Abstract

Boosting and maintaining soil health can provide a multitude of benefits to the farming operation. Cover cropping is a strategy that can be used to improve soil health. Cover cropping prevents soil erosion, maintain and/or improve soil nutrients, improve soil aggregation, prevent nutrient loss from runoff, and increase water retention. Such soil improvements can promote conditions that add resiliency to a crop, especially in light of extreme weather patterns that may affect yields. It can be challenging to grow a successful cover crop given other demands from a farm operation and weather limitations. In this trial, our goals were to evaluate the effect of various cover crop combinations on percent soil cover, cover crop biomass and nutrient concentration, soil active carbon, soil aggregate stability, soil nitrate-N, and subsequent crop yields.

Keywords

Vermont, University of Vermont, cover crop

Publication Date

2018

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