The most prevented plant acres since the U.S. Department of Agriculture began releasing a report on it in 2007 have been recorded this year at 19.4 million acres. That’s 17.5 million acres more than reported last year. According to the Farm Service Agency (FSA), more than 73% of the prevented plant acres were in 12 Midwestern states that dealt with heavy rains and flooding in the spring.

Field agronomist Rebecca Vittetoe says the Risk Management Association with the USDA did make changes following the difficult planting in the spring, “In the past it used to be that if you planted a cover crop on preventive plant acres, you were not allowed to hay it or graze it until after November 1st if you wanted your full coverage for what you would get for preventive planting. This year they did come out and they did change that, part of that was with the wet spring and other things going on. But they have changed that and now it is you can use, if you plant a cover crop you can hay it or graze it after September 1st, and they also added in that silage, haylage, and baleage will also be treated the same as haying and grazing for this year only.”

The USDA states cover crops are up this year with over 2.7 million acres so far in 2019, compared to 2.14 million at this time last year, and 1.9 million in 2017.