Aerial cover crop seeding continues ascent

At top, Chris Bunting of Bunting’s Dusting in Berlin, Md., stands in front of a plane outfitted for aerial seeding. Bunting is among aerial applicators on Delmarva who have seen increased demand for cover crop seeding by air. Above, he checks on aerial seeding equipment attached to his airplane. (Photos by Sean Clougherty)

As the use of cover crops continues its agronomic popularity, aerial seeding has followed suit.
Cost share funding and program adjustments, soil health benefits and lessening the harvest time workload all play a part, according to aerial applicators and conservationists.
“The benefits of aerial application of cover crops are the ability to cover large areas of land in a much shorter period of time and you eliminate the possibility of crop damage and compaction by not having to travel in the field,” said Virginia Grimm, Kent Conservation District planner in Delaware, said. “However, increased seeding rates will increase the price per acre and it’s not always easy to establish good seed to soil contact especially when planted into standing crops.”
Bob Bunting, owner of Bunting’s Dusting in Berlin, Md., said he remembers aerial seeding crops “once in a while” in the 1980s when a farmer wanted seed flown over a cow pasture, but, “it was nothing like it is today.”
Now, more growers are having cover crops seeded into standing corn and soybean crops to get earlier establishment, more biomass growth and scavenge more nutrients left behind. Depending on the program, cost share incentives in Maryland and Delaware promote either early seeding or specifically aerial seeding.
In less than 10 years, aerial applied cover crops in the Maryland Agricultural Cost Share program jumped from 62,201 acres planted in 2014 to 135,812 acres planted last year, according to data from Maryland Department of Agriculture.
Mark Whalen, owner of Shore Ag Air Service in Millington, Md., and an agronomist, said in the program’s early years, farmers were held to a certain number of acres to allow wider participation, but as cover crops became more popular, cost share funding increased and restrictions were relaxed.
“When they took that cap off, that’s when it really ballooned, and it’s steadily increased from there,” he said.
The program offers a $10 per acre incentive for aerial seeded cover crops into standing corn crops before Sept. 10 and last year, based on input from ag community and its technical advisory committee, MDA moved up the start date for cover crop seeding form Aug. 15 to Aug. 1 which has continued this year, said Jason Keppler, conservation grants program manager.
“I think that has promoted more cover crops on corn,” said Chris Bunting, Bob’s son and aerial applicator. “As far as the program goes, I think it’s the strongest it’s ever been.”
This year, aerial seeding by drones is also an option in the Maryland program.
In Delaware, each county conservation district offers cost share funding for cover crop planting and each has seen total and aerial seeded acres go up.
Kent and New Castle county districts each offer a $5 per acre incentive for aerial seeding, in part to cover higher seeding rates.
Sussex Conservation District incentivizes early seeding, regardless of method, with an additional $10 per acre for acres seeded by Oct. 1.
In New Castle County, conservation district planner, Mike Popovich, said there’s been a steady increase in aerial cover crop seeding with about 2,000-3,000 acres or 25 to 30 percent of their cost share program acres, and the bulk of those acre are in the less urban area of the county, below the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Kent Conservation District has seen both its total cover crop acres and aerial applied acres increase in its cost share program in recent years and last fall’s aerial planting was about 59 percent of total acres, Stephanie Walt, district grants program manager, said.
Sussex Conservation District has seen significant increases in cover crop acres planted in its cost share program. Of last year’s 83,015 total cover crop acres in the program, more than 16,000 were aerial seeded, up about 6 percent from the two prior years, said Siobhan Kelley, district communications and outreach coordinator.
Farmers experimenting more with blending multiple species of cover crops in one field has also carried over to aerial seeding.
“Were doing a lot more mixes,” said Jeff Chorman, owner of Chorman Spraying in Greenwood, Del. “Anything with a radish is popular.”
“For the soil health aspect, a mix is much better,” Whalen said. “When you have more than one species, you have a lot more biodiversity in the soil itself.”
Chorman added farmers opt for aerial application to help get cover crops in faster if there are harvest delays.
“People like the aerial because it’s done, it’s one less thing they’ve got to do,” Chorman said.
In taking some of the workload off farmers, aerial applicators said it’s kept their planes more productive.
“It’s extended our flying season for the aircraft,” Whalen said, who started flying on cover crops this year on Aug. 22. “Normally, we’d be done about now, but this carries us another month and a half. It helps with a lot of our fixed costs.”