Using fertilizers and herbicides in today’s farming methods has led to higher yields but has inadvertently hindered root systems that support microbial activity and insect life. Both are vital to soil vigour, healthy crop yields and a sustainable soil environment.
Climate Smart Agriculture
Enter cover cropping. Cover cropping is the practice where fields are planted with non-cash crops to fortify the soil after fall’s bounty. This system of seeding the fields between harvests protects topsoil from rain runoff, suppresses weeds, improves soil aggregate stability, and suppresses soil diseases and pests. In addition, they are generally providing improved soil health by biological means. A back-to-basics approach that increases yields and soil quality while reducing or often eliminating the use of fertilizers.
As carbon replenishes in the soil, water is stored naturally, making a more stable structure. Cornell University’s Soil Health Team offers an online tool to determine which soil health conditions need improvement and provides combination recommendations for growers.
Root support
Although there is support for cover cropping, change comes slowly. The biggest obstacle to more farmers adopting cover crops is the lack of research on their benefits. Farmers are circumspect to urging their peers to crop cover, which implies criticism of current practices that have garnered greater productivity and less work. One Indiana family that has collected some data on yields has found an increase in organic matter increased their corn yields by an average of 12.8 bushels per acre. Further, cover crops can be a value-added market if partnered with locally grown cultural choices for the craft beer market, restaurants, various community “Go Local” campaigns and the explosive growth of the Organic Foods markets.
Landowner farmers are the key to making cover cropping the norm as they have the best incentive to support soil quality conservation efforts making the soil more prosperous and better for generations to come.
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