Cover crops

Anybody on here plant cover crops in short growing season areas? Our growing season kill frost would be about 3 week in October! Sometimes earlier! I wanta plant something after oats that will probly go to corn next year! My ground is still on the poor side! What Might Be Good Blend?

Radishes

Yes, tillage radish.

I seen then how do I plant them is the seed expensive and how do you kill them plow? spray?

Hey, I have the exact same weather. Last year I planted some oats to combine. My father gave me a hand to set the combine and said we will get a real good sample and after harvest replant them for a cover crop.
I could hardly believe we could get a sample that clean, but we did.
the oat harvest was late, last week of august. oats were combined with a great sample and the very next day I put some back into the no till drill and reseeded them @70lbs per acre. it unfortunely turned dry for two weeks and I didnt see them germ and emerge till first week of september.
The nice part of planting them right away no till was that after I planted them I went back in and sprayed roundup to kill any twitch grass and peranniel weeks and got a great kill before the cover crop emerged.
the oats got about knee high in the best spots and a foot high in the poor ground. they would have been higher if we didnt have a two week dry spell at planting.
mid to late september I plowed down the cover crop and had a very mallow seed bed for corn the next spring.
I will definately do this again and plan on doing it with some soybean ground after combining soys, then oats.
I plan on using the fertilizer spreader instead of the drill, less wear and tear, and more ground covered time wise.
then I am going to use a RTS to incorporate them in.
I am also going to try and just leave a few hundred acres as a cover crop all winter instead of plowing down. this will give me some protection from wind erosion in the winter.
oats are an amazing crop and I think there is alot of lost insight as to the fine root system reviving the ground and compaction. Mother nature wants to keep the ground green and this is one way to improve soil stucture for very little cost.
The cover crop I plowed down last fall was nice green and after plowed it still continued to grow before a real hard frost hit it. The corn crop on this farm is the best corn I got. good luck and the secret is get your cover crop planted as soon as possible. loctated in mid western ontario canada

Great looking tractor - I've always liked the appearance of vintage front wheel assist tractors. Looks like the switch plow is doing a good job, too.

Seed was about $100/bag. I broadcasted after wheat was harvested. Lightly disc them in. They'll winter kill. Be ready to shoot some deer, they love'm.

Radishes will do the ground a world of good fairly quickly. Last year, I planted radishes mixed with crimson clover. The radishes came up in the fall, winter killed in December or so- when the nighttime temps hit 10-15 degrees. The clover took over in the spring. I burned it off around the middle of May and no tilled corn directly into the mat. It's some of the best corn I have right now. The previous crop was corn that was chopped. The biggest trouble is that that mix HAS to be planted around September 1st or before to work. After that, plant rye, triticale or wheat for a cover. You can burn it in the spring or harvest it next summer....

also turnips work well great dry matter after kill down.

Go right back with oats and add some turnips. Both winter kill with a hard frost. Keeps ground covered.

duane beck who runs the dakota lakes research farm, who is one of the founders of covercrops is starting to go away from radishes and goes more toward rapeseed. the cost of seed is much less and they grow well into the winter which gives u a much longer growing season. I been doing covercrops about 5yrs and the first lesson i had to learn was to watch how many dollars i spent on seed. my goal now is always less the $15 per acre.

Ya the 4020 is from France, a genuine export tractor with some neat features.
I just bought the switch plow and it works great with the tractor. liked the plow so
much I bought a 5 furrow also. I didnt think they would work that nice. best part is
no dead furrows.
that farm hasnt been plowed in 23 years. kinda hated to do it but decided to loosen it up
a bit. and pick more stones. thanks for the comments.