Nitrate loss in surface water and groundwater is an increasingly important water quality and environmental issue in Minnesota. An ongoing study at the University of Minnesota’s Southern Research and Outreach Center (SROC) in Waseca is looking at whether planting cover crops is a viable strategy to reduce nitrate loss in agricultural tile drainage systems. The video below discusses results from 2016 and 2017 showing that a cereal rye cover crop reduced nitrate loss by an impressive 70% and an annual blend cover crop mix cut nitrate loss by 20%. However, results from the following years were not as promising. In 2018 and 2019, the cover crops were slow to establish and biomass production was minimal. “This was likely due to cooler-than-normal October temperatures and greater-than-normal precipitation in September or October in those years,” said Jeff Vetsch, lead researcher on the study and a U of M soil scientist at SROC. In 2018, cereal rye reduced nitrate by 20% but neither
