the soil. Even less remains by April and May, when erosion risk is at its peak with Missouri weather.

Protecting soil from erosion after a soybean crop is the only way that farming will be viable for future generations of Missouri farmers. Protecting the income of current Missouri farmers while they protect the soil is the only way forward.