Bryan Sievers is exploring ways to make cover crops pay beyond their value as a tool to improve water quality and reduce soil loss.

The Scott County Farm Bureau member is working to use cover crops as a bio-energy source. He has chopped and stockpiled 140 acres of winter wheat and will use it as a feed source for his digester that produces methane gas.

The farm’s bio-digester and generator, which became operational in 2013 and is one of three such ...