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Make money with cover crops

Covering the soil has many benefits besides monetary

By Colleen Scherer, Managing Editor

Vegetable growers looking for ways to increase their soil’s tilth and save on spraying costs should consider cover crops for their operation. Although cover cropping is not a new practice, it is one that can help growers in many different ways. Cover cropping is not just for organic farming.

“Cover crops add organic matter to the soil and that has many wonderful benefits,” says Nancy Creamer, assistant professor of horticultural science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C. “Organic matter improves the physical condition of the soil by improving soil tilth, stability of soil aggregates, water infiltration, air diffusion and by reducing soil crusting. All of these things in combination with keeping the soil covered when it would normally be bare can also reduce soil erosion.”

Numerous crops are available to be used as a cover crop depending on your soil and the crop being grown. Commonly used crops include vetches, ryes and legumes or some combination thereof. And not only can cover crops be used for their environmental benefits but also for their value as a cash crop or for seed.

Several growers have worked with cover crops, adapted them to their fields and have found numerous successes with them.

Real-world benefits

Alex Hitt a grower in Raleigh, N.C., has worked with cover crops for about 10 years on his lettuce, tomato and pepper acreage.

“I plant the cover crop based on when the vegetable crop needs to be planted,” Hitt says. “If it’s early spring for lettuce I’ll plant crimson clover and oats. For peppers I’ll plant rye and hairy vetch. I always use a combination.”

Hitt plants most cover crops in the fall between September and November. In the spring he’ll leave the legume crop down until 10 percent to 50 percent bloom before he’ll either mow it or turn it under four weeks before planting.

He has found that the cover crop also reduces his weeds since the sunlight can’t get through the crop to the soil so the seeds can germinate. As a result, Hitt doesn’t have to spray herbicides as often or sometimes at all.

In addition to using cover crops, Hitt also practices no-till farming. This way he does not disturb the soil. But because Hitt grows on just a few acres he doesn’t need a drill, but he recommends one to large-scale operations.

Steve Groff of Cedar Meadow Farm in Holtwood, Pa., uses cover crops on all 175 of his acres. His vegetable crops include sweet corn, peppers, pumpkins and some cauliflower.

“I call my system the Permanent Cover Cropping System because there is always something covering my soil at all times,” Groff says. “I do 100 percent no-till. My goal is to not have any soil leaving my farm even though I do have 3 percent to 17 percent slopes.”

Groff has found that by using the cover crops he has increased his soil’s organic matter from 2.7 percent to 4.3 percent over 11 years.

In addition to preserving the soil and making money off the seed he also makes money off baling the straw left behind by the cover crops.

“I can receive $100 per ton for the straw I bale off the crops,” Groff says. “That means I can get $150 per acre. And I can sure use that cash.”

To show the long-term benefits of cover cropping and no-tilling, he works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and University of Maryland who do tests on his fields.

Like Hitt, Groff has also seen a reduction in weed problems since using cover crops.

“I know I’ve got better weed control now,” Groff says. “As a result of using cover crops my herbicide spraying costs are about one-third the costs of normal growers not using cover crops, which is about $200 per acre. I only have to pay $75 per acre of my total pesticide costs, including herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.”

Also like Hitt, Groff plants his cover crops in the fall. Groff says he finds that by having the crop in place in the spring he’ll have warmer soil to plant into for that season. He uses a combination of 30 pounds of rye with 25 pounds of hairy vetch and usually plants after October 1st.

“I realize I’m trading the costs of growing cover crops with the cost of tillage,” Groff says. “It’s a trade that’s well worth it.”

Getting started

Growers wanting to try cover cropping can check with their local Extension office. But a grower must know to what purpose he’s planting the cover crop.

“For example, if the purpose of a cover is to provide readily available, biologically fixed N for subsequent crops, then the grower should choose a legume like cowpea, which fixes nitrogen and has a low C:N ratio,” Creamer says. “If the cover crop will be managed as a surface mulch for weed suppression, the grower should choose a high C:N ration, heavy biomass producer with demonstrated weed suppression characteristics, such as sorghum-sudangrass.”

However, there are pitfalls to growing cover crops that growers should know about. “In a dry year, cover crops may deplete valuable moisture in unirrigated systems in e spring, but on the other hand in a wet year, they can help remove moisture from the soil so growers can get in earlier. Just as cover crops can inhibit some diseases and insects, they can also enhance some insects and diseases depending on how they are managed.”

A book that both Creamer and Hitt recommend for beginning cover crop growers is Managing Cover Crops Profitably. The precursor to the book is on line here.

Two other Web sites are:

UC Davis Cover Crop Page

and AATRA

“Overall, agriculture has about 150 years of tillage experience,”

Groff says. “Cover crops aren’t new. It’s a very simple operation and yet complicated. Think of it as a whole system of fertility. It’s a totally different concept than what many growers are used to. But my motto is ‘the ground is meant to be covered.’”