cover crop

Cover crop

Cash crop (5)
Cover crop (29)
Crop (260)
Crop plant (7)
Crop yield (16)
Cropland (8)

Synopsis: Agribusiness: Crop: Cover crop:

livescience_2013 00056.txt

Reaping the Benefits of Cover crops (Op-Ed) Margaret Mellon is a senior scientist for food and the environment at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS.

buying planting and tending to so-called cover crops. No farmers can't sell cover crops but they do reap benefits from them including increased yields of cash crops like corn and soybeans.

Use of cover crops can also help farms survive the droughts expected to become more common in the era of climate change.

Cover crops which can be many species of grains grasses and legumes are planted usually in the interval between the harvesting and planting of cash crops.

Sending their roots down into bare soil cover crops can increase soil carbon provide slow-release nitrogen

and prevent erosion. But a cover-crop/cash crop system is complex. If not managed properly cover crops can deprive cash crops of water

or even reduce yields. Although they make sense in theory many have wondered how cover crops would work in the real world.

Now a new survey of commercial farmers has confirmed that cover crops increase yields in corn and soybeans the most common crops in the U s. Moreover cover crops were especially effective under drought conditions.

The North Central Sustainable agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and the Conservation Technology Information center conducted the survey of more than 759 commercial farmers from winter 2012 through spring 2013.

Farmers who responded reported average increases of 11.1 bushels of corn per acre and 4. 9 bushels of soybeans per acre over prior harvests.

In percentage terms the extra bushels represent an average 9. 6-percent-greater yield in corn planted after the planting of cover crops compared with crops not preceded by cover crops.

The growers reported yield information from fields comparable in conditions and rotation except for the cover crops.

And the advantages for cash crops planted after cover crops were even greater in states hit hard by drought.

which represented an 11 percent increase in crops grown after cover crops compared with those grown without them.

an average increase of 5. 7 bushels per acre or 14.3 percent higher yields after cover crops.

The farmers responding to the survey grew cover crops on an estimated 218000 acres in 36 states mostly in the Mississippi river basin.

Farmers enjoyed better corn yields after cover crops in all but one of the states hardest hit by the drought.

Farmers expected to pay for the ecosystem services provided by cover crops and were willing to pay median costs of $25 an acre to purchase seeds and $15 an acre for cover-crop establishment (aerial distribution of seed and the eventual killing of the plants at the end of the growing season).

Farmers interested in cover crops need to decide which species to use how and when to plant them

If the wrong decisions are made cover crops might not deliver on their potential benefits or may even be detrimental.

and the risk of cover crops using too much soil moisture. Despite the challenges the surveyed farmers had increased steadily their use of cover crops over the last decade.

Last winter they reported planting cover crops on an average of 42 percent of their acreage

and planned to increase their cover-crop acreage this coming winter. The complexity of the system may explain the correlation between yield increases

and experience using cover crops. Growers with more than three years of experience working with cover crops saw a 9. 6 percent increase in corn yields

whereas growers with one to three years of experience reported a still respectable but lower 6. 1 percent boost in corn.

Cover crops can do that and so much more. This article was adapted from Cover crops Dramatically Increase Corn Yields specially In Drought Conditionson the UCS blog The Equation.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

tech_review 00184.txt

The company is also testing using them for planting seed on cornfields for fall crops, called cover crops,

< Back - Next >