Soil Health Field Walk at Cushman Farm: Roller Crimping, Double Cropping and Standard Termination Methods
June 7, 2023 - June 7, 202311:00-1:30 pm
Lunch Provided!
Location: Goshen Hill Road, Lebanon CT. Detailed directions will be provided to registrants.
Join Jim Smith of Cushman Farms, Arthur Siller of UMass Amherst, and Caro Roszell of American Farmland Trust for a field walk exploring cover crop termination methods of cover crop for soil health and economic viability. We’ll walk Jim’s field and hear from him about three different approaches to cover crop termination: spray and harrow, harvesting cover crops for feed, and roller crimping.
Jim will share the background of his dairy farming operation, provide practical observations about soil health management, and discuss his experience trying different approaches to tillage reduction, cover crop management for soil health, and double cropping for feed.
Arthur Siller, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts researching forage crops, will demonstrate cover crop termination by roller crimping and will offer comments on the timing of harvest for common small grain/grass forages, use of greenchop and small grain forages, trade-offs with shorter season corn silage varieties and cover crop benefits.
Caro Roszell, New England Soil Health Program Manager at American Farmland Trust, will discuss soil health data collected in the field so far and will provide a brief demonstration of soil health indicators (soil structure, compaction, and surface indicators) in each trial plot.