Got this from Joel Gruver, Western Illinois Univ, thought I would share:

Hello folks,
 
thought you might enjoy seeing some photos that I took at the research farm today.
 
The radishes laid out on the ground were planted about a month and a half ago and are "tillage radishes" (seed supplied by Steve Groff in 2007). They range in size but most now have roots between 1/2 and 1" in diameter.
 
The rest of the photos show various views of a cover crop experiment with 3 systems that will be planted to corn in May 2009. The cover crops were planted the last week of August.
 
The 3 systems are:
 
organic no-till - hairy vetch and rye mix, will be planted to corn and then rolled, no cultivation 
 
organic reduced till - oats on 7" rows with Graza radishes on 30" rows, no preplant tillage, cultivation as needed
 
organic conventional till - oats on 7" rows, oat residues will be incorporated ~ 2 weeks before corn is planted, cultivation as needed
 
The oats have really jumped in the last week and are now ~ 12" tall. The radishes on 30" rows are just barely keeping up with the oats. I expected that the radishes would be more dominant.
 
Joel

Joel Gruver
Dept of Agriculture
Western Illinois University
[email protected]

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