Explore our blog featuring articles about farming and irrigation tips and tricks!
Explore our blog featuring articles about farming and irrigation tips and tricks!
By Daniel H. Smith and Paul Mitchell
Crop insurance policies include various rules with guidelines on the use of cover crops. Recent changes in these rules provide an opportunity to review their application to cover crop practices. Farmers should always communicate with their crop insurance agent to determine whether or not a specific practice will affect insurability.
Cover crops can generate many benefits, including providing and scavenging for nutrients, suppressing weed emergence and competition, improving water infiltration and overall soil quality, along with reducing erosion, production costs, and pests. A cover crop managed for these benefits is not considered a “crop” for crop insurance purposes, and so it cannot be insured for stand establishment, cover crop height or yield. For a crop to be insurable that is planted following a cover crop, the cover crop cannot be established for more than 12 months prior to planting the insured crop.
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