conferences

The alternative agriculture conferences this year are very much about cover crops.  The practice of using a cover crop after or with the main crop and then harvesting, grazing it or letting it go back to the soil is understood to promote soil health, making it less susceptible to erosion, compaction, weediness and so forth.  Many of the cover crops farmers are planting are complex mixtures of grasses, grains, legumes, beans, including both warm season and cool season plants.  The beneficial aspects of the cover crops in addition to the reduced primary tillage and exposure to sun and wind for the soil appears to center around the maintenance of living roots in the ground, even in winter.  Perennial plants overwinter, of course, and those roots continue to live, benefiting the soil life twelve months every year, as opposed to annual cropping, done extensively in conventional agriculture, which leaves the soil microbes to starve during the non growing season.  It is, if you think about it, how nature "farms".

Jim