That is a good post kimmsr. While that is focused on farmers, it fits gardeners too. I have found that the radishes is the simplest for me to utilize. I sow them in July and August mainly and yes, thinnly sown ones in July on healthy ground can produce monsters.

Cover crops gather unused nitrogen and carry it over to next year's crop. They suppress weeds very well. They add organic matter which energizes the whole soil synergy. I find the radishes are easy as they die off about Christmas here and are no problem to plant into the following spring.

Some other cover crops present some standing material to deal with. I tend to mow them off. I have tried oats, vetch, peas, mustard, buckwheat and .a bit of clover and alfalfa. They all can have some place, but for me the radishes are my favorite.

Good one! I agree totally with the "roots in the ground all year round" policy. Soil erosion is one of those life-or-death issues that are easily ignored because the crisis is far off in the future. And I agree the T values are nonsense. Losing arable topsoil at the rate of 5 tons an acre a year when soil formation is half a ton a year
(averages and estimates) eventually means no topsoil. No topsoil, no plants, no life. And I do like the idea of cover-crop mixes, the more the merrier because each plant species has its own favourite mix of attending microbes, and biodiversity below the soil's surface is no less important than biodiversity in the visible area above it. Regards, Peter.

I'm revising my soybean cover crop strategy this year as a friend has offered to give me enough of his cover crop multi-variety blend cover crop seed to cover my ground. The plan is to harrow in the broadcasted cover blend seed and then plant the beans in rows with the Gadenway planter into the blended cover seed which works very well and irrigate it all to get it going fast. My friend (he's a grain farmer) tells me the cover blend seed will establish and cover the ground first then the beans will follow and shade out the blend crop. In combination, I should get good weed control all season long, N-fixation from the beans and good combined O.M. production. Sounds great to me, hope it works.

Come mid Sept. it all goes back into the soil and oats get planted. Wish I could drill in the oats!

That might work if the cover crop doesn't over whelm the beans.

Yup Wayne, that's on my mind but, nothing tried, nothing learned:) I tried the beans last year and found a few things not to do and one to do. Never tried beans before last year. Aside from the labor of getting the crop out of the ground, run through the shredder and dumped back on the ground they were a huge success. I'll not let those beans grow to the extent they did last year before whacking them down. Yup, that's one of the things I learned. This year's beans will have a much more prostrate growth habit so I expect them (hope) to begin shading everything when they get going.

Hey Kimm, you might find this outfit interesting, blend your own cover crop mix with many, many choices!

http://www.greencoverseed.com/smartmix.htm

Outstanding post! I've been using cover crops for a while and think they're great. Since moving to the Southwest I'm now trying to find the best dryland cover crops and medic and barley seem to work well in the winter, and I'm guestimating sudan grass, yellow sweet clover, and cowpeas will carry me through the summer. I haven't been sold on no-till yet but I see the benefits. I don't understand how you can plant small crop seeds successfully through a lot of cover crop residue without tilling it in first and giving it a chance to decompose. But cover crops/green manures are definitely the way to go.

Gene

GeneJr, I too prefer some mixing in. It works good for me. Hey, I don't even border up my many large beds and gasp, even walk on them some...no rebel here...just some good sense about what works for me.

Something interesting that I haven't tried, recounted to me my an old biodynamic grower who farmed in the hills of Georgia. In the early spring he would broadcast clover seed then, once it had grown some, he would hoe it into the soil which prepared a mulch into which he planted.

I have had mixed success with inter-planting and planting into cover crops. Growing hairy vetch between tomatoes hindered the growth of the tomatoes. However, planting tomatoes into an over-winter clover cover, leaving 12" bare around the tomato stems worked fine. Regards, Peter.

The Rodale Institute has developed a crimper that can turn a cover crop into a layer of mulch.

Here is a link that might be useful: cover crops crimper

Kimmsr, I believe that that can work out well...and also not well if everything doesn't come together just right. It also tends to force later planting of corn which can be ok and not so ok for more northern areas that lack early soil warming.

Edward Faulkner who wrote "Ploughman's Folly and two follow up books believed in incorporating the rye and such into the upper 4 inches. Now we can agree and perhaps disagree about stirring the soil. For me, I like incorporation for my gardening. Np-till is right across the fence from me and it is ok too for field crops.