Cover Crops: Increasing biodiversity and sustainability

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Cover crops typically exist of Forbs, Legumes, and grasses that are used alongside the cash crop typically to benefit the production of the land in some way either by soil support, nutrient support, or providing some support for beneficial insects or against pests.

Benefits of using cover crops:

Cover crops have many benefits that can help farms to reach specific goals they wish to meet on their productions such as:

• Reduced erosion

• Increase or maintain soil health

• Increased organic matter content in soil

• Help to increase or decrease moisture

• Suppress weed

• Break pest cycles

• Reduce soil compaction

• Add nutrients back to the soil

• Increase biodiversity on a farm

• Attract pollinators

• Habitat for beneficial insects

Cons of using cover crops:

It is important to do your research and have a plan when using cover crops in order to get the most from it and prevent the cons or mitigate negative side effects, some of these side effects include:

• Can become weeds themselves

• Soil moisture can be too high or low which can affect crops and seeds

• Increased presence of disease

• Increased habitat for pests

• Increase in costs

Should you use cover crops?

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When deciding to use cover crops whether on a farming operation or in your backyard garden it is important to take some considerations, the first being can you afford it and is it an option that will be economically beneficial to your production. After that take the time to see what your operation needs, does your soil need more nitrogen or perhaps it's compact and needs to be broken up. Once you note what problems you are having you can research what cover crops are beneficial to your production. You can take this a step further by looking for native cover crops to also support your native pollinators and beneficial insects. 

Cover crops can be both a beneficial tool and also a nuisance to the production and it depends on how well prepared you are in creating a proper plan involving cover crops in your production.

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Sources

Beautiful free images & pictures | unsplash. (n.d.-a). https://unsplash.com/

Benefits and challenges of cover crop use. Purdue University - College of Agriculture. (n.d.). https://ag.purdue.edu/news/department/agry/kernel-news/2019/01/benefits-challenges-cover-crop-use.html

Cover crops overview. (n.d.-b). https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/INNRCS_Small Farms and Gardens_Cover Crop Overview.pdf

Doval, C. Y. (2023, November 3). Cover crops. Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Program. https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/sustainable-ag/cover-crops