Integrating Cover Crops into Specialty Crops Production; Gardening Guidebook for Kansas ~ Kansas Rural Cente~ For more information, Please see websites below: ` Organic Edible Schoolyards & Gardening with Children = http://scribd.com/doc/239851214 ~ ` Double Food Production from your School Garden with Organic Tech = http://scribd.com/doc/239851079 ~ ` Free School Gardening Art Posters = http://scribd.com/doc/239851159 ~ ` Increase Food Production with Companion Planting in your School Garden = http://scribd.com/doc/239851159 ~ ` Healthy Foods Dramatically Improves Student Academic Success = http://scribd.com/doc/239851348 ~ ` City Chickens for your Organic School Garden = http://scribd.com/doc/239850440 ~ ` Huerto Ecológico, Tecnologías Sostenibles, Agricultura Organica http://scribd.com/doc/239850233 ` Simple Square Foot Gardening for Schools - Teacher Guide = http://scribd.com/doc/239851110

1. Integrating Cover Crops into Specialty
Crops Production
Cary L. Rivard, Ph.D.
Dept of Horticulture
Kansas State University

2. Overview
Cover Crops for Vegetable Production
• Benefits of cover crops
• Challenges
• Tools
• Cover Crops for KS
• High Tunnels
• No-till Research

3. Cover Crops
• Also known a “green manures”, cover crops are extremely
important for soil health
– Organic matter
– Soil microbial health
• Suppress Weeds
• Add / Recover nitrogen
– Highly-leachable N03
– Legume cover crops fix N
• Can be used as mulch
– No-till or strip-tillage
• Can reduce excess nutrients (P)
• Reduce soil erosion
Cover Crops Have Numerous Benefits

5. Nitrogen Recovery / Deposition
Benefits of Cover Crops
• NO3 Recovery
• Legume cover crops
• Calculated lbs/A N
– Legumes
• 3.5-4% (young tissue)
• 3-3.5% (flowering)
– Grasses
• 2-3% (young tissue)
• 1.5-2.5% (flowering)
Lbs biomass
Estimated % N
50% Availability
Total Nitrogen
x
x
=

6. Biomass (lbs/acre)
C:N
Available N
Rye Vetch (lbs/acre)
High Tunnel 3749.4 329.4 9.8 83.2
Field 721.8 1589.1 8.5 54.2
Benefits of Cover Crops

7. Tillage releases soil carbon

8. Reduced Weed Seed Bank
Benefits of Cover Crops
• Weed seed
germination
– Light
– Soil disturbance
• Cover crops
– Competition
• Life cycle interruption
– Reduced seed bank

9. Grow Your Own Mulch
Benefits of Cover Crops
• Cover crop residues
serve as mulch
– Weed management
– Soil moisture
– Crop health and
quality
• Source of soil carbon
• Source of nitrogen
• “Low Risk”

11. Utilize Cover Crops to Attract Beneficials and Pollinators

13. Clover Cover Crop used as “living mulch”

15. Annual Rye in Row Middles (Fall-Spring)

17. Cover Crop used as wind breaks

18. Challenges exist with cover crops
Challenges of Cover Crops
• Managing cover crop
biomass
• Equipment
• Disease and pest
pressure
• Production logistics
– Have a CC plan!
Southern Blight on Tomato

19. Re-growth

20. Managing Cover Crop Biomass Can be a Challenge

21. Planning for Cover Crops
Taken from: The New Organic Grower, Eliot Coleman

22. Planning for Cover Crops
Winter CC
Winter CC Cash (Vegetable) Crops
Fall Cash CropsFall Cash Crops Summer Cover Crops
Fall CCWinter CC Cash (short) Crops
Winter CC
A few scenarios for planning your rotation
• Warm-Season Vegetables
• Cool-Season Vegetables
• Fall Cover Crops

23. Tools Required for Cover Crops
• Overhead Irrigation
– Aluminum solid set
– “Big Gun” sprinkler
• Managing cover crops
– Scythe
– Pole trimmer (small)
– Flail mower
– Roller crimper (large)
– Herbicides ??
Getting Started

25. Perfecta II Field Cultivator

26. Video

28. Annual Grasses - Rye, Wheat, Oats, etc.
• High biomass
– Rye is highest
– Straw production
• Nitrogen recovery
• Weed competition
– Allelopathy (Rye)
• Killing the crop
– Early crops
• Plant Sept 1 – Nov 15
Winter Cover Crops
Crop Winter Rye

29. Winter Cover Crops
Oats Winter Wheat

30. Annual Legumes
Winter Cover Crops
• Fix Nitrogen
– Inoculant
• Clovers
• Vetch
• Winter peas
• Easier to kill
• Less biomass (straw)
Crimson Clover (Annual)

31. Winter Cover Crops
Austrian Winter PeaHairy Vetch

32. Tillage Radish
Fall Cover Crops
Tillage Radish and Other Brassicas

33. Annual Grasses – Sorghum, Millet, Spring Oats
• High Biomass
– Nitrogen recovery
– Weed competition
– Mulch / OM production
• Short duration
– Millet (45 days)
• Can be particularly
difficult to kill
– Sorghum-Sudan
Summer Cover Crops
Foxtail Millet

34. Summer Cover Crops
Sorghum-Sudan GrassJapanese Millet

36. Annual Summer Legumes
• Fix Nitrogen
– Inoculant
• Soybean
• Forage soybean
– Biomass
• Berseem Clover
– Pollinators
• Cowpea
– Very drought tolerant
Cowpeas
Summer Cover Crops

37. Summer Cover Crops
Berseem CloverForage Soybeans

38. Other Annual Summer Cover Crops
Summer Cover Crops
Buckwheat Sunn Hemp

40. Cover Crops in Tunnels
Cover Crops are important in high tunnels
• Need to retain soil quality
• Challenges
– Irrigation
– Real Estate
• “Short-window” crops
• Mowing down the crop
• Moveable tunnels

48. • Benefit to soil:
• Microbial health and structure
• Weed seed bank
• Carbon / organic Matter
• Benefit to crops:
• Better yield and stability
• N fertilizer
• Weed management
• Have a management plan for cover crops
Summary
Cover Crops benefit the soil and the farm

49. No-Till Pumpkin Research
Evaluation of cover crops for NT Pumpkins
• C.L. Rivard, M. Kennelly, J.
Griffin
• John C. Pair Hort. Center
– Richard Ryer
• KCSAAC Grant
• Spring Cover Crops

50. Spring Cover Crops

51. B
B
B
B
B
A A

52. Planting in Cover Crop Residue

53. Harvesting Pumpkins at JCP

54. C
BC
AB
AB
AB
AB
A
AB

55. No-Till NRCS CIG Project
NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant Program
• Rivard, C.L., M. Kennelly, J. Griffin,
R. Janke, D. Presley, P. Tomlinson,
R. Wynia (NRCS), M. Bates (MU)
• Demonstrate no-till systems
– Pumpkin, sweet corn, snap bean
– Equipment (planter) experience
• 4 replicated trials at KSU/NRCS
locations
• 16 demonstration trials at
commercial farms (2014-15)

57. 30’
60’
280’
5’
= 1 - Conventional Tillage
= 2 – Winter Rye
= 3 – Winter Rye / Pea
= 4 – Winter Rye / Hairy Vetch
= 5 – Winter Rye / Tillage Radish
= 6 – Rye / Vetch / Radish
= 7 – Spring Oats
= 8 – Spring Oats / Pea
50’ 60’
30’
Not to scale. Each plot will contain three (50’) rows.
Soil Quality Data
Collection
9’

58. Planting Spring CC at Olathe

59. Roller Crimper Video

60. Winter CC at Wichita

61. Spring Oats in Manhattan

62. Planting Beans and Corn

66. A
BC
AB
A
36.7
A
D
D
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Conv.
Tillage
Winter
Rye
Rye /
Pea
Rye /
Vetch
Rye /
Raddish
Rye /
Vetch /
Raddish
Spring
Oats
Oats /
Pea
PercentWeedCoverage(%)
2013 No-Till Pumpkin Trials
Wichita
Olathe

67. CD
BCD
BC
D
BCD
BCD
A
B
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Conv.
Tillage
Winter
Rye
Rye /
Pea
Rye /
Vetch
Rye /
Raddish
Rye /
Vetch /
Raddish
Spring
Oats
Oats /
Pea
TotalEstimatedFruitYield(lbs/plot)
2013 No-Till Pumpkin Trial at JCP Center

68. D
BCD BCD
CD
BCD
BC
A
AB
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Conv.
Tillage
Winter
Rye
Rye /
Pea
Rye /
Vetch
Rye /
Raddish
Rye /
Vetch /
Raddish
Spring
Oats
Oats /
Pea
AverageFruitNumber(#/plot)
2013 No-Till Pumpkin Trial at JCP Center

69. B
B B
B
B
B
A
B
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Conv.
Tillage
Winter
Rye
Rye /
Pea
Rye /
Vetch
Rye /
Raddish
Rye /
Vetch /
Raddish
Spring
Oats
Oats /
Pea
AverageFruitWeight(lbs/fruit)
2013 No-Till Pumpkin Trial at JCP Center

70. • Cover crop selection and
cultivation is very
important
• The jury is still out on
spring cover crops
• Hairy vetch can be hard
on planters
• Nitrogen management is a
critical component to
successful NT systems
Preliminary Conclusions
No-Till Pumpkins in Kansas

71. QUESTIONS ??