Monthly Archives: September 2026

Next Chapter

I’ve been blessed beyond imagination. For the past 22.5 years I’ve had the opportunity to serve people to the best of my ability, build deep relationships and friendships, learn each day, walk alongside growers with on-farm research that mattered to them, share information a variety of ways, work with amazing office team-mates/colleagues/volunteers/boards, and help speak into the lives of youth. It’s been an amazing career and one I will look back upon fondly throughout my life.

It was my dream job to work in the fields with farmers, do research, teach, learn, build relationships, serve people, and each day was something different with challenges and questions. I never imagined leaving Extension. It was the career I never knew existed until my graduate professor, Dr. Jim Partridge, asked me “why not Extension?” when I told him about my dream job. I’m so grateful for how God directed my paths with all the people He put in my life!

And, He continues to direct my paths as He promises in Proverbs 3:5-6 upon trusting Him and not leaning on my own understanding. The past several years, I’ve chosen a word to study/focus on. The word God gave me this year was “Surrender”…surrender my life and will to God. Surrender is hard! Yet through another challenging growing season, God was moving me to surrender even my career.

I’ve chosen to leave Extension. It hasn’t been an easy decision, and it’s one I’m at peace with. The greatest difficulty in this decision is knowing there will be an impact to those who have relied on information provided and the relationships developed over the years.

My hope for the University and Extension in the future is that it will reignite a focus as a land grant institution to serve the needs and challenges our people face. I also hope it can remain objective for the sake of the people we serve. I believe an objective third party is still needed for research and mediating problems. My hope is that in the difficulty of the ag and university economy that outside money, pressures, and especially threats don’t influence the objectivity of research and the messages shared. There’s understandably tension when research-based information doesn’t align with company messages to sell, which has occurred for ages with disagreement yet respect. And, as I share this next part, there’s still many respectful relationships my colleagues and I share with industry professionals.

The increasing challenge to a growing number of us in Extension is with threats received and the pressures to alter messages/control the narrative/silence research from individuals within companies and entire companies. I never compromised sharing messages based on research nor in sharing the research. I haven’t known my colleagues to compromise either. The one time I wasn’t objective was when I came out against utility scale solar and I stand by that decision as a human. No one wants to see problems happen in fields. When they have occurred with hybrids, varieties and various other situations, there wasn’t always research to explain them. I did my best taking time looking at numerous fields to figure them out and to be as respectful as possible yet also truthful in the process. I’m also human and there’s times I could’ve done better. My hope is that growers will continue to trust the University and Extension for the research produced and messages shared and continue to seek the professionals there for second opinions when they encounter difficulties. My hope also is that industry respects the role of an objective Extension and University, because that is in the best interest of all of us, particularly our constituents.

God gave me such a gift and beauty from ashes in bringing Brian into my life as my husband! We are incredibly aligned in our values, beliefs, and how we think about ag and life. Since marriage, I’ve felt torn each day between being on the farm with him and serving all of you. I’ve tried to do both and I’m not able to give that much of me both ways – it’s not sustainable. In praying through this, God helped move me towards letting go of Extension and choosing to be on the farm. I’m so excited for this next chapter to partner even greater with Brian! – to build our dreams of helping others build their soils through plants, animals, and biology and walking alongside others in their soil health journeys.

My last day with Extension will be September 30th. I will be at Husker Harvest Days on Tuesday and Thursday if you’d like to connect there. There will also be an open house for a few hours on Sept. 30th, time and location TBD.

With this, I say Thank You! Thank you to all of you who trusted me to help you with various problems, advice, input, talk through things through the years. Thank you to all of you who challenged my thinking, kept me humble, and helped me grow. Thank you to all of you who have become deep supporters and friends. Thank you to all of you who participated in on-farm research throughout my career, allowed me to work with your youth, and who partnered with me on activities like fair, etc. I don’t have the words. Just incredibly grateful; thank you.

Posted in JenREES Columns

Fall Cover Crop Options

Sep 5

Posted by JenBrhel

The past few weeks I’ve received several questions on fall planted cover crops. As we think about fall cover crops and cover crops in general, one’s goals determine what a person does. Because we’re limited after corn and soybean harvest with time before frost, our options are also limited too. I’ll share a few practical mixes for the fall.

A cover crop mix of oats and brassicas may be of interest for those wanting fall forage, erosion control, winter annual weed control, and/or a cover crop that terminates with frost. To obtain these benefits, planting now through Sept. 15 at the latest would be best. For those in corn/soy systems, an option could be to try flying on cover crop seed. Normally we see good results around 50% of the time. With the heat this week most likely pushing crops to mature faster and the moisture we’ve been receiving, this may be an option to consider this year. Seeding rates do need to be increased when broadcast seeding cover crops. One note, if you have traditionally seen a lot of crickets in your field, we have observed how they will eat newly broadcasted cover crop seed on the ground. Another note, some desiring nitrogen production have flown on hairy vetch either alone or in a mix with oats/brassicas. That can also be done, just note that broadcast seeding rates need to be increased (25-30 lb/ac for hairy vetch broadcast vs. 10-20 lb/ac drilled) which can make that seeding more expensive.

Goals of spring forage, erosion control, weed control, and nitrogen production without the concern of winter termination: winter cereal crops such as cereal rye and triticale with hairy vetch or Austrian winter peas are an option. For those needing a third species to comply with various programs, a brassica can be added at 0.5 lb/ac. Winter cereals or a mix of a winter cereal with hairy vetch can result in a great weed control program suppressing weeds like henbit and marestail. Vetch can suppress bindweed in fields.

On our farm, we seed a mixture of a small amount of rye with a higher rate of hairy vetch before our corn each year (15 lb/ac hairy vetch and 15 lb/ac of cereal rye). We’ve found this works for us in providing some diversity of root structure, good establishment, and a lower carbon:nitrogen ratio to allow the vetch to break down quicker. This year, we terminated pre-plant due to wanting to preserve soil moisture in a dry spring. The hairy vetch was just beginning to flower and I took biomass samples at termination. The results showed 120 lb N/ac in the biomass and we estimate around half of that is available the first season for the growing crop. We then no-till planted the corn into the vetch/rye stand which laid down like a mat for excellent weed control that is still seen today. We utilized melted urea as our nitrogen source in-season and one field only has 20 lb N/ac on it. All our corn fields are monitored by Sentinel Ag to view any plant nitrogen needs in-season. We also hoped the Sentinel data would show when mineralization from the cover crop was occurring. We did see that on the nitrogen sufficiency indexes after we’ve received some larger rain events that allowed for mineralization to occur.

As growers think about their goals and input costs for the next growing season, a cover crop may be a tool for a goal you have. Particularly, a cover crop like hairy vetch before corn is a way to help reduce nitrogen costs for the next growing season while also helping with weed and erosion control and providing other soil health benefits.