The 2017 keynote speakers were Keith Burns of Green cover seeds in Nebraska. That guy is a resource. The website has a cover crop calculator. They say the most important thing about designing a mix is knowing what you are trying to accomplish.
The bigger name at the conference this year was Jonathan Lundgren PhD. If you don't know of him, he would be worth looking up. He has 2 organizations: Blue Dasher Farm and Ecdysis Foundation.
This man researched one of the big pesticides " neonics" sold on seed, and many of the commercially available seeds for the broad acre conventional farmers are not even available iwthout this substance. Turns out the purported benefits are not actually provided.. the systemic insectacide is not active when the aphids are sucking the sap out of the plants. The crops from treated seed do not yield a greater harvest. And so on.
When Lundgren reported his findings (he was working at a USDA funded lab at the time) he was pressured to shut up etc etc etc. He went from being the brightest young scientist to being persona non grata. He quit his job, and has the two organizations noted above. He now carries out independently funded research, and people from around the world send donations, and he farms his
land.
Get the details! He has videos of lectures through his website.
Anyway, they have this great conference every year in February, in Delta, Colorado. It is organized by the Delta County Economic Development Council. Pretty forward thinking for conservative western colorado. They want their community to have a future in agriculture. Progressive agriculture. PS there is no building code in the "county", just in the towns in the county.
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