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 Crops: Current and Future Directions - In this plenary discussion, Ramona Garner (USDA-NRCS Plant Materials Program) describes the efforts of the Plant Materials Center to identify and develop new and improved cover crops; germplasm identification and screening, and the role of the center in national cover crops and soil health projects. This session was part of Cover Crops for Soil Health, a three-day professional development workshop hosted by Northeast SARE and Delaware State University in March 2016. View on YouTube
Cover Crop Termination Guidelines
The termination guidelines provides information on termination of cover crops on non-irrigated cropland. They were created by NRCS, Risk Management Agency (RMA), Farm Service Agency (FSA), and other public and private stakeholders to address concerns about cover crops’ impact on crop insurance. Click here for termination guidelines.
The USDA NRCS Plant Materials Program is conducting studies at their centers in California, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, Oregon, and Washington to evaluate the influence of seeding rates and plant diversity on soil health. These centers are providing annual reports, allowing us to follow what happens when equal treatments are planted at varied locations across the U.S.
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 Black oat (Avena strigosa) (PDF; 284 KB) Black oat is an upright, winter annual that is a member of the Poaceae family. Uses include cover crop, weed management, and forage.
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 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 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 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 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.
La Salud De Los Suelos - Desatando los Secretos del Suelo El suelo es un recurso natural vivo que da vida.
Radish cover crops control weeds in wild seed production - Wild grass and flower seed growers can better control weeds by planting radishes as a cover crop prior to seeding, results of a trial at the Aberdeen Plant Materials Center show.
