Cover Crops for Vegetable Growers
Why cover
crops?
Soil Health
Decision Tool
Newsletter articles
Early summer
Mid and late summer
Late summer legumes
Early fall
Fall
Early spring
Cover crop information
Annual
ryegrass
Buckwheat
Sudangrass
Mustard, spring
Mustard, fall (includes radish, rape, kale)
Red
clover
Hairy vetch
Oats
Wheat (includes spelt, triticale)
Rye
Research
Buckwheat
planting date
Buckwheat
field preparation
Fertility
Cover crops in soil health
The work of the Cornell Soil Health Team is providing tools to assess soil health. These assessments let growers identify the improvements in soil management that would have the most impact.
The report from the soil health test provides prescriptions for ways to correct the deficiencies that the test identifies. Several of the prescriptions are to use cover crops. This site is intended to help fill those prescriptions.
- Suppress weeds
- Rapidly establising smother crops
- Protect soil from rain or runoff
- Broad leaves to intecept rain
- Robust root system to hold surface soil
- Improve soil aggregate stability
- Active exudation of glues and fungus food from roots
- Root-surface fungi that produce aggregate glues
- Reduce surface crusting
- Shallow fibrous root system
- Add active organic matter to soil
- High biomass with mixure of fast and slowly decomposing parts
- Break hardpan
- Deep roots that swell during growth
- Fix nitrogen
- Legumes with high biomass and active fixation in farm fields.
- Scavenge soil nitrogen
- Active growth in fall, and good nitrogen storage over winter.
- Suppress soil diseases and pests
- Support beneficial soil microbes
- Produce suppressive compounds
The Soil Health Manual has information on measuring your soil's condition. It includes information on Cornell Soil Health Test sample collection and interpretation. It will also take advantage of the Cornell Soil Health Team’s new diagnostic tool for determining which aspects of soil health need improvement.
