My first contact with Tom Kilcer was toward the end of my Cooperative Extension career. My last year as an agronomy professional educator was 1977-78, which was also Kilcer’s first. Our contact over the following years was hit-or-miss.

Crop Comments: Winter Forage Favoritism?Fast forward to 2012, when I interviewed a prominent Midwest seed dealer who praised Kilcer’s crop research conducted in New York. I told that dealer that I knew Kilcer from way back, so he gave me Kilcer’s number. When I called Kilcer, he immediately invited me to see his crop demonstrations at the Cornell Research Farm in Valatie, NY. Working with Cornell faculty in his role as a Certified Crop Advisor, Kilcer oversaw field operations at Valatie.

Most of summer 2012, over 40 states in the continental U.S. had officially declared natural disasters as victims of Drought 2012. The Valatie Research Farm venue in Columbia County earned its fair share of that moniker. When I visited Valatie around July 20, the Research Farm had received about one inch of rainfall in the preceding 45 days. Most of the corn hybrid plants had shriveled up to almost nothing. Sorghums, sudangrasses, their hybrids and millets (not surprisingly) appeared unfazed by the absence of rainfall.

It was quite obvious that the corn hybrids had fallen victim to the drought, so Kilcer said he planned to harrow up these pathetic-looking summer annuals and plant cold-tolerant small grains. When I asked Kilcer if these would be his cover crops, he jumped on me, verbally, saying: “Don’t call them cover crops – they’re winter forages. They’re not just hanging onto soils. They’re next year’s earliest mechanically harvestable forages.” Some things you never forget. Kilcer’s response to my question was one of those things.

Fast forward again to Kilcer’s September 2024 online newsletter, “Crop Soil News.” (Find it at advancedagsys.com.) In the most recent newsletter, he wrote that more farms in more countries, including Canada and multiple states in Europe, now capitalize on growing high yielding, high-quality, winter triticale forage.

There are multiple benefits of adding this crop to regular rotations. The first is reduction or elimination of soil erosion. Even fields with shallow slopes can erode over winter. The ground freezes from the top down. When a warm spell hits, the top inch changes from frozen mud to ooze, as frost thaws from the top down. Snow melt or a winter rain can remove nearly all of this layer, leaving thinner topsoil and mostly subsoil and stones behind. Thin layers removed each winter result in little or no topsoil on the rise and too much in the hedgerow or ditch at the bottom of the slope. Total yield on the field in question continues decreasing.

The second impact from the lack of winter forage strikes directly at operators’ wallets, according to Kilcer. Fertilizer nutrients that they paid good money for leach out, denitrifying or being converted into less usable (or completely unusable) forms. Nitrogen (N) is held in the green tissue at the 22% crude protein level through nearly all stages of autumn growth. When managed this way, such plants can be shown to store up to 140 lbs. of N/acre.

If we achieve these top yields, i.e., hopefully 1 to 1.5 tons of dry matter going into winter, we are looking at 60 to 100 lbs. of N stored in the northern (New York and New England) climate zone. Farther south, more can be expected.

Kilcer said that there is ongoing research to determine how much N storage actually takes place. In addition, phosphorus, which can complexed (tied up in unavailable compounds with other soil elements), is absorbed and held in the plant in an organic form. Here organic means carbon-based, not chemical-free. Potassium in some sandy soils can leach, but, once again, not if it is incorporated in the physical biomass of growing plants.

The third arrow in the winter forage management quiver is more important over the longer term: soil health and structure. By growing a living crop all year, root exudates support diverse microorganisms critical to healthy soil biology. This in turn naturally reduces disease and other pathological organisms, allowing beneficial organisms to build soil structure in and under winter forage sod.

Research has found that soil health and structure deteriorate greatly over winter under bare soil. Kilcer clearly observed the effect of such soil destruction in the Green Bay, WI, area this season. Fields with previous winter forage had corn that grew nearly normal. Those without winter forages had large areas of drowned or severely stunted corn – with pockets of good corn all in the same row – and estimated half the yield of the winter forage-treated fields. Same soil, same horrible (extremely wet) weather, yet very different results from incorporating winter forage in the rotation.

Reading between the lines of Kilcer’s September discussion, I can glean that the temporary sods formed by winter forages make soil and sod healthy enough to fend off weeds – bad ones like Palmer’s amaranth.

Something I stumbled into in the non-agricultural arena added a dimension to this concept. The following question appeared in my inbox a few days ago: What does “amaranthine” mean? There were four choices. I chose the word “undying,” as did 45.7% of the total respondents. We were correct. (The other three choices were “fragile,” “perishable” and “delicate.”) Quoting this online Words Trivia source: “Definition: Referring to something that is everlasting or unchanging; immortal or eternal. Origin: Derived from the Greek word ‘amarantos,’ meaning ‘unfading,’ which is related to the amaranth flower, symbolizing immortality.”

Crop growers in the Midwest (more than the Northeast) are in continuous battle against Palmer’s amaranth, a particularly aggressive form of redroot pigweed, especially if they’re heavy on corn and soybean and really light on winter forages. Palmer’s amaranth’s scientific name is Amaranthus palmeri. Crop growers fighting A. palmeri may call it “undying,” but probably call it something else.