With fall harvest underway in many parts of the state now is the time to think about planting a cover crop after your fall grain crop is harvested. A cover crop can provide many soil health benefits. This includes building organic matter, improving soil porosity, increasing nutrient cycling, and increasing soil water holding capacity. A cover crop can also provide excellent weed suppression and a fair amount of livestock forage through the winter and spring if planted timely.

Putting the right cover crop mix together is essential in having a successful planting. The species you use in the mix will depend on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are wanting to break up some compaction include some deep tap rooted plants like radishes, turnips, rape and other species from the brassica family. If increasing organic matter and water holding capacity is your goal plant a species with a vigorous fibrous root system. Winter cereal grains like triticale, barley, wheat and rye would be good choices.

To increase infiltration a combination of deep-rooted and fibrous rooted plants should be used. Decaying tap roots provide channels for water to directly infiltrate into the soil. Fibrous rooted plant help feed the soil microbes. These bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms produce the organic glues that help bind the individual soil particles of sand, silt and clay into larger soil aggregates. This provides more pore space in the soil where water can infiltrate when it rains.

For grazing you will want to have a mix that is predominately a winter cereal grain, like wheat, barley, triticale or rye. Mixes that are heavy with these species are also good for weed suppression since they cover and shade the ground quickly and compete well with weeds.

It is best to get the cover crop planted as soon as possible after the cash crop is harvested. This will give the cover crop time to get established and get some growth before it gets to cold. If

the planting ends up being past the end of October, you will want to select species that have a fair amount of cold and frost tolerance. Triticale, rye and cold tolerant brassica plants work well in these situations.

Always consider the economics of planting a cover crop. There is no reason to plant a $30.00 – $40.00 mix when one that cost $15.00 will do the job. Wheat may be a good choice to use as a cover crop given its current price.

For more information about this or other soil health practices you can contact me at [email protected] or any local NRCS office.

Dale Younker is a Soil Health Specialist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Jetmore.

By JOHN P. TRETBAR

Authorities approved 34 new drilling permits across Kansas last week, 725 so far this year. There are 15 permits for drilling at new locations east of Wichita, and 19 in Western Kansas, including two in Butler County, and one each in Ellis, Russell and Stafford counties.

Independent Oil & Gas Service reports just five new well-completions across Kansas, one of those was in Ellis County. Operators have completed 998 wells across the state so far this year.

Baker Hughes reported a big drop in its weekly Rotary Rig Count Friday. Across the U.S. there are just 868 active drilling rigs, down 14 oil rigs and down five seeking natural gas. The count in Oklahoma was down ten rigs, and Texas was down seven.

There was a slight increase in the drilling rig count in Kansas. Independent Oil & Gas Service reports nine active rigs in the eastern half of the state, up one, and 28 west of Wichita, also up one.

New numbers from the Kansas Geological Survey confirm federal reports of an ongoing decline in crude-oil production in Kansas, despite a spike in national production totals. The latest state numbers show Kansas operators pumped a total of 13.77 million barrels of crude oil statewide through May of this year, down about a million barrels from a year ago. An earlier, federal report placed the total slightly higher at 13.9 million barrels through May. KGS said Barton County production was down 5% from the same figure last year, at just over 4,500 barrels per day. May production in Ellis County increased over the month before, but total production through May was down 4.7% from a year ago, at 1.04 million barrels. In Russell County operators produced more than 4,100 barrels per day, and Stafford County production topped 2,800 barrels per day through the first five months of the year.

Nationally, crude production continues at record pace. EIA reported the second-largest weekly U.S. crude-production total ever, just 77,000 barrels per day less than the record 12.5 million barrels per day produced three weeks earlier.

The government said commercial crude-oil inventories were up more than a million barrels for the week, but remained about two percent below the five-year seasonal average at 417.1 million barrels.

For the first time in over a year, U.S. oil-by-rail traffic declined last week, amid a five percent drop in all freight train traffic. The Association of American Railroads reported 11,692 train cars hauling petroleum and petroleum products during the week ended September 14. That’s a drop of more than twelve percent compared to the same week a year ago. The year-to-date cumulative total remains nearly eighteen percent over the total by this time last year. Oil-by-rail has shown growth in AAR’s weekly reports for about two years, when the spike in U.S. production outpaced our pipeline capacity.

North Dakota regulators reported record-high production of crude oil and natural gas in July. The Department of Mineral Resources reported total crude production of 44.7 million barrels, or more than 1.44 million barrels per day. DMR reported 15,943 active wells across North Dakota, which is also an all-time high.