Two In One ISA trials hope to showcase maximum output BY KRISS NELSON Editor’s note: This is the first in a series following this relay cropping trial.
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an Iowa farmers successfully raise two crops in the same field in the same year? Specifically, growers in the northern parts of the state? Relay cropping could achieve this goal. Farmers have been testing relay cropping with cereal and rye by experimenting through replicated strip trials, with the assistance of Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) and the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA). Ross Evelsizer, Northeast Iowa RC&D natural resources projects director, says he started the MultiCropping Iowa Project to explore relay cropping as a way for producers
to expand their operations by growing vertically and diversifying while maintaining or improving environmental integrity. Relay cropping builds on the concepts of cover cropping in terms of soil health improvement and adds a revenue option for the farmers. “The goal is to learn enough about the practice to lay the groundwork for easy widespread adoption for Iowa farmers,” Evelsizer says. “Relay acres with cereal rye and soybeans averaged $51 an acre higher net profit than mono-cropped soybeans.” Theo Gunther, ISA senior research program development coordinator, says trials began in 2020
Hayden Olson, of Northwood, plants soybean into rye as part of a cropping trial. (Photo: Joseph Hopper/Iowa Soybean Association)
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and continue this year. Relay cropping involves seeding soybeans early in the growing season while the cereal rye is still in vegetative growth stages. The soybeans grow with rye. When the rye reaches maturity, it is harvested above the canopy of the soybeans growing below. The soybeans then proceed to maturity, generating twograin crops. Gunther says they saw a need for trials due to the lack of side-by-side comparison data available. “There were several farmers around the state that have done relay intercropping with small gains and soybeans on whole fields or parts of the fields. In previous years, we
