How Not to Cover Crop
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- Опубліковано 12 лип 2024
- This video was made possible in part through a grant from Southern SARE, and answers the following: How to grow great cover crops, how to establish cover crops, different cover crops, mistakes in cover cropping and more.
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This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2020-38640-31521 through the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under project number LS21-348. USDA is an equal opportunity employer and service provider.” The goal with this grant is to provide context and technical detail for the four principles of soil health.
Termination of cover crops.... let’s do a whole video on that. And maybe some visual examples..... I’m 2 years into cover cropping in my garden and it’s mostly a mess..... but the worms and the bugs are coming back so I know I’m on the right track! Thanks Jesse
I burry the cover crop when I improve the soil. I mainly use rocket as my cover crop as I can eat it and when it degrades it relaxes a compound that acts on nematodes
Cover crops should be terminated just as they flower. Once they flower they start taking nutrients from the soil
@@greg2337
@@greg2337 but how do you then proceed after that? If I just kill it and leave it there it’s going to take months ti be able to direct seed anything there. I don’t want to till. Does that mean I have to use a black tarp or sometning ?
@@stevencats7137 Once you get the residue to soil surface, it will cool you soil temps temporarily.... Push back planting dates until soil temps are adequate and the lost time on the planting side will be gained from moisture retention and minimized heat stress. Small seeds may need a small strip of residue separated (trash sweepers on a tool bar, etc.) But your bigger seeds will pop right through the residue.
I made all the mistakes you mentioned! Its my first year gardening and im learning the hard way by the looks of it!
Great to see you back Jesse! Always enjoy your content and thanks for the information.
Yay for no-till grower videos! Spring is here where I live (short season) and I'm looking forward to the season and to your content! Even on my backyard growing scale, I find it informative and helpful.
I agree with the cover crop mess. The radish work great! Mowed before flower & left to freeze out (zone 4) breaks up my heavy clay soil. Drainage is so much better!
So great to see you again!! Another great topic
I was so glad to see the notification this morning! It’s officially spring!
Thanks for all you do.
🕺
I use solarization I don’t like to use plastic but it works so good I mow the cover crop down then cover with clear plastic and it kills the cover crop and any weeds I don’t have any weed pressure till mid august it works really well
Your videos are really wonderful and I am learning so much!
i bought a 37 species mix with basically everything to put on this year. my plan for terminating in spring is try things and check what works lol
Stoked to have you back on video!!
I really appreciate your videos as it proves to me that I have no freaking idea what I'm doing with this market garden hooey!! :/
Excellent as always. Thanks Jesse!
Thanks. Had been considering this very subject.
Great video! Thanks!!
Excellent Jesse, we're very new to gardening but last fall we plant hairy vetch and Daikin. Made it through our winter (9A) and we chopped it yesterday. We're leaving most of it but are also playing around with mulching !!
Excellent info, good to see you back
Cheers from Victoria Canada
My suggestion for post chop & drop is to let the residue dry in the sun for a few days (looking for a more crispy texture) before mulching over it. I've found that fresh, wet green stuff will resist breaking down at first. Mixing it in with the mulch material would probably mitigate this, but I prefer the lazy approach. Also, counterintuitively, water the residue before covering it with anything to prevent hydrophobia
@@johntheherbalistg8756 oh that makes alot of sense. We used a bunch as mulch around some lettuce and brassicas but will definitely try that !!
Thank for the suggestions!!
@@clivesconundrumgarden Oh, that stuff *is* the mulch. Ya, that's fine. I thought you meant you were going to leave the green stuff and put mulch on top of that.
@@johntheherbalistg8756 yeah no but that sounds like a fun to try now that I think of it lol !!
Cheers John :)
@@clivesconundrumgarden Cheers to you too, enjoy your vacation. I'll just be watching a few more of your videos
Just ordered your book though you're website I'm pretty excited thank you.
🙌
Very helpful. Looking to permaculture an orchard soon!
Thanks, great information. 👍👍🇨🇦
My experience is that daikon radishes do a great job of breaking up soil. My yard just laughs at tillers and yet daikon radishes grow well. They getting fairly large in hard soil. They get massive in loose soil.
Yeah, my experience has been similar to yours. Very sticky heavy clay soil. I used turnips as well as radishes because I had a lot of extra seed. I knew it wouldn't work as well as it really could, but it still definitely helped. One has to manage their expectations sometimes.
If I had nice fluffy loose soil, I'd just be growing actual veg in it and skip the turnips and radishes ;)
There are "tillage radishes" available for amending compaction issues.
NAILED IT.
Thank you🙏
Very interesting
Excellent video thank you 😊
Always wondered what cover crop is best for certain situations? Thank you.
thanks Jesse!
My best friend, I liked the video very much, thanks you for sharing, stay safe, stay blessed
thank you
I usually broadcast my seeds and it works fine if it rains right after that, both in terms of seed to soil contact and water availability. If it doesn't rain enough though, those seeds can sit there for weeks and last year my mustard was just over my knees by the time i had to plant winter garlic.
Just becoming aware of the usefulness of cover crops in my little garden. Thanks for putting this together and NOT making it an extremely long video. Subscribed and looking forward to going through your videos for more information. Jesus bless.
My best friend, that's a great video. I will always cheer for you in Korea I'm looking forward to a great video. Have a nice day.
Thanks
Great info. Worth mentioning that many overwintered grasses will prohibit germination in the spring. You need to wait 2-4 weeks after terminating before sowing.
Why is that?
@@RichardBullKTM I think as the plant breaks down it gives of allelopathic gases/ or exudates which impact germination. It stops when the plant has been broken down. Most noticable with rye grasses.
When you’re telling people to subscribe you gotta tell ‘‘em to ring that bell. Makes you sound super cool and hip
Finally my chance to release my inner Anita Ward!
I bought a 24" roller for making better seed to soil contact. Fun Fact Oil Seed Radish will grow up before it forces itself down into compaction.
I use a batter powered hedge cutter to cut down my cereal rye in the dough stage.
We took a 1/2 acre hard red clay hill, top soil gone, and tilled the crap out of it and made it watermelon and cantaloupe field. Kinda mid to late fall, planted crimson clover. Crimson clover is an amazing cover crop.
Oddly enough, the choice of Crimson Clover, wasn't because of the soil, it was all about the bees. What it did for the soil was a bonus heh
+1 for the Jesse book. Buy it. It’s loads of info
🙌
I'm rehabbing a narrow strip of much abused compacted clay for a growers group. I have it currently covered in thick fall leaves. It will get a good forking & sunflowers for the first crop to bust some clay & generate flower sales $$$ for the group. My intent was to do a winter cover crop in Fall of this year using hairy vetch & triticale (to give the vetch something to climb rather than mat down.) It stll could be a mess to hand terminate. It just occurred to me I only have to mark & covercrop the planting area of next year's tomato seedlings,
... about a 12 in diameter circle which will be easier to terminate by hand. I can leave the suflower roots in the ground & cover the balance of the bed with leaf mould. It will look weird, but I don't care. The point of using hairy vetch is the reported effect it has on tomato growth, production & taste. The whole 4 ft bed doesn't need it. Should be easier to scalp intermittent 12 in circles than a whole damn bed.
Advancing Eco Ag recommends gypsum (one ton per acre) to chemically break up the clay. You will also need soil biology, especially mycorrhizal fungi to complete the rehab of compacted clay soil. You might need to plow the field to initially break up the soil while adding gypsum and compost.
@@Horse237 Agreed. It may take more tha 9 mos of being covered with leaves, but those leaves will introduce some worm food & form a base for myco one I can get living roots in the ground. The owner may pop for an application of John & Bob's treatment if it still looks pathetic when we rake back the leaves. He would rather put some speed on this soil rehab.
Good to see more videos coming! I’m in a pickle now, trying to crimp my rye today that’s not quite as tall as I’d like it to be. I’ve mowed and tarped a few beds to see how that works. I should of used a winter kill crop.
Oh no! Well with a enough time and heat it should work 😬
Are you planting in seeds or seedlings? What kind? (There may be a way around the thick rye mat.)
What zone?
@@flatsville1 probably just transplants for right now. I’m in southeast Virginia
So unfortunately you effectively have a really light sod. What you did I think is a decent option especially if you mowed it very low. Clear plastic would maybe even speed up the process. The only other really option is a light under cutting of some sort, depending on how thick it is and the soil moisture level. So Hoeing or shoveling on a small scale can work but it still needs time to break down
@@browntownorganics2172 Assuming you get a solid crimp to terminate, Jess is right in that solarization (clear plastic) will help it break down faster than occulation (black ag tarp.) Sealing the edges firmly down to the to ground will prevent heat loss & cook it down faster. You may have to wet it down some to get it to cook. You'll need several sunny days for this.
Part the residue & get a narrow point spade (spear head spade) to make/cut in your seedling holes. Plant in with some compost. That below ground root mat will evevtually shrink/shrivel down.
This is a cool tool for seeding. Not a drill to punch through residue. You'll have to part it first to find dirt.
See Earth Tools - Zilli Jab Vegetable Seeder.
I use a blue 30 gal barrel half full of water to roll my wildflower patch installations. Seed to soil contact is 👌.
Good vid. Good audio. From south madison co. F. J. B.😊
So the trend to look for a "set it and forget it" approach to anything, and not taking the time to actually think though how it may apply to your specific situation, & interacts with the totality of what your are trying to achve, seems to be the underlying cause of "Non-success" across the board. ;)
🙏👍😊many thanks x
Rye puts something in the soil to slow down other crops. It breaks down in a week or two if you can kill it. I used to pull a harrow behind a tractor took a few rounds to reliably kill it. I used it because you can plant it really late in the year up north zone 5. I prefer a pea/oat mix as covercrop. Undersowing corn salad (mache) creates a beautiful soil full of fine roots like a web.
Great video! Been there and done all of that! One good way to get seed-to-soil contact is to broadcast and then spread compost over the seed. Also, if your compost is a little woody, this gives it more time to decompose.
This is my first time cover cropping. I did compost over seed, and it was not finished compost either. Grew great.
For now my prefered method of termination is by planting stuff that is easy to pull out by hand.
Continuing on your point of “Treat your cover crop like a cash crop”.
I don’t see seeding rate or plant density talked about often. I’ve made this mistake many times, usually when broadcasting, that I over seed. The stand comes up too dense, and the same as with cash crops, having too many of the same type of plants too close to one another results in poor growth. Poor growth means a lessened capacity of those plants to provide the soil improving qualities we’re looking for.
That's a good point. It's complicated by a lot of things. I remember Steve Groff talking about how hard it is to advise people on seeding rates because seed sizes and quality very so much by lots. I got a European buckwheat once that was a third the size of regular buckwheat seed! Maybe that would be a good subject for a later video, tho. Thanks!
Right now I’m trying to recover a piece of desert that was regularly scraped bare. I really don’t believe in tilling but this ground is baked hard. I’m planning on tilling in a bunch of manure and then my plan is a mix of crimson clover, daikon, wheat, oats, sunflowers, perennial ryegrass, mung beans, turnips, sugar beets. You give excellent advice here. I’m just trying to bring life back into the soil right now. Whatever will grow here in the high desert zone 7a, needs to be out there growing! Right now wild mustard a puncture vines are the big plants, along with Russian Thistle (Tumbleweeds), yucca and cactus. But I’m starting with big biomass producers. Those puncture vines prefer disturbed soil and I need to disturb some to grow something better.
Indeed. I planted Crotalaria (Sunn Hemp) and planted late (beginning of March here in Brazil) to avoid the 6-8 foot forest that I can't handle with lack of mechanical equipment. Over seeded and I'll be lucky if they get to a foot tall
Thank you! We live in zone 6b, as well. We planted cereal rye grass last Fall and tried to solarize our beds several weeks ago to no avail. The rye grew taller! So, we weed whacked it again yesterday. At this point, as we'd like to get plants in the ground before the end of April, would you recommend we just till? If so, then cover with compost and mulch prior to planting? After this first cover crop fail, I think we'll try something a little less tenacious next time! Looking forward to your upcoming videos on how to terminate and perhaps better options. Thanks, again!
Hi,
Just a thought from England. I too use grazing rye sown in September or October. I cut it down in mid March and then lay sheets of cardboard over the top. And let it decay. The worms like this and after a little tidying up, I plant whatever it may be, usually grown in soil blocks.
I just bug a couple stores for used cardboard and stake it down after mowing. I leave rows of cover crops and spread the seeds/ mulch after mowing for the next season without buying more seed. I pretty much just rotate between cover crops and cardboard garden.
Would brining in chickens to eat down and till soil first help on chicken friendly cover crops?
Yeahhhhh termination is an issue for sure... the first year I tried cover cropping I included ryegrass. It didn't SAY "perennial" on the seed bag... but guess what?
Let's just say I was fortunate that I had only seeded it in a few raised beds, so it wasn't as bad as it would have been if I'd done the whole ground. I had to dig it all up to finally kill it off.
Now we're on a different place and a good deal of it is dotted with big gnarly clumps of ryegrass. Hooray. Since I'm trying to avoid synthetic herbicides and tilling, the best ways I've found so far to deal with it are cutting it down before it goes to seed, and simply digging up each clump and chopping up the root ball in spots where I want to put a bed or plant a perennial. When I put that in a bed to help bulk up our thin layer of soil, I make sure to bury it deep and really mulch it well. So far so good. The other extra clumps/rootballs I take out do help keep the compost pile fed, so that's nice.
Cover crops are new to me and currently being experimented with. I have a no till garden that year over year is only ever missing nitrogen. So I planted vetch and radish and I am leaving the vetch in only chopping it back vs out. The radish I dropped as studies seem to show little to no benefits. But any experience with growing with an active cover crop?
I mostly use wild lettuce varieties as a soil improving cover crop to prepare compacted soil for eventual planting in much improved formerly clay dead subsoil or healthy clay. It doesnt care if your soil is compacted and can extract the nutrients from the clay plus grows sooner than any plant in the cold Jan-Feb 7a months. It provides awesome microbial and fungal improvement with the roots i leave, and also produces an abundance of leaves that are cut and come again with evetually usuable nutrients for non clay friendly plants once composted or just thrown down on the "soil" around it. If you improve the microbial and fungal redox etc even the worst soil will be improved by the invisible helpers plus worms. Can also blend with water and quickly add back to plants. It also is an aphid trap/kill. The bolted stalks are amazing like corn for improving soil structure/ bottom of my winter hugelkulture mounds, and more. Biochar has also helped improve, retain, and expand soil health more than i could have imagined. Im no till except pulling and flipping ocassional weeds and using a *pole* to pry up the soil. Best beds were plant stalk winter hugel by far.
subscribed
Thanks again. Just a home gardener here in Melbourne Australia we go go heat zone, cold zone ie I'm Hz 4, cz 10 and I'm trying to relate it to how you give your zone reference. Any idea?
Here in zone 3 getting the soil temp up in the spring is our most important challenge. I have often wondered about the winter rye we plant in the fall slowing the spring soil warm up. We like to let the rye grow in the spring to suppress weeds and gain mass, cut it, rake it off, and then use it for mulch. I guess its a balance between competing objectives.
I am curious what your frost dates are? I’m in zone 4a I get about 90-100 frost free days. I want to start using cover crop but am trying to figure out what will give best results between growing root mass, mulch production and speed of breakdown for nutrient available during the growing season. Average high summer temps are 65f. Am considering rye, have you tried any others?
@@kamaliancirranoush1916 The only month we have never had frost in is July but we plant potatoes on Memorial day then other crops in early June. On areas not in veggies we grow a couple of crops of buck wheat during the summer because it grows so fast.
@@billherrick3569 great thank you
You're the BEST !
🙌
We have to manage expectations. If I had lovely, loose, fluffy soil, I wouldn't be so into using certain crops to break it up in the first place. I know I'm not getting the very best benefit out of all my covers, but on the other hand I'm saving a lot of fuel and labor, while still improving the soil and getting worthwhile amounts of cheap biomass.
So, in a way I disagree somewhat with "treat cover crops like a cash crop and prepare the soil accordingly." That just doesn't add up for my situation. I get the idea for sure, but if I had to do all that work and amend the soil to really get the absolute most out of tillage radishes etc... screw it, I'd just plant cash crops in it!
I loved this and needed to see that it is possible!
I'd love to be a no till farm and an starting from scratch. We have lived here in Eastern Kentucky 3 yrs and are just now able to stay full time on the farm. How can I contact you with the million questions I have??? Do you make house calls? Would you be interested in helping us figure out what we are doing? Help!! ❤😂
Can I use deep mulch method to terminate the cover crop after mowing. I just mowed it down Feb 1st 23. I am thinking a 3 inch layer of straw. A 3 inch layer of manure and on top 4 inches of mushroom compost and let sit till late April. Then I will scratch in down to earth slow release fertilizers and plant? Am I wrong?
At any level or in any endeavor preparation is the foundation. There are no magic bullets (save in cartoons)
Since you said warm loving crops like tomatoes might have issues planting into cover crop cooled soil, perhaps landscape fabric can help both terminate and warm the soil.
Absolutely right! re: tillage radish. I tried it hoping to loosen my compacted soil because the claim was being made that it would do that. Wrong. It was a waste of seed, effort and money.
Buckwheat is the bomb. It's an ancient grain that has all essential amino acids.
I am awesome!
Cheer~~~~a cultivated plant that is grown as food, especially a grain, fruit, or vegetable.😊
We use Sunn Hemp here in India
I have the book.
I live in Florida. Summer will kill it.
Did I see a cover crop seeding handbook years ago.? If not maybe somewhere else. SARE maybe.
Nice hat.
Do you have a drop seeder for your power harrow?
Whoa do they make one for BCS power harrows?
Dang, you have the Clovis power harrow? I think the seeder only works on the R2 Rinaldi.
What is the best cover crop to defeat cucusta
Not sure why i died when yoi said whatever the heck buckwheat is. 😂
Lmao. Maybe cause insaid the same thing when shopping for cover seeds
How many inches deep do you till just to get weeds suppressed and not injure the root zone?
Great info #Newsubhere
Do you do consulting?
This is all very fascinating, I'm about to chop and drop my rye vetch myself. But the real question is, what's your favorite beer?
Camera nerd here. That's a dirty sensor, not a dirty lens. 🤓
You're 100% correct. The day after editing this I switched lenses and was like 🤦♂️
Anyone know good cover crops native to the Eastern US?
Wild lettuce varieties imho
What part of kentucky
Well, there went my speaker's.
So you aren't crazy about cover crops. What if you did a cover crop, tarp covered it for a year? That would add nutrients to a place, then kill it off for future gardening?? Would that work just for building up a good nutritional ground?
Crush on...
Yeah I have cereal rye on new beds now and am not really knowledgeable about how to terminate. I don’t have a crumpet, and these beds are mounded, so a tiller wouldn’t work well. We put laying hens on for a while but they didn’t want it. My husband torched it. Now we have black tarp on. It’s not really dying back but hasn’t been that long. Two other beds are still sitting and growing. I’m going to put meat birds on soon and then we will see what else. It’s so thick. I did broadcast. I really have no idea if this was a smart thing to do or not.
What’s the area of beds you’re trying to terminate? If it’s manageable by hand, a technique I like to use is chopping with a sharp shovel. Not doing any inverting or mixing like a tilling action, just a swift downward diagonal chop over and over to cut the plants and damage the root system a little. Maybe penetrating 2” or so.
@@wheelerryanr that’s a good solution. The question is when
@@sandradelvecchio6894 My “when” is long enough before whatever the next crop is you’ll be planting. This depends on the time of year because decomposition is slow when soil is cold.If the plants are older there will just be more residue left on the soil surface after chopping. Just make sure to hit the roots some, and if they start to regrow you may have to go over it again.
@@wheelerryanr thank you! I had heard it gets irradiated at milk stage but that’s may and I need it to break down before planting, my growing season doesn’t go into November!
Chose mustard. Fingers crossed.
How did it go?
"Or whatever the heck buckwheat is" 😆
Cover Crop Seed Bombs? =D
Chickweed?
"Whatever the heck buckwheat is" 🤣
can i put clover and mustard cover crops or rye near my established fruit trees to improve the soil around my established fruit trees?
Thank you🙏