“Both of our families were using cover crops so we decided to capitalize on that idea,” said Frederick. “We thought there was a lot of potential in the market to grow and thought we should get our foot in the door and make some supplemental income and be able to stay on the farm and do what we love to do.”

Frederick said his father Al Frederick started the practice of raising cover crops while he was away at college.

“He was one of the first adopters,” Frederick said. “We have always been environmentally focused. I am the third generation in my family that has served as Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioner.”

Soon thereafter Iowa Cover Crop was born.

-Submitted photo
Cattle are shown grazing on cover crops. Bill Frederick with Iowa Cover Crop would like to see more cattle producers taking advantage of grazing cover crops.

Iowa Cover Crop is a full service cover crop business offering seed sales to application.

Frederick said they have a dealer network of seed sales set up across the state. They sell a variety of cover crop seeds including rye, oats, clovers, alfalfa, brome grasses, waterway mixes, pasture mixes, turnips, radishes, native grasses and more.

“We sell everything but corn and soybeans,” he said. “We are not just a rye and oat company. We pretty much have everything you want.”

Iowa Cover Crop partners with a seed company in South Dakota for some of their cover crop seed, or contract acres with local farmers to raise it.

“For oats, we contract local growers. We had almost 1,000 acres of oats contracted in Iowa last year,” Frederick said. “We will buy some local rye, but most of the rye we purchase is also out of the Dakotas. We try as much as we can to work direct with the farmer and cut out the middle man. That gets more money into the producer’s hands and save money on the backend of the cover crop user.”

-Submitted photo
Bill Frederick and James Holz, owners of Iowa Cover Crop started the business based on experience they gained from their own family’s farming operations.

Iowa Cover Crop also offers custom application throughout west-central and central Iowa in counties including Greene, Guthrie, Humboldt, Sac, Story, Webster and Wright.

Why should a producer choose Iowa Cover Crop?

Frederick said he and Holz bring a lot of experience to the table and are small enough their customers will not get overlooked.

“We are kind of a mom-and-pop shop,” he said. “We’re two young farmers that love cover crops and we use cover crops. We have a good idea of what works and what doesn’t. We try everything on our farm. The big seed houses and companies — they only see one side of the business. We see the whole scope of the sale.”

Iowa Cover Crop may be a small company, but they’re still mighty in what they can deliver.

“We are big enough that we can serve people quickly and with a high quality product. We are in the nice middle ground. We’re always happy to come out to the farm and talk through stuff with people. Advise people with what we think will work. We are a little more flexible that way than some companies,” Frederick said.

Cover crops continue to be a conservation practice for more producers each year, and Frederick said their business is definitely seeing that growth.

“Our business has basically doubled every year since we have started it,” he said. “It is getting to the size now we probably aren’t going to double, but we did expect to have a down year last year due to the coronavirus and the drought, and the bad farm markets — but we still ended up basically 60% higher than last year.”

Encouraging cover crops

Frederick said there are a lot of cost-share funds available for crop covers.

“You can almost always completely pay for your application if you just figure that stuff out, and we are more than happy to help direct people toward cost-share opportunities,” he said.

Frederick said he and Holz are more than willing to help with a consultation.

“Maybe start small,” Frederick said. “Start with maybe a lower risk seed mix. Oats will kill in the winter. A lot of times if we are talking to someone just starting, we push them towards oats. It’s not risky. You can’t lose control of it in the spring because it is all dead. They just need to dip their toes into it, get familiar with the process, then they can go all the way into it.”

Frederick said he would like to see more cattle producers get into utilizing cover crops for grazing.

“We also have cows. We can graze it (cover crops). We can pay for our cover crops with our cows pretty easily — that is kind of a natural fit for us. I wish more cow guys would see that,” he said