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Table of Contents
Introduction
Introduction
"Cover crops are traditionally planted on farms but can be used in gardens. A cover crop is any crop grown to cover the soil and may be incorporated into the soil later for enrichment. Planting cover crops in your garden provides multiple benefits such as controlling erosion, suppressing weeds, reducing soil compaction, increasing moisture and nutrient content of soil, improving yield potential, attracting pollinators, and providing habitat for beneficial insects and wildlife as well as food to animals.
Cover crops (grasses, legumes and forbs) recommended for seasonal cover and other conservation purposes include annual ryegrass, oilseed radish, winter cereal rye, and oats used for scavenging unused fertilizer and releasing nutrients back into the soil for the next crop to use. Good cover crops to break up compacted soils are forage radish (also known as oilseed radish) and forage turnip. Similar to commercial nitrogen (N) fertilizers, legume cover crops like crimson clover, hairy vetch and Austrian winter pea can help “grow” some of your N needs." - USDA: Cover Crops & Crop Rotation
Important Note About Plant Choice!
Important Note About Plant Choice!
This page will include guidance from sources around the world. Since native plants around the world are under threat, in large part from invasive species, we strongly recommend researching and double checking before you plant anything. This can be a simple but effective way to help ensure you don't introduce any aggressive invasives by accident.
Some resources for specific regions can include invasive species such as red clover, since not everyone is aware of the problems these plants cause when they escape captivity. This may be a bigger problem with older publications as newer generations gain awareness about environmental issues.
Native plants are always best when keeping environmental health and biodiversity in mind, but some non-natives may work for your needs without quickly getting out of hand.
Benefits of Cover Crops
Benefits of Cover Crops
The following are listed alphabetically, rather than in order of impact, as we usually try to do.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity
Pollinators
Pollinators
Pollinators aren't just good for the environment, but are crucial in growing many economically and nutritionally important crops. Much like meadow or prairie strips, cover crops provide shelter for resting adults, food, and nesting opportunities for pollinators.
Improved Food Security
Improved Food Security
Cover crops can boot cash crop yields, soil health, and even provide additional food or feed alongside traditional crops.
Important Note about Crop Rotations
Important Note about Crop Rotations
"One of the biggest challenges of cover cropping is to fit cover crops into your current rotations, or to develop new rotations that take full advantage of their benefits. There may be a role for cover crops in almost all rotations, but the diversity of cropping systems precludes addressing them here.
Whether you add cover crops to your existing rotations or totally revamp your farming system, you should devote as much planning and attention to your cover crops as you do to your cash crops. Failure to do so can lead to failure of the cover crop and cause problems in other parts of your system." - SARE: Cover Crops
One purpose of crop rotations is to reduce or eliminate the need for dangerous pesticides, while also combating crop pests. Pests can become immune to even the strongest pesticides, sometimes within the first year or use, while crop rotations can be designed to specifically disrupt the (in some cases complicated) reproductive cycles of known pest species.
Soil Health
Soil Health
Modern farming practices generally dry our and compact soils making them repellant to rain, further exaserbating drought and water waste. Roots from cover crops can help break up soil and support the organisms that keep it healthy and permeable enough to accept rain or irrigation water.
Cover Crop Options
Cover Crop Options
What plants you use as cover crops may depend on your situation and goals, including the nutrients in your soil.
Legumes
Legumes
"Legume cover crops (red clover, crimson clover, vetch, peas, beans) can fix a lot of nitrogen (N) for subsequent crops, generally ranging from 50-150 pounds per acre, depending on growing conditions. You can usually reduce your nitrogen fertilizer inputs following a legume, but they are not very good at scavenging nitrogen that is left over after your cash crops.
Legumes also help prevent erosion, support beneficial insects and pollinators, and they can increase the amount of organic matter in soil, although not as much as grasses. Legumes differ in their productivity and adaptability to soil and climatic conditions. If a legume fits your cover crop objectives, seek additional information in the Overview of Legume Cover Crops section of Managing Cover Crops Profitably or with local expertise to identify the best ones for your conditions." - SARE: Cover Crops
Non-Legumes
Non-Legumes
"Non-legume cover crops include the cereals (rye, wheat, barley, oats, triticale), forage grasses (annual ryegrass) and broadleaf species (buckwheat, mustards and brassicas, including the forage radish). Non-legumes are most useful for scavenging nutrients, providing erosion control, suppressing weeds and producing large amounts of residue that adds soil organic matter.
Plant a non-legume whenever a field has excess nutrients, particularly nitrogen. When planted as a fall cover crop, non-legumes consistently take up 30-50 pounds of nitrogen per acre. If large amounts of nitrogen are left in the soil from the summer crop or due to a history of manure applications, non-legumes can scavenge upwards of 150 pounds per acre. Depending on your conditions—including soil residual nitrogen status—you may not be able to reduce your nitrogen fertilizer inputs for the subsequent crop, particularly in the first few years of cover cropping. To learn more about non-legume cover crops, read the Overview of Non-Legume Cover Crops section of Managing Cover Crops Profitably or consult with local expertise." - SARE: Cover Crops
Cocktails or Mixes
Cocktails or Mixes
"Although seeding and management of cover crop mixes or “cocktails” can become more complicated, planting them allows you to attain multiple objectives at once. Cover crop mixtures offer the best of both worlds by combining the benefits of grasses and legumes, or using the different growth characteristics of several species to fit your needs. Compared to pure stands of legumes or non-legumes, cocktails usually produce more overall biomass and nitrogen, tolerate adverse conditions, increase winter survival, provide ground cover, improve weed control, attract a wider range of beneficial insects and pollinators, and provide more options for use as forage. However, cocktails often cost more, can create too much residue, may be difficult to seed and generally require more complex management. Find out more information about cocktails and cover crop mixes in the Grass/Legume Mixes chapter of Managing Cover Crops Profitably. " - SARE: Cover Crops
In the book, Growing A Revolution, some of the organic and no-till farmers talked about their cover crop mixes containing 12 or more different species to accomplish different goals such as breaking up soil and boosting crop yields.
Cover Crop Examples
Cover Crop Examples
Red Clover N source, soil builder, weed suppressor, insectary crop, forage (Invasive)
Resources & Guides
Resources & Guides
Cover Crops for Weed Management in Row Crops "Cover crops can be used to provide weed suppression in subsequent cash crops. In the Southeastern and Mid-South U.S., questions concerning management of herbicide-resistant Amaranthus species, horseweed, and Italian ryegrass, comprise the majority of Cooperative Extension Service calls. Conservation agriculture practices are especially threatened by the emergence and rapid spread of glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth. The use of cover crops for weed control can help conventional producers combat herbicide-resistant weeds and organic producers reduce dependency on cultivation as their primary weed control mechanism. ..."
Managing Cover Crops in Conservation Tillage Systems "Conservation tillage is defined as a system that leaves enough crop residue on the soil surface after planting to provide 30% soil cover, the amount needed to reduce erosion below tolerance levels (SSSA ). Today, however, most conservation tillage practitioners aim for greater soil cover because of additional benefits of crop residue. Cover crops are critical to producing this residue and have the potential to maximize tillage benefits."
Nitrogen Release from Cover Crops "Nutrient management is a timely agricultural topic that boils down to determining the right rate, source, timing, and placement of nutrients. Nitrogen is of particular concern because it is highly mobile in the environment. It readily leaches down through the soil, runs off into surface water, and volatilizes into the atmosphere. By minimizing nitrogen loss from their cropping systems, farmers can minimize their environmental impact while lowering the cost of production by increasing nitrogen efficiency."
Soil Biology: Cover Crops and Disease Suppression "Cover crops provide several benefits to soil health such as improving soil structure, reducing the need for synthetic chemicals by decreasing weed biomass, increasing soil organic matter, contributing nutrients to the soil, retaining soil moisture, and decreasing soil erosion. In addition, the integration of cover crops into crop production often leads to soils that are suppressive to plant diseases (i.e. have less potential for disease development). Disease reductions may occur in fields where the cover crop is planted in the fall and tilled under in the spring as a green manure prior to planting the cash crop, as well as when the cover crop is killed and the residue is left on the soil surface as a mulch. "
North America
North America
USA
USA
Cover Crops Image Library "Images, Illustrations and Presentations This page includes free resources educators and farmers can use in outreach and educational activities related to cover crops. Available resources include a database of cover crop images, ready-made PowerPoint presentations on cover crop topics, and soil health illustrations."
Organizations
Organizations
North America
North America
USA
USA
The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) "program is a decentralized competitive grants and education program operating in every state and island protectorate. SARE is divided into four different regions that operate as separate entities and run grant programs for their states."
Reading Suggestions
Reading Suggestions
Grants & Funding
Grants & Funding
North America
North America
USA
USA
Fibershed Healthy Soils Program Block Grant "provides free technical assistance and financial resources to farmers and ranchers interested in adopting climate-beneficial agricultural management practices.
The Healthy Soils Program works to support farmers and ranchers in implementing land management practices that improve soil health and biodiversity, sequester carbon, and reduce atmospheric greenhouse gasses. Through this program producers can apply to receive up to $200,000 of cost share grant funding for projects like hedgerow plantings, silvopasture, compost application, and cover cropping."SARE "offers competitive grants to fund research and education projects that advance sustainable agricultural practices in the United States."
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