Ivan Morley
Michigan organic farmer

I would like to welcome everyone to the 2008 organic reporting session. The reason I am speaking with you today about cover crops goes back many years. In 1961 I graduated from Standish-Sterling High School, soon to be 47 years ago. I was very active in my ag class, and was sure my ag teacher could do no wrong. I would do anything to please him. He was just starting his career in education and we were lucky to have him.

The summer of 1961 was very similar for other students; getting ready for our careers was the focus. I had signed up to attend the two-year Ag Tech program at MSU in Production Agriculture. As I recall, I came down to East Lansing with my folks to get enrollment information, rooms, to meet other students, and so on. Soon, I was in class, loving every minute of it. We now were in college, no longer high school kids. Soon we would go home on weekends and know more about ag than our friends and sometimes our parents! I’m sure my Dad had no idea in a few short weeks I would know more about ag than he did. Sometimes he didn’t seem to grasp this, and I had to point it out to him. My dad was quite well versed on ag, however, I knew he could see that I had surpassed him. My mother also noted how advanced I had become. They started to realize that after about two months in the ag short course program, I had turned into a brain about most everything. They were sure proud.

Before Christmas that year (1961), my folks had this one-sided conversation with me about my education. They were sure at the speed I was going I would know more than anyone at MSU and outgrow the place. Boy, were they proud!

When I went back to school after the holidays (we had an eight-week session in the fall, and eight weeks in the winter), I signed up to take a class in soils, among others. My soils teacher’s name was Lynn Robertson. His nick-name was Buzz.

Buzz was familiar with high school boys and he soon had our respect. I quickly learned how little I really knew about soils and life in general. We spent a lot of time studying soil life and rotations. He was very big on rotations, and how we would do much better with some form of rotation. Continuous corn was just getting started in the Corn Belt and he told us it would be very expensive and have some long-term effects that would be hard to handle. He turned out to be very right. I didn’t realize it at the time, and had no idea that the information I gained back then would be so valuable today.

About three years ago, I was asked by Dale Mutch from MSU if I would serve on an organic farm study board. I enjoyed coming to the meetings, but was unable to continue as I developed some health problems. In the short time I had with Dale, I became very curious about what would happen if we left cover crops for one additional year instead of plowing or working in during the seeding year. What I was proposing was normally I would inter-seed red clover in oats, wheat and spelt in the spring. Late that fall, I spread chicken or turkey manure and then incorporate this in the soil with the clover. The following spring this would be worked more to finish killing the red clover, then plant corn or soy beans.

During my two-year program, the second year I clipped the clover two times during the growing season. The fields I chose are all from 6-9 acres each, with varied soil types. Two fields are 50’ tiled, the other two have some random tile.

[Mr. Morley included a diagram of the fields he described above, providing notes about the cover crop history of each field.]

Field 1: 9 acres, about ½ heavy clay, ½ sand.
            2005: Interseeded spelt in spring, clipped 1 time in fall.
            2006: Clipped twice, worked in fall twice.
            2007:  Planted soys June 9. Very clean.

Field 2:
            2005: Wheat interseeded in spring, clipped 1 time in fall.
            2006:  Clipped twice, worked in fall twice.
            2007: Planted to corn May 24. Cult. June 11. 102 Bu./Acre yield.

Field 3: 6.5 acres.
            2005: Oats with clover. Just clipped oats and clover.
            2006: Clipped field twice, worked in fall.
            2007: Planted to soys June 2. 16 Bu./Acre.

Field 4:
            2005: Spelt interseeded in spring.
            2006: Clipped twice worked fall.
            2007: Planted to soys June 2. Weeds took over, worked down and put to spelt.