Strip-tilling fields in southern South Dakota is underway, as of last week, according to Joey Hanson, a custom strip-tiller from Elk Point, S.D. “We started on April 8, and ran for three days,” he says. “I’ve done 600 acres so far — three times the amount I was able to strip-till in the spring of 2019.”

Saying that summers in Alabama are hot is an understatement. A better description is ‘sweltering’, ‘scorching’ and ‘blistering.’ So, finding a way to keep soils cool and retain moisture is critical to the success of any crop grown in the Heart of Dixie.

We all know that one of the potential benefits of using cover crops is weed suppression, but do you know how cover crops actually provide weed suppression? There are a couple of ways: through blocking sunlight from reaching weed seeds, and also allelopathy, as the cover crop plants produce a chemical that reduces weed seed germination.