The NRCS’s National Soil Health and Sustainability Team and Plant Materials Program are working together to improve our knowledge of using cover crop mixes to produce healthy soils.
Cover crops have the potential to provide multiple benefits in a cropping system. They prevent erosion, improve soil’s physical and biological properties, supply nutrients, suppress weeds, improve the availability of soil water, and break pest cycles along with various other benefits. The species of cover crop selected along with its management determine the benefits and returns.
Cover Crop Plant Guides
The following plant guides describe the characteristics of some commonly used cover crops. They provide assistance in selecting appropriate cover crops, when and how to plant and when to terminate or incorporate the plant into the soil.
Plant Guide for Cereal Rye (Secale cereale L.) (PDF; 122 KB) Rye is a 3-6 feet tall, cool season, annual grass. Uses include livestock forage, hay, wildlife food, cover crops, green manure, and weed suppression.
Plant Guide for Crimson Clover (Trifolium incarnatum) (PDF; 326 KB) Crimson clover is commonly used as a winter or summer annual cover crop in rotation with vegetables or field crops (Clark, 2007). It can be used alone or as part of a mixture with other legumes, small grains, and winter annual grasses.
Plant Guide for Cowpea (Vigna unguicula) (PDF; 88 KB) Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is an annual, summer cover crop that can be used for food, forage, hay, green manure, and wildlife.
Plant Guide for Field Mustard (Brassica rapa ssp. rapa) (PDF; 299 KB) Field mustard (Brassica rapa ssp. rapa) is an annual or biennial forb that is used as forage, cover crop, or biofumigant. There are also horticultural cultivars used as vegetable crops including turnip and rapini or broccoli raab.
Plant Guide for Lablab (Lablab purpureus) (PDF; 306 KB) Lablab (Lablab purpureus) is an annual, summer cover crop that can be used for food, forage, green manure, cover crops, and wildlife.
Plant Guide for Pea, (Pisum sativum) (PDF; 335 KB) Peas are grown as green manures and cover crops because they grow quickly and contribute nitrogen to the soil (Ingels et al., 1994; Clark, 2007).
Plant Guide for Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) (PDF; 506 KB) Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is a perennial, summer cover crop that can be used for food, forage, green manure, and wildlife.
Plant Guide for Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) (PDF; 1 MB) Sorghum is used as a drought tolerant, summer annual rotational cover crop either alone or seeded in a warm season cover crop mixture.
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The NRCS’s National Soil Health and Sustainability Team and Plant Materials Program are working together to improve our knowledge of using cover crop mixes to produce healthy soils.
Penn State Extension - 2013 Cover Crop Innovations Webinar Series