Cover crops, along with no-till and other conservation practices, offer long-term benefits for farmers because they build soil quality, suppress weeds and improve a field’s ability to handle large rainfall events, veteran cover crop growers said last week at a field day near Vinton.

"We are really seeing that it’s building up the soil’s organic matter," said Jack Boyer, a Reinbeck farmer who is on his fifth year of growing cover crops on his acres used to raise seed corn. "It’s taken some time, but we are starting to see some yield bump."

Boyer and other farmers presented at the cover crop field day sponsored by the Benton/Tama nutrient reduction demonstration project. They agreed that cover crops can add costs and logistical...