Penn State Uses Airplane to Plant Cover Crops

Seeking to be a role model for farmers in the state and across the Northeast, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences undertook aerial seeding of a cover crop last fall.

Cover crops, such as the winter wheat Penn State planted, offer great benefits because their roots prevent soil particles from being washed away by winter and spring runoff, they lock up carbon, and they take up nutrients such as nitrogen.

The problem in Pennsylvania and the Northeast is that crops such as soybeans and corn often remain in the field until late November, and farmers can’t get a cover crop planted before cold weather sets in and the growing season ends. Aerial seeding is a solution to that problem, points out Glen Cauffman, manager of Penn State farm operations.

“Aerial seeding allows a cover crop to be planted before an existing crop is harvested,” he explains. “That way, when the corn or soybeans are cut and removed and the sunlight gets to the ground, the cover crop already has a start. Aerial seeding is a very ‘green’ thing to do, and if it were widely practiced in Pennsylvania, it could have major environmental benefits.”

Although aerial agricultural applications such as crop dusting are widely practiced in the Midwest and South, according to Cauffman, they are relatively rare in Pennsylvania. With the exception of spraying compounds to kill gypsy moth caterpillars, Keystone State residents rarely see air planes involved in crop work.

“There are just a few farms in central Pennsylvania using aerial seeding of cover crops,” says Gwendolyn Crews, a soil conservationist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service based in Mill Hall. “We do have some programs that promote planting cover crops in general, but not aerial seeding. Planting cover crops offers an environmental benefit by preventing erosion through the winter and spring, thus reducing the amount of sediment and nutrients, such as phosphorous, that reach local streams. Aerial seeding is just a unique way of accomplishing the benefit.”