After a cool, wet spring we are finally in full farming mode with our field crop research initiatives. Like many of you, we had a late spring snow the third week in April and soil temperatures did not start to rise above 50 degrees until the middle of May. Finally, on May 29th we were […]

Cover crops are grown for several of their benefits, ranging from protecting and enhancing soil to pest suppression. What about using them to sequester atmospheric carbon to counter climate change, which could serve as an income source from carbon credits? While carbon credits aren’t a current reality, once a cap and trade system is in […]

People often ask what we do during the winter and the answer is easy, there’s never on off-season, just a different nature to the work. In fact, winter is often just as hectic as work during the growing season and this winter’s activities bear that out. On the outreach side, we held the 5th annual […]

There’s still time to register for the fifth annual Wisconsin Cover Crop Conference “Investing in Your Farm’s Future” but space is limited. The conference will be held February 27th at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center, Stevens Point. Preregistration is required and will be open through February 20th but will close when we reach 300 […]

This FREE webinar series will highlight the latest Wisconsin research on cover crops and soil health. The series will be 6 weeks long, every Wednesday from 12pm-1pm (except for the week of February 7 – that webinar will be 12pm-1:30pm). Connection information for the webinar will be provided upon registration available at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wisconsin-cover-crop-and-soil-health-research-webinar-series-registration-41224772404 Participants will […]

The fifth annual Wisconsin Cover Crop Conference “Investing in Your Farm’s Future” will be held February 27th at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center, Stevens Point. Barry Fisher, Central Region Leader of the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Soil Health Division will deliver the keynote address “Soil Health Principles: Using cover crops and reduced tillage to […]

The fifth annual Wisconsin Cover Crops Conference “Investing in Your Farm’s Future” will be held February 27 at the Holiday Inn and Conference Center, Stevens Point. This conference is geared toward helping Wisconsin farmers more successfully use cover crops on their farms. There will be something for everyone, from farmer’s that have never tried cover […]

The 2017 conference, co-sponsored by the Institute, was held in late November in Madison. This year’s theme was “continuous living cover: bridging the gaps with livestock” and participants enjoyed numerous related general and breakout presentations delivered by a range of speakers from farmers to researchers. Subthemes of continuous living cover included perennial forage, perennial grains, […]

MFAI works on this project, funded by a USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) partnership program grant, evaluating the returns to cover crop use to help sell the practice to non-cover crop users without using cost-share programs.

Saturday, November 4, 2017, 10:30 am – Noon A SPECIAL FALL FIELD DAY PROMOTING SUSTAINABILITY AND GOOD STEWARDSHIP OF LAND Jim Stute, Research Director at Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, will guide the tour of the new research fields, conservation buffers, waterways, and pollinator habitat. This farm has been designed to decrease nutrient and soil run-off to as […]

The 2017 conference, our fourth, was held on October 4th in Washington and Ozaukee Counties, near Wisconsin’s Eastern shore. The theme of this year’s conference was “The Role of Cover Crops in Soil and Water Quality”, chosen because the location falls in the Milwaukee River Watershed which is classified as impaired by the Environmental Protection […]

Over 100 people showed up for a cover crops farm tour Monday, October 9, held on farms in Iowa County’s Uplands Watershed group, which MFAI sponsors. “I learned more today than at any event I can remember,” one workshop attendee told us. Whether it was the stunning morning sun backlighting John Middleton as he described […]

A Tour Examining the Role of Cover Crops in Soil and Water Quality – Join us October 4, 2017 from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm in Jackson, WI. The conference will kick off at the Jackson Town Hall in Jackson, WI and will be followed with a tour that will include three different farmer sites, each with different demos and cover crop practices. Register today! […]

SAVE THE DATE – Monday, October 9, 2017, Wisconsin Conservation Farming with Gulf Seafood! Join Iowa County’s Uplands Farmer-Led Watershed Group for a farm tour followed by brats and seafood. Starts at 9 am […]

The 2017 growing season has proven one of the most challenging in recent memory and portends things to come. Precipitation in particular has been highly variable, including periods of excess rainfall, waterlogged soils and now a prolonged dry spell. Agriculturally, results from this pattern were difficulty getting spring field done during brief 1 to 3-day […]

In partnership with Sheboygan County UW Extension, Washington and Ozaukee County Land Conservation Departments, and Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute will be helping host the 2017 Wisconsin Cover Crops Conference, a tour examining the role of cover crops in soil and water quality. During the conference, attendees will have the unique opportunity […]

In April, the Institute was awarded a USDA Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education (SARE) Partnership Program grant to evaluate the economics of cover crop use in no-till grain production. The project entitled “Do Cover Crops Pay? Expanding Learning Circle for Peer to Peer Cover Crop Promotion Using Economics as a Theme” will couple research and […]

Dr. Jim Stute, Research Director at Michael Fields Agriculture Institute, talks about rye as a cover crop with Wisconsin Agriculturalist. Read the article  

                    The project entitled Farmland Conservation through Land and Water Protection has been nominated in 3 categories: Most Environmentally Friendly Project, Best Public/Private Partnership, and Most Creative Deal of the Year. The award focuses on the best real estate deals and projects that were completed in 2016 within Milwaukee, Kenosha, Ozaukee, Racine, Walworth, Washington […]

The Wisconsin Cover Crop workgroup has launched a new website designed to be a clearinghouse for cover crop information in Wisconsin. We are a multi-agency group that conducts research and provides unbiased information to help farmers use cover crops to improve their production systems and minimize soil loss. Jim Stute, Research Director at the Institute […]

  A recently completed study entitled “Economic analysis of cover crops: impact of interseeding red clover in wheat on corn production economics” evaluated the costs, returns and risk of this cover cropping practice and found that in addition to conservation benefits, it can significantly improve the bottom line. It used published data from side-by-side mid-western […]

Tuesday August 30, 9 am to 4 pm, Lancaster WI Starts and ends at the Grant County UW-Extension Office: Youth & Agriculture Center 916 E Elm Street, Suite A Lancaster, WI 53813-0031 The theme of this year’s conference is “Coupling soil quality and economics” featuring a bus tour of cover crop research at the UW […]

The Institute will be holding a cover crop field day on Thursday, September 8th from 1 to 4 pm, beginning at our research farm, W2857 County ES, East Troy. The field day will feature our latest research work in both organic and conventional systems with topics including Sunn hemp cultural trials, no-till cover crop sequences, […]

The University of Wisconsin- Extension recently compiled county-level cover crop acreage from the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture and produced this Map. It clearly shows that Wisconsin is a leader in cover crop adoption!    

The Wisconsin Farm Technology Days is the largest agricultural show in Wisconsin and one of the largest in the nation. The three-day outdoor event showcases the latest improvements in production agriculture, including many practical applications of recent research findings and technological developments. Each year, it is held in a different Wisconsin county – on a […]