Whenever you chunk into a chunk of Frog Hole Farm fruit, and the juice is dripping down your chin, wholesome soil might be the furthest factor out of your thoughts. However that’s precisely the place that juicy piece of fruit begins – within the soil. And a method we enhance soil well being is by planting cowl crops.
What are cowl crops?
Cowl crops are vegetation that flourish throughout the orchard ground. We let no matter is within the seedbed develop wild. And on choose acreage, we deliberately plant cowl crops underneath a Pure Useful resource Conservation Service program referred to as EQIP (brief for Environmental High quality Incentives Program). The advantages of canopy crops, which appear like weeds to most individuals, are fairly spectacular. They play a significant function in regenerative farming practices and the work we’re doing to offset the results of local weather change.
Cowl crops are a number of the hardest-working vegetation on the farm. They assist us:
Cut back runoff and erosion
Cut back soil compaction
Add natural matter to the soil
Hold vitamins, like carbon and nitrogen, within the soil
Foster the microbes that feed our timber
Hold the soil porous and entice water within the soil
Entice useful bugs and wildlife that assist us with pest administration
Entice pollinators, like bees
Can cowl crops scale back the necessity for fertilizer?
In concept, sure, cowl crops will help scale back the necessity for fertilizer. Take the beans, peas and vetch that we’ve deliberately planted on 84 acres of our farm for instance. Beans, peas and vetch are legumes – that repair nitrogen within the soil. They take atmospheric nitrogen and convert it to plant-available nitrogen that our timber can take up. These cowl crops – and the opposite grasses that develop wild throughout the farm – are a part of our holistic fertilization technique. They do a very good job of preserving nitrogen – and phosphorus – within the soil. However cowl crops can’t do all of it. Sure, encouraging cowl crops to develop improves soil well being. We additionally depend on our fertilization plan, which incorporates annual purposes of gypsum and potash. And we lay down tons and tons of compost all year long too. As you’ll be able to see, fertilization is extra like a symphony, and fewer like a monologue. Each ingredient – together with our humble cowl crops – has an essential function to play.
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