Building Knowledge about Wisconsin’s Cover Crops: A farmer research project
Daniel H. Smith, Southwest Regional Specialist, Nutrient and Pest Management Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
We’re looking for some high-quality on-farm data to help improve our understanding about the who, what, why, where, and when of cover crops. Our team has developed a survey for a third season of farmer research to help us improve cover crop recommendations and use in the state. We would greatly appreciate your help promoting this survey this summer!
Who is collecting this data and why CCROP is a group of researchers and educators working with the University of Wisconsin and other partners to improve cover crop recommendations for the state of Wisconsin. We need to better understand how cover crops are being used, the challenges, and what benefits producers are seeing. Our goals are to help farmers like you make sound management decisions, improving decision support tools like SnapPlus and helping build the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial database.
Signup and join us
Phase 1 – Online survey
1. Sign-up to receive survey link- Farmers filling out the survey will be eligible for a $25 stipend. To sign up please provide your contact information via this form. To safeguard your privacy, any field data you provide will never be associated with your personal information. We will not share any contact/personal information when sharing the survey results.
2. Later this summer- After you have provided us with your email and address, you’ll receive a link to the data collection survey (complete for the $25 stipend). We will also share a short instructional video providing useful information on gathering your cover crop data. We will share this survey later this summer for completion by late fall 2022.
Phase 2 – Biomass sampling
3. Farmers willing to allow us to visit the cover crop field and collect biomass samples and photos of the cover crops are eligible for an additional $75 stipend. Additionally, we would appreciate additional photos of the cover crop throughout the growing season you collect (optional).
4. For those of you joining us in Phase 2, we will contact you in late fall 2022 to verify field location and ask permission to collect the optional biomass sample and photos.
We will share a final report with everyone during winter of 2022-2023, highlighting our findings and how your data compares to others. We’ll also keep you informed via regular emails as the study progresses. Your participation is voluntary, and you can leave the project at any time. Thank you!
Please share this survey with other Wisconsin farmers.
Questions or Comments?
Dan Smith, University of Wisconsin-Madison & Extension Southwest Regional Outreach Specialist for the Nutrient and Pest Management (NPM) Program dhsmith@wisc.edu, 608-219-5170.