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Hello to all- June 12th was a wonderful day at the Kellogg Biological Station- the weather was great, the speakers were fascinating, and the cover crops were looking good! We started out the day indoors, hearing five talks from professors and extension educators: Anne Verhallen, from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, gave a great overview of cover crops' attributes in vegetable systems. Her talk was particularly attuned to the audience's interests; we had many opportunities to give feedback and ask questions throughout her presentation. Mathieu Ngouajio, an Associate Professor of Horticulture here at M.S.U., taught us about biofumigant cover crops in his talk. We learned about the biochemistry of biofumigants, and how this information can help us develop more efficient cover cropping practices. Darryl Warncke, a professor and extension specialist in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences here at M.S.U., gave a talk about nutrient management using cover crops. He provided a lot of interesting information about the dynamics of nutrient cycling, and how understanding this can help us improve nutrient availability. George Abawi, a professor of Plant Pathology at Cornell University's New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, gave a presentation on cover crops' role in soil health and root disease management. We learned a lot about a particular soil testing system he is developing. Daniel Brainard, an assistant professor of Horticulture here at M.S.U., spoke to us about cover crop mixtures for integrated weed and nitrogen managment. Through his talk, he made points about the financial pros and cons of cover cropping. The powerpoint presentations of all of these talks are available at http://michiganorganic.anr.msu.edu/ A summary of the workshop is given on the main page, containing links to the presentations. For the second half of the day, we ventured out into the KBS Fields to examine cover crops from another angle. Just some of the many highlights: First, Sieg Snapp of KBS introduced us to perennial wheat. We got a good look at the wheat's roots, and had a discussion about the differences and similarities between perennial and annual wheats (e.g., gluten content). We also witnessed a demo of a crimper in use; this piece of equipment is highly useful in killing your cover crop by breaking its stems, yielding a nice green mulch! A few photos of the meeting are posted at http://michiganorganic.anr.msu.edu/ as well. If you have any further questions or would like to have a look at some more photos, feel free to contact Vicki Morrone ([log in to unmask]) or Kate Leitch ([log in to unmask]). We'd love to talk about the meeting! Thanks! Vicki and Kate If you would like to access previous postings to the Mich-Organic listserv you can copy and paste the following URL into your browser address bar http://list.msu.edu/archives/mich-organic.html