Abstract

Farmers are interested in growing tillage radishes as they may potentially offer many environmental and economic benefits. Tillage radishes are quick at scavenging excess nitrogen, provide good ground cover, and break down very quickly in the spring to make way for spring planting. The plants winter kill, but the dead frozen plant material can still supress the earliest spring weeds from establishing. The roots themselves are known to drill through compacted soil layers as they grow and the holes left by decomposed roots the next spring may also allow more water to infiltrate into the soil. Although tillage radish may have many benefits, it must be planted earlier than our other cereal grain cover crops commonly used following corn silage. The goal of this project was to identify optimum planting dates for tillage radish in Vermont.

Keywords

Vermont, University of Vermont

Publication Date

2014

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