Crop diversification and increased use of perennials, particularly alfalfa, within farmer fields are key to the sustainable intensification of US agricultural

Many farmers are interested in trying alternative practices such as dual purpose grain and forage intercropping to increase crop diversity on their farm and reduce their reliance on n fertilizers. However, management complexity of intercropping, combined with the challenge of "valuing" the multifunctionality and ecosystem services intercropping provides, has limited its adoption in mainstream agriculture. This proposal addresses those constraints by engineering an inter-row header (IRH) that attaches to existing self-propelled forage harvesters to cut and harvest cover crops (i.e. alfalfa) intercropped between rows of cash grain crops. The IRH provides an easily adoptable management solution for farmers to reduce competition between alfalfa and grain crops at critical growth stages while simultaneously harvesting alfalfa as a saleable forage. Trials of alfalfa-corn and alfalfa-intermediate wheatgrass (IWG) intercrops will be used to test the IRH performance and quantify the yields IRH managed alfalfa-grain systems provide. Additionally, the IRH will be tested at field scale in existing alfalfa-IWG farmer fields in kansas, minnesota, and wisconsin to demonstrate its utility and receive farmer/industry feedback. Harvesting these farmer fields will occur in conjunction with field days and outreach activities in all three states. Ultimately, by providing farmers with efficient mechanized equipment like the IRH for grain-forage intercrops could increase adoption of those systems, decrease the ecological footprint of US agriculture, and increase the acreage planted to alfalfa on US landscapes.