Advanced cover crop program—Seeking farmer collaborators
Maximize Your Cover Crop Potential through Purposeful, Site-Specific Cover Crop Planning and Management. Maryland’s Grain, livestock, specialty crop farmers, including small acreage and urban producers are invited to apply to participate in the project.
The objective of this project is for growers to work with Extension to identify the top needs of crop fields, and to incorporate cover crops into their cropping system in a way that will help to address those needs. This project will analyze agronomic outcomes as well as the water quality associated with the purposeful cover crop planning and implementation through on-site data collection consistent with the latest science-based evaluation metrics and methodologies.
Interested farmers will choose from a list of cover cropping practices and will be offered a free technical planning session (by phone, zoom, or at county extension office) to identify which practice or combination of practices will best address the needs of their crop fields. *If you are practicing an innovative cover cropping practice that is not on the list, we want to hear from you too!
*Farmers selected to participate in the program will be provided with financial payment.
Step 1. Fill out Application by May 15, 2026 or contact Sarah Hirsh at shirsh@umd.edu or 410-651-1350 (https://go.umd.edu/advancedcovercrop)
Step 2. Farmer and UME Ag Agent meet by phone or zoom to discuss field conditions and plan cover crops based on specific field needs.
Step 3. Farmers who qualify for the program will be contacted in June.
Step 4. Farmer plants planned cover crops on fields.
Step 5. University of MD Extension will assess the success of the cover crops in meeting the field needs.
Criteria and Payment Details:
- Grain farmers enroll up to 100 acres: $50 an acre + $500 base for participation
- Specialty crop farmers enroll between 5 - 20 acres: $50 an acre + $3000 base for participation
- Specialty crop farmers between 0 - less than 5 acres: $80 an acre + $3000 base for participation
- Livestock farmers enroll up to 30 acres: $50 an acre + $2000 base for participation
Expectations for Payment:
- Purchase cover crop seed, plant and manage the cover crop.
- Attend two in-person networking meetings (~2 hours each) where you will have an opportunity to meet and discuss cover crops with other enrolled farmers.
- Provide basic management and financial records pertaining to the cover crop.
- Complete survey about your experience with the cover crop (should take between 15-30 minutes to complete). *Grain Farmers will also need to do a social network analysis survey.
This work is supported by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grant Program Project 78444. Project partners include the University of Maryland Extension in collaboration with Future Harvest (FH) and Colorado State University (CSU) Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, and matching support from Maryland Department of Agriculture. PI’s for this project are Sarah Hirsh (UME), Lisa Garfield (FH), and Rachel Lahoff (CSU). Co-PI’s are UME’s Amanda Grev, Haley Sater, Benjamin Beale, Shannon Dill, Dwayne Joseph, Andrew Kness, Qianwen Lu, Kelly Nichols, Jennifer Rhodes, and Jeff Semler.
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