Published Feb 13, 2017

Roller-Crimper at the 2017 Annual Conference

By Stefan Gailans

Using a roller-crimper to terminate cover crops is a topic that has garnered A LOT of attention in recent years. At our 2016 annual conference, three farmers shared their experiences with using modified equipment to roll cover crops. This year, Levi Lyle (of Keota) and Billy Sammons (of Churdan) explained how they’ve used actual roller-crimpers (after the I&J design) in Iowa!

Billy Sammons and Levi Lyle presented before 76 in attendance.

Billy Sammons and Levi Lyle presented before 76 in attendance.

Both Levi and Billy shared how they’ve used a roller-crimper to terminate a cereal rye cover crop ahead of a soybean crop. This method, when done correctly, can reduce tillage and stymie weeds (as a result of a thick mat of cereal rye straw and biomass laying on the soil surface). The optimal time to roll-crimp a cereal rye cover crop is at the anthesis stage (or later). Anthesis is when anthers are visibly shedding pollen from the cereal rye seedheads. As we learned from the two presenters, attempting to roll-crimp the cover crop any earlier than this stage and the cereal rye can stand back up! Another factor to consider is cover crop biomass at the time of roll-crimping: The more the better. It’s suggested to seed the cover crop as early as possible the previous year at a rate of 2-4 bu/ac of cereal rye seed.

You can view Levi and Billy’s presentation slides and photos here:

Roller-Crimping Cover Crops.

Levi shared this handout with attendees: Profiles in Soil Health.

Billy showed two videos during his presentation:

Highboy Seeding of Cereal Rye in September 2015

Crimping Cereal Rye Following Soybean Planting in May 2016

Other recent blog posts on rolling cover crops:

*** NOTE: Presentations from other sessions at the 2017 annual conference are now up on our website! Check them out here: https://www.practicalfarmers.org/farmer-knowledge/annual-conference-multimedia/ ***