Self Seeding: An Innovative Management System, Innovations-report Bookmark and Share

Excerpt: Researchers investigate the potential for rye and wheat cover crops to perpetuate themselves, saving time and money for farmers while providing environmental benefits (...). Winter cover crops provide important ecological functions that include nutrient cycling and soil cover. Although cover crop benefits to agroecosystems are well documented, cover crop use in agronomic farming systems remains low. Winter cover crops are usually planted in the fall after cash crop harvest and killed the following spring before planting the next cash crop. Recent research has identified time and money as major impediments to farmer adoption of winter cover crops. (...)