Radishes, Turnips and Rye Oh My!

I recently found an article about an Ohio farmer Dave Brandt, who opens up his farm to other producers to share his cover crop success stories.  While this article was about one specific farmer, to me it was about how we can use success stories like Dave’s to reach out to other farmers to boost soil health and reduce inputs.http://farmprogress.com/blogs-cover-crops-grow-ohio-farmers-ag-man-year-2889)  But in order to promote cover cropping for soil health we might need a little background on the practice first.

So what is cover cropping? According to the USDA, cover crops are grasses, legumes, and other forbs that are planted for erosion control, improving soil structure, moisture and nutrient content.http://plants.usda.gov/about_cover_crops.html)

Cover Crops: Radishes

 Cover crops come from the old idea of “green manure”, meaning putting green materials (plants, grasses etc.) into the soil as fertilizers.  One source I found stated that cover cropping was used as early as 19 BC!

So what is the background of cover cropping? Well Pubilius Vergilius Maro an ancient Roman poet wrote in Georgics (a poem in four books) about how roman farmers used alfalfa, clovers and lupine to increase their wheat yields. So we can see that the idea of cover crops is not a new idea, yet why does is seem so unfamiliar? Well Bring in the industrial revolution and monocultures. It’s not a secret that our agricultural history relies on vast producing monocultures, which can lead to severe erosion and soil fertility  depletion. Which we witnessed in the late 1930's known as the Dust Bowl. The dust bowl showed us what happens when we rely on continuous tillage and one crop rotations.  These improper farming techniques led to the desertification of many areas, and massive soil erosion




Dust Bowl: Soil Erosion

The Dirty Thirties was a period of agriculture that the Great Plains would never like to see again, so the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) was established to help conserve and prevent soil erosion as part of the USDA. Okay so now where to cover crops come into the mix, well one of the techniques the SCS promoted was cover crops to help keep the soil in place to prevent wind erosion. Many farmers started to plant cover crops to help prevent wind erosion, but they started to see many other benefits of cover crops as well. The two big benefits that really caught their attention was increased soil moisture content and increased nitrogen contents in the soil. So what this means in dollar signs, is that with cover crops farmers will have to irrigate and fertilize less, meaning more money in their pockets.  In a recent article posted at agriculture.com, the author looks at all the benefits of cover crops and states that the benefits greatly outweigh the initial investment. (http://www.agriculture.com/crops/cover-crops/cover-crop-benefits-outweigh-investment_568-ar45189) This shows us that the system works, we just need to find the right mixes for what you want as a producer to fit your needs. There are specific mixes for haying, fertility management, soil moisture content and soil stability just develop a mix to fit the benefits you want.  Contact your local seed provider to find a mix that’s right for you!  For more information about cover crops and management here a few links to help you out!

·         http://covercrops.cals.cornell.edu/

·         http://farmprogress.com/whitepaper-cover-crops-best-management-practices-8

 

If your as interested in the Dust Bowl as I am here is lengthy (50 minutes) yet educational documentary on the Dirty Thirties a real eye opener!