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Vetch Beats Plastic BELTSVILLE, Md.—Killed cover crop mulches can deliver multiple benefits for no-till vegetable crops.The system can provide its own N, quell erosion and leaching, and displace herbicides. It’s also more profitable than conventional commercial production using black plastic mulch. A budget analysis showed it also should be the first choice of “risk averse” farmers.These are individuals who prefer certain although more modest profit over higher average profit that is less certain (178). The key to the economic certainty of a successful hairy vetch planting is its low cost—about $80/A for seeding and mowing— compared with the black plastic at about $750 for plastic, installation and removal. From refining his own research and on-farm tests in the mid-Atlantic region for several years, USDA’s Aref Abdul-Baki of the ARS Beltsville (Md.) Agricultural Research Center, outlines his approach: • Prepare beds—just as you would for planting tomatoes—at your prime time to seed hairy vetch. • Drill hairy vetch at 40 lb./A, and expect about 4 inches of topgrowth before dormancy, which stretches from mid- December to mid-March in Maryland. • After two months’ spring growth, flail mow or use other mechanical means to suppress the hairy vetch. Be ready to remow or use herbicides to clean up trouble spots where hairy vetch regrows or weeds appear. • Transplant seedlings using a minimum tillage planter able to cut through the mulch and firm soil around the plants. The hairy vetch mulch suppresses early season weeds. It improves tomato health by preventing soil splashing onto the plants, and keeps tomatoes from soil contact, improving quality. Hairy vetch-mulched plants may need more water. Their growth is more vigorous and may yield up to 20 percent more than those on plastic. Completing harvest by mid- September allows the field to be immediately reseeded to hairy vetch.Waiting for vetch to bloom in spring before killing it and the tight fall turnaround may make this system less useful in areas with a shorter growing season than this Zone 7, mid-Atlantic site. Abdul-Baki rotates season-long cash crops of tomatoes, peppers and cantaloupe through the same plot between fall hairy vetch seedings. He shallow plows the third year after cantaloupe harvest and seeds hairy vetch for flat-field crops of sweet corn or snap beans the following summer. He suggests seeding rye with the vetch (40 lb./A each) for greater biomass and longerlasting mulch. Adding 10-12 lb./A of crimson clover will aid in weed suppression and N value. Rolling the covers before planting provides longer-lasting residue than does mowing them. Some weeds, particularly perennial or winter annual weeds, can still escape this mixture, and may require additional management (2). include conventional tillage, winter fallow weed cover and up to 60 pounds of N fertilizer per acre. Typically, the cover crops are no-till drilled after shredding cotton stalks in late October. <strong>Cover</strong>s are spray killed in mid-April ahead of cotton planting in May. With the relatively late fall planting, hairy vetch delivers only part of its potential N in this system. It adds cost, but supplies erosion control and long-term soil improvement (21). Cotton yields following incorporated hairy vetch were perennial winners for 35 years at a northwestern Louisiana USDA site. Soil organic matter improvement and erosion control were additional benefits (222). Other Options Spring sowing is possible, but less desirable than fall establishment because it yields significantly 118 MANAGING COVER CROPS PROFITABLY
less biomass than overwintering stands. Hot weather causes plants to languish. Hairy vetch makes only fair grazing—livestock do not relish it. Heavy feeding for 20 days in hairy vetch pasture resulted in death for eight of 33 cattle in one trial in South America (351). COMPARATIVE NOTES Hairy vetch is better adapted to sandy soils than crimson clover (285), but is less heat-tolerant than LANA woolypod vetch.See Woolypod Vetch (p.151). SEED Cultivars. MADISON—developed in Nebraska— tolerates cold better than other varieties. Hairy vetches produced in Oregon and California tend to be heat tolerant. This has resulted in two apparent types,both usually sold as “common”or “variety not stated” (VNS). One has noticeably hairy, bluish-green foliage with bluish flowers and is more cold-tolerant. The other type has smoother, deep-green foliage and pink to violet flowers. A closely related species—LANA woolypod vetch (Vicia dasycarpa)—was developed in Oregon and is less cold tolerant than Vicia villosa. Trials in southeastern Pennsylvania with many accessions of hairy vetch showed bigflower vetch (Vicia grandiflora, cv WOODFORD) was the only vetch species hardier than hairy vetch. EARLY COVER hairy vetch is said to be 10 days earlier than regular common seed (337). Seed sources. Widely available. MEDICS Medicago spp. Also called: black medic, bur medic, burclover Type: Winter annual or summer annual legume Roles: N source, soil quality builder, weed suppressor, erosion fighter Mix with: Other medics; clovers and grasses; small grains See charts, p. 47 to 53, for ranking and management summary. annual medics perennial medics (dryland) annual medics marginal utility Once established, few other legumes outperform medics in soil-saving,soil-building and forage when summer rainfall is less than 15 inches.They serve well in seasonally dry areas from mild California to the harsh Northern Plains. With more rainfall, however, they can produce almost as much biomass and N as clovers. Medics are self-reseeding with abundant “hard seed”that can take several years to germinate. This makes medics ideal for long rotations of forages and cash crops in the Northern Plains and in cover crop mixtures in the drier areas of California. MEDICS 119
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$19.00 Managing Cover Crops Profita
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SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE NETWORK THE
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book represent
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FOREWORD Cover crops slow erosion,
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HOW TO USE THIS BOOK Think of this
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BENEFITS OF COVER CROPS Cover crops
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decompose quickly, especially in wa
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Expect excessive field traffic arou
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5. Settle for the Best Available Co
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ORGANIC MATTER ADDITIONS The benefi
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Cover Crops Can Stabilize Your Soil
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generally a good idea to kill a leg
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• For perennial legumes that have
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MANAGING PESTS WITH COVER CROPS By
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The farmers get weed control by fla
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insects. This approach has been use
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• Subterranean Clover (Trifolium
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does no direct tillage, but aggress
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eplace the cover crop before beans,
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as buckwheat, cowpeas, sorghum-suda
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the couple harrows every two to thr
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Start Where You Are In many instanc
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INTRODUCTION TO CHARTS The four com
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pH Preferred. The pH range in which
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Chart 1 TOP REGIONAL COVER CROP SPE
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Chart 2 PERFORMANCE AND ROLES conti
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Chart 3B PLANTING Cost Cost/A Inoc.
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Chart 4B POTENTIAL DISADVANTAGES Sp
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ANNUAL RYEGRASS Lolium multiflorum
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prolonged heat, cold or drought.Tha
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crop for establishing a forage or l
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arley plants from fungus, armyworm
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can increase the fertilizer replace
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cultural and local considerations t
Page 69 and 70: (339), and by 99 percent in a Calif
Page 71 and 72: Killing & Controlling Nutrient avai
Page 73 and 74: ye/vetch/crimson clover,for example
Page 75 and 76: • In the Corn Belt and northern U
Page 77 and 78: Wheat Offers High-Value Weed Contro
Page 79 and 80: BUCKWHEAT Fagopyrum esculentum Type
Page 81 and 82: Rotations Buckwheat is used most co
Page 83 and 84: plants fractured subsoil compaction
Page 85 and 86: press some species of nematodes. Sp
Page 87 and 88: Incorporated sorghum-sudangrass res
Page 89 and 90: lodge soil particles. Sunlight is u
Page 91 and 92: Crimson-Berseem Clover Combo Works
Page 93 and 94: in water-use efficiency in the tria
Page 95 and 96: Microorganisms mineralize, or conve
Page 97 and 98: COWPEAS Vigna unguiculata Also call
Page 99 and 100: control if you go with rows, using
Page 101 and 102: drought-tolerant sorghum-sudangrass
Page 103 and 104: several winter annual legumes that
Page 105 and 106: In Ohio, crimson clover mixed with
Page 107 and 108: FIELD PEAS Pisum sativum subsp. arv
Page 109 and 110: Chill tolerant. Austrian winter pea
Page 111 and 112: In a “Flexible Green Manure” cr
Page 113 and 114: values from 13 to 34,but were gener
Page 115 and 116: year Maryland study that also inclu
Page 117 and 118: possible, but remember that hairy v
Page 119: especially in winter grains. With w
Page 123 and 124: Jess Counts on GEORGE for N and Org
Page 125 and 126: after mid-April planting in souther
Page 127 and 128: second cutting. Regrowth comes from
Page 129 and 130: RED CLOVER Trifolium pratense Also
Page 131 and 132: MANAGEMENT Establishment & Fieldwor
Page 133 and 134: it function more like a biennial th
Page 135 and 136: Subclover cultivars often are descr
Page 137 and 138: trample in the seed. Subclover ofte
Page 139 and 140: Crop Systems Interseeded with wheat
Page 141 and 142: SWEETCLOVERS Yellow sweetclover (Me
Page 143 and 144: difficult to establish annual cover
Page 145 and 146: Spring seeding provides yellow swee
Page 147 and 148: enhances soil fertility, texture an
Page 149 and 150: WHITE CLOVER Trifolium repens Also
Page 151 and 152: for several freeze-thaw cycles. Mak
Page 153 and 154: COMPARATIVE NOTES • White clover
Page 155 and 156: Fall planting. Most growers seed at
Page 157 and 158: combining with a belt-type rubber p
Page 159 and 160: Then seed the remainder while walki
Page 161 and 162: screening, a number of farmers have
Page 163 and 164: the seed is relatively expensive. B
Page 165 and 166: Dyer, David A. 1998. Conservation L
Page 167 and 168: OTHER RESOURCES Cover Crops On The
Page 169 and 170: Cal/West Seeds Box 1428 Woodland, C
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Pick Seed Canada P.O. Box 304 1 Gre
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SARE Northeast Region Office Univer
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APPENDIX F REGIONAL EXPERTS These i
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David W. Wolfe Cornell University 1
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Bob Burdette Southern Seed Certific
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Shiou Kuo Washington State Universi
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20 Bird, George. 1997. Personal com
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59 Clark,A.J. 1993. Managing hairy
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102 Fernholz, Carmen. 1997. Persona
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141 Helm, J.L. and Dwain Meyer. 199
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186 Koume, C.N. et al. 1988. Screen
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226 Mohler, Charles L. 1994.A livin
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267 Plumer, Mike. 1997. Personal co
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309 Shrestha,A. et al. 1996.“Annu
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352 Varco, J.J., J.O. Sanford and J
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Bulk Discounts: Except as indicated
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INDEX A Alfalfa, 10, 42, 84, 88, 94
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performance and roles, 48-49 planti
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sorghum-sudangrass hybrids, 85 subt
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subterranean clovers, 133, 137 swee
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comparative notes, 71 crop systems,
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crimson clover for, 102, 103 crop r
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