Cover Crops and Conservation Tillage
for Soil Erosion Control on Cropland
Broadcast seedings - Establishing Birdsfoot Trefoil or Crownvetch as a Living Mulch
Make seedings with a broadcast seeder to the soil surface. Some commercial applicators can spray a slurry of water, liquid fertilizer, herbicide and cover crop seed all in one trip. Seedings are best when broadcast to a well prepared seedbed and pressed in afterwards with a cultipacker. On steep slopes where soil should not be tilled, it would be best to make frost seedings onto fields with little plant residue such as soybean or silage corn stubble. Too much weed and crop residue is even more detrimental to broadcast seedings than for no-till seedings made with a no-till drill. Broadcasting the cover crop behind the corn planter using the insecticide box as a seed metering device is possible when an insecticide is not used. Ideally, the seed should drop onto a splash plate so it doesn't drop in a narrow band over the row. The cover crop will emerge in a wide band and will take a little longer for the crownvetch to spread and fill in, but this saves a trip over the field.