Articles by Anna Cates
Lessons Learned from 2025 Cover Crop Experiments
We’re nearing the end of a pretty solid growing season for corn and soybeans, and it will soon be time for harvest and other fall activities – like planting cover crops! Given the huge soil losses we saw with wind erosion across Minnesota last winter, this is a great year to start thinking about how to protect your soil from wind and water losses.
Cover Crops 2025: What Should You Plant?
By Anna Cates and Liz Stahl et.al We’re nearing the end of a pretty solid growing season for corn and soybeans, and it will soon be time for harvest and other fall activities – like planting cover crops! Given the huge soil losses we saw with wind erosion across Minnesota last winter, this is a great year to start thinking about how to protect your soil from wind and water losses.
Cover Crop Options for Pre-pile Sugar Beet Acres
American Crystal Sugar’s pre-pile harvest campaign is scheduled to start on August 12. This early start creates an opportunity to establish a cover crop to reduce the potential of wind and/or water erosion throughout the winter and early spring. Winter rye may seem like the obvious choice as it is nearly foolproof to get established and is the most winter-hardy. Likewise, spring or winter wheat may look like an option too.
The state of Minnesota's soil health: How many farmers are doing no-till, cover crops, and more
Tracking the use of practices like reduced tillage and cover crops that promote healthy soil is challenging but critical to gauge progress towards regional and state goals. By combining remote sensing, USDA Agricultural Census data, and state-reported cost-share, we’ve pulled together a county-level dataset that can serve as a baseline for comparison to track changes in Minnesota’s ag practices over the coming years. Here’s a quick peek at the current state of Minnesota’s soil health.
How Minnesota Farmers Increased Residue Coverage by 28% in 4 Years
By: Bailey Tangen, Marcelle Lewandowski & Anna Cates Tracking the use of practices like reduced tillage and cover crops that promote healthy soil is challenging but critical to gauge progress towards regional and state goals. By combining remote sensing, USDA Agricultural Census data, and state-reported cost-share, we’ve pulled together a county-level dataset that can serve as a baseline for comparison to track changes in Minnesota’s ag practices over the coming years.
The State of Minnesota`s Soil Health: How Many Farmers Are Doing No-Till, Cover Crops, and More
By Bailey Tangen and Anna Cates Tracking the use of practices like reduced tillage and cover crops that promote healthy soil is challenging but critical to gauge progress towards regional and state goals. By combining remote sensing, USDA Agricultural Census data, and state-reported cost-share, we’ve pulled together a county-level dataset that can serve as a baseline for comparison to track changes in Minnesota’s ag practices over the coming years.
Register now for the University of Minnesota Extension Cover Crop Academy
Register now to reserve your spot with the University of Minnesota Cover Crop Academy. This new, innovative program is a hybrid, year-long, statewide course designed for those who work with farmers including crop advisors, consultants, educators, agency personnel, agronomists, ag lenders, and personnel at non-profits, soil and water conservation districts (SWCD) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) offices.
Register for upcoming University of Minnesota Extension Cover Crop Academy program - Albert Lea Tribune
Register for upcoming University of Minnesota Extension Cover Crop Academy program Published 8:00 pm Tuesday, April 23, 2024 Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Liz Stahl, Phyllis Bongard and Anna Cates, University of Minnesota Extension Register now to reserve a spot with the University of Minnesota Cover Crop Academy.
Registration open for Cover Crop Academy
WORTHINGTON — Register now to reserve your spot with the University of Minnesota Cover Crop Academy. This new, innovative program is a hybrid, year-long, statewide course designed for those who work with farmers including crop advisors, consultants, educators, agency personnel, agronomists, ag lenders and personnel at non-profits, Soil and Water Conservation Districts and Natural Resources Conservation Service offices.
Register now for the U of M extension cover crop academy
Register now to reserve your spot with the University of Minnesota Cover Crop Academy! This new, innovative program is a hybrid, year-long, statewide course designed for those who work with farmers including crop advisors, consultants, educators, agency personnel, agronomists, ag lenders, and personnel at non-profits, soil and water conservation districts (SWCD) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) offices.
Why Did Cover Crops Cause Issues in Minnesota the Last Two Years and What Should Growers Do Going Forward?
By Anna Cates and Angie Peltie Cover crops are a key practice to improve soil health by building soil structure and adding organic matter outside the summer growing season. But there’s a real risk to cash crop productivity that must be managed when using cover crops. In the recent dry years in Minnesota, cover crops have caused a lot of crop stress and yield loss in cash crops. Why has this happened? How can we avoid this in the future? What were the cover crop issues in 2022 and 2023?
Soil Health and Water Quality: How Are They Connected?
By Anna Cates While there has been a lot of work linking farm management practices with soil health or water quality, few have looked at the connection to both soil and water quality. A new report explores tradeoffs among water quality goals, as well as what we do and don’t know about how soil health practices might change water quality and quantity.
Minnesota Springs are Getting Wetter. What’s at Stake for Farmers?
By Bailey Tangen and Anna Cates Signs of a healthy ecosystem in the field with soil health management (left), compared to signs of crusting and compaction in the plowed field (right). Climate change is projected to change the timing, frequency, and severity of spring precipitation in Minnesota, and farmers might notice those changes first.
Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste
Being a woman in America does feel a little bit like being in a horror novel these days. Gwendolyn Kiste would like to remind us all, however, that it’s always been a horror novel. Nor has this been restricted to America.
The Witch of Pig Island
Content warning: This page contains: Death/dying Violence/combat Bitch. Abortionist. Eater of succulent foods. Succubus, seducer of men, mouth wide open in orgiastic shrieks, consuming children, men, teeth razors nipping testes. Moon eclipsing sun. Scarlet and purple silk flutter about you, wanton as wicked wind, your snarls unbound, your armpits tangled owl nests. You best sorcerers’ spells, you beast, you beauty, you wreck.
Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn, edited by Brian Merchant and Claire L. Evans
Is there a significant difference between near-future science fiction and science fiction of the present? Not always—and this is so often by design, because it’s difficult to speculate about what comes next without explicitly naming the problems that plague us here and now. This is where an anthology like Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn, edited by Brian Merchant and Claire L. Evans and drawing from stories first published at Vice’s Motherboard, looks to find its audience.
Has Anyone Actually Had Any Success Saging Their Home?
Content warning: This page contains: Mental health issues Xenophobia That’s what the post says, each word capitalized as if it’s the goddamn title of a novel or a screenplay, a farce, a fiction. But it’s not. It’s the Truth, capital tee, certain and real. Still—I know it won’t help, know it’ll only serve to flame up the fire inside me—an incessant need to consume. It’s a dangerous spot to be in, especially nowadays, with all of us on the brink. I pause, letting my finger hover, scared, but curious.
Strange Horizons - By Strange Horizons
"Has Anyone Actually Had Any Success Saging Their Home?" © 2023 by Vito Castrillo
When Can You Get In The Field? Crop Farmer Survey
By Anna Cates Timing is everything for farmers working in Minnesota’s short growing season. Getting into the field during a window of good weather to plant, spray, or harvest can make the difference between profitability and loss. It can also mean the difference between a frantic, sleepless night and a relaxing evening with the family, and those stressful seasons can add up to long-term differences in quality of life.
Managing Residue in a Dry Year
By Anna Cates and Jodi DeJong-Hughes Farmers across Minnesota are quickly moving through harvest. Soybeans are mostly done and corn is well underway, if not completed, in most areas. How you leave your fields in the fall is the beginning of planning for the 2023 planting season. Consideration for the very dry weather we’ve had in 2021 and 2022 should be top of mind as farmers plan for a successful spring planting in 2023.
Minnesota: Managing Residue in a Dry Year
Farmers across Minnesota are quickly moving through harvest. Soybeans are mostly done and corn is well underway, if not completed, in most areas. How you leave your fields in the fall is the beginning of planning for the 2023 planting season. Consideration for the very dry weather we’ve had in 2021 and 2022 should be top of mind as farmers plan for a successful spring planting in 2023. Leave a blanket of residue Our soil profile is very dry after record-low rainfall in September.
No-Till Has Advantage on Managing Residue In Dry Weather
By Anna Cates, State soil health specialist, and Jodi DeJong-Hughes, Extension educator Farmers across Minnesota are quickly moving through harvest. Soybeans are mostly done and corn is well underway, if not completed, in most areas. How you leave your fields in the fall is the beginning of planning for the 2023 planting season. Consideration for the very dry weather we’ve had in 2021 and 2022 should be top of mind as farmers plan for a successful spring planting in 2023.
Wind Erosion and Nutrient Loss: How Much Soil Is Moving, What Could That Cost Farmers?
Two ongoing studies are measuring how much soil is being blown across different fields, and how much nutrients lost with wind erosion might cost farmers. Wind erosion Sometimes you can see the soil leave your field, washing into the ditches with a spring rain or blowing across the roads and getting through the windows of houses. Other times it’s more subtle and slow. Most hilly fields have knobs with lighter soil due to long-term wind, water, and tillage erosion.
Strip-Till Reduces Wind Erosion in Early Results of Minnesota Study
By: Mehmet Ozturk and Anna Cates Two ongoing studies are measuring how much soil is being blown across different fields and how much nutrients lost with wind erosion might cost farmers. Wind Erosion Sometimes you can see the soil leave your field, washing into the ditches with a spring rain or blowing across the roads and getting through the windows of houses. Other times it’s more subtle and slow. Most hilly fields have knobs with lighter soil due to long-term wind, water, and tillage erosion.
Minnesota Study: Cover Crops, Less Aggressive Tillage Reduce Wind Erosion
By: Mehmet Ozturk and Anna Cates Two ongoing studies are measuring how much soil is being blown across different fields, and how much nutrients lost with wind erosion might cost farmers. Wind Erosion Sometimes you can see the soil leave your field, washing into the ditches with a spring rain or blowing across the roads and getting through the windows of houses. Other times it’s more subtle and slow. Most hilly fields have knobs with lighter soil due to long-term wind, water, and tillage erosion.
Soil Health Management Systems: What are they and How Could They Help Farmers?
By Madeline Vogel And Anna Cates What are soil health management systems? Soil health management systems are agricultural systems that prioritize the health of soils, by reducing soil disturbance and keeping living roots in the ground. Healthy soils should protect soil carbon and nutrients, capture and store water, and promote soil organisms.
Minnesota: Soil Health Management Systems: What Are They and How Could They Help
Soil health management systems are agricultural systems that prioritize the health of soils, by reducing soil disturbance and keeping living roots in the ground. Healthy soils should protect soil carbon and nutrients, capture and store water, and promote soil organisms.
Minnesota: Cover Crops - How Much Do They Cost in the Long Run?
Heavy cover crop mixture planted green in no-till field. Photo: Dave Wilson, Pennsylvania State University How much cover crops cost to implement and whether they can make you money is a subject of heated debate. Costs are obvious: seed, time and fuel to plant and terminate them. The benefits tend to be less tangible and slower to accumulate: cover crops stabilize yields, but don’t necessarily increase them, and sometimes they lead to lower nutrient or herbicide applications over time.
Cover Crop Residue and C:N Ratios
By Anna Cates At this time of year, cover crops are being sprayed with herbicide to make way for cash crop growth. What will happen to the residue remaining on the soil surface? Pretty soon the cover crop will start decomposing, where its leaves and roots break down into molecules that soil animals, bacteria, and fungi use. Those soil organisms eat what they need or what they can, and leave some nutrients behind for plants to use.
Who's eating who? Promoting predators for free pest management in the field
University of Minnesota Extension researchers have started a small trial examining the predation rate of insect pests in differently managed row crop fields. We compared pest predation in row crop fields with cover crops to predation rates in fields without cover crops. Our preliminary results show that more predation took place in corn with cover crops and in soybeans without cover crops.
How to approach carbon market opportunities
By Jodi DeJong-Hughes and Anna Cates, University of Minnesota There has been a lot of buzz concerning the carbon credit market. In this article we’ll discuss the importance of carbon and carbon markets, what they can offer producers in the Upper Midwest and what questions you should consider when investigating carbon credits. What is Carbon? Carbon is the basic building block for all living things.
Minnesota Corn: Tips to Prevent Fallow Syndrome
Phosphorus deficient Corn plants – a typical symptom associated with corn grown following fallow. Photo: University of Missouri While the 2020 growing season was relatively to abnormally dry for much of Minnesota, there were pockets of the state where fields were too wet for crops to be harvested.
Minnesota: How to Approach Carbon Market Opportunities
Cover crop species including rye, triticale, oats, crimson clover, rapeseed, and wooly pod vetch. Photo: Zeb Winslow, USDA There has been a lot of buzz concerning the carbon credit market. In this article we’ll discuss the importance of carbon and carbon markets, what they can offer producers in the Upper Midwest and what questions you should consider when investigating carbon credits. What is Carbon? Carbon is the basic building block for all living things.
How to Approach Carbon Market Opportunities
By Jodi DeJong-Hughes and Anna Cates There has been a lot of buzz concerning the carbon credit market. In this article we’ll discuss the importance of carbon and carbon markets, what they can offer producers in the Upper Midwest and what questions you should consider when investigating carbon credits. What is Carbon? Carbon is the basic building block for all living things.
How to Approach Carbon Market Opportunities
There has been a lot of buzz concerning the carbon credit market. In this article we’ll discuss the importance of carbon and carbon markets, what they can offer producers in the Upper Midwest and what questions you should consider when investigating carbon credits. What is Carbon? Carbon is the basic building block for all living things.
MN Crop News: Growing cover crops in Minnesota: 4 great resources to get you started
Growing cover crops in Minnesota: 4 great resources to get you started By: Anna Cates, Extension soil health specialist There are a lot of choices associated with planting cover crops—species (and even variety!), planting method, date, termination plan—and it all has to fit with your cash crop management system. Incorporating cover crops into your system could change your tillage regime, fertility, and weed control for cash crops.
Growing Cover Crops in Minnesota: 4 Great Resources to Get You Started
By Anna Cates There are a lot of choices associated with planting cover crops—species (and even variety!), planting method, date, termination plan—and it all has to fit with your cash crop management system. Incorporating cover crops into your system could change your tillage regime, fertility, and weed control for cash crops. As spring planning gives way to spring planting, it’s a good time to consider how implementing cover crops can work on your farm.
Minnesota Cover Crops: 4 Resources to Get You Started
6-8 inch tall cereal rye cover crop. Photo: University of Nebraska-Lincoln There are a lot of choices associated with planting cover crops—species (and even variety!), planting method, date, termination plan—and it all has to fit with your cash crop management system. Incorporating cover crops into your system could change your tillage regime, fertility, and weed control for cash crops.
Understand Haney soil test
1 of 2 The Haney soil health test, named for U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Rick Haney, includes more than a dozen different soil-test values. The Haney soil health test, named for U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist Rick Haney, includes more than a dozen different soil-test values.
5 Things to Know About the Haney Soil Health Test - Video
Soil health. Photo: USDA The Haney soil health test, named for USDA scientist Rick Haney, includes more than a dozen different soil test values. These include standard macro- and micro-nutrients for plant consumption, but what’s different about the Haney test is that it also estimates nutrients for microbial consumption, focusing on how much carbon (C ) and nitrogen (N) is in the soil.
Minnesota: Managing Prevent Plant Acres
Cover crop species including rye, triticale, oats, crimson clover, rapeseed, and wooly pod vetch. Photo: Zeb Winslow, USDA The spring planting season is soon upon us. Prevent plant acres, or fields that were too wet to be planted to a cash crop last year, may need some special attention this season. As final preparations are made for planting, suggested strategies will depend on how these areas were managed in 2019.
The Connection Between Soil Organic Matter and Soil Water
By Anna Cates, State soil health specialist One benefit of increasing soil organic matter is to store more water in your soil. Why does this happen? Because soil organic matter creates pores in a range of sizes. Exactly how much more water is stored due to soil organic matter will depend on soil texture, though. Soil organic matter is a busy mix of materials — fragments of last year’s stalks and roots, earthworm casts, and living microbes and invertebrates, to name just a few.
Structure your land lease around conservation practices
Getty Images CONSERVATION NEGOTIATION: Adding conservation practices into a land lease will be more successful when built on a trusting relationship between all parties. There are no set rules on how to write your lease to support conservation goals. Anna Cates | Feb 14, 2020 When there’s interest in implementing conservation practices on rented ground, renters and owners will need to come to an agreement.
Haney soil health test offers ‘snapshots’ of organic matter
University of Minnesota SNAPSHOT IN TIME: The Haney soil test offers a snapshot in time of the soil’s organic matter and overall health. Crop Rx: The Haney test estimates nutrients for microbial consumption, focusing on how much carbon and nitrogen are in the soil. By Anna Cates | Jan 28, 2020 The Haney soil health test, named for USDA scientist Rick Haney, includes more than a dozen different soil test values. These include standard macro- and micro-nutrients for plant consumption.
New land lease? How to incorporate conservation practices
By Anna Cates Farming rented ground is a reality for most Minnesota producers. When there’s interest in implementing conservation practices on rented ground, renters and owners will need to come to an agreement. As land leases are finalized for next year, it’s a good time to think about incorporating land stewardship practices into those agreements.
New Land Lease? How to Incorporate Conservation Practices.
Farming rented ground is a reality for most Minnesota producers. When there’s interest in implementing conservation practices on rented ground, renters and owners will need to come to an agreement. As land leases are finalized for next year, it’s a good time to think about incorporating land stewardship practices into those agreements.
Minnesota: Haney Soil Test - How Can It Help You? - Video
Soil health. Photo: USDA The Haney test, a test for soil health, is being used to assess biological activity in the soil. Growers are using these tests to qualify for programs, explore their soil health, and in some cases, plan crop fertility needs. However, many questions remain about interpreting Haney test information, especially for Minnesota soils.
Minnesota: Cover Crop “Recipes” Now Available
6-8 inch tall cereal rye cover crop. Photo: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Wondering how to do cover crops? UMN Extension, in collaboration with the Midwest Cover Crops Council (MCCC), has produced cover crop “recipes” for two scenarios: Post corn, going to soybean and Post soybean, going to corn. The recipes are intended to provide step-by-step guidance to some of the lowest-risk starting points for cover crops.
5 tips for soil health test sampling
If you’re going to send soil samples to a lab, the quality of samples you collect is very important. Oct 02, 2019 By: Anna Cates, Extension soil health specialist Soil health tests often include a variety of new and diverse soil measurements. They can help you understand whether you have the microbial activity to supply nutrients to plants or whether your soil structure is sufficient to allow air and water to flow. You can always assess soil health visually.
5 tips for soil health test sampling
By Anna Cates Soil health tests often include a variety of new and diverse soil measurements. They can help you understand whether you have the microbial activity to supply nutrients to plants or whether your soil structure is sufficient to allow air and water to flow. You can always assess soil health visually. For example, look for the white, stringy signs of fungal hyphae on your crop residue to see microbial activity, or count earthworms. Do a slump test to evaluate aggregate stability.
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