Boosting Soil Health and Farm Revenue: Growing High Tunnel Tomatoes in Clover in Black Dirt

Commodities

• Vegetables: tomatoes

Practices

• Crop Production: cover crops, high tunnels or hoop houses, water management
• Education and Training: farmer to farmer
• Natural Resources/Environment: soil stabilization
• Pest Management: mulches - living
• Soil Management: soil quality/health
• Sustainable Communities: sustainability measures

Rise & Root Farm is an organic vegetable farm in the Black Dirt region of NYS. We engage underserved aspiring farmers to advance sustainable food production and food access.

We grow tomatoes in high tunnels to increase yield in a controlled environment.  With increasing precipitation and flooding in the Northeast, muck soils saturate, leading to flooding in tunnels, reduced plant health, and loss of yield and farm revenue. Our focus is to grow tomatoes in high tunnels in a living clover mulch to reduce pest pressure, improve soil health, and boost yields and revenue in black dirt. 

The three key components of our study include: 

1. The study will compare two halves of a 30’ x 96’ high tunnel. In one half, tomatoes will grow in a living clover mulch; the other will use landscape fabric. 
2. We will monitor soil moisture, pest pressure, and yield to assess the effectiveness of clover cover cropping.
3. Our hypothesis is that planting tomatoes in clover will reduce pest pressure, manage moisture, build soil health, and increase tomato yields, enhancing tunnel profitability in Black Dirt soils.

Rise & Root Farm collaborates with many diverse farmers and farm organizations in NY’s Black Dirt region. Our on-farm education series brings approximately 300 aspiring and established farmers to our farm annually. We will share our research results widely to advance best management practices for tomato production in high tunnels in black dirt.

Our project objective is to determine whether growing tomato plants in a clover cover crop in high tunnels in muck soil increases overall soil health, reduces pest and weed pressure, and results in healthier, more productive plants, and increased farm revenue.

Will clover perform similar or better functions than landscape fabric in high tunnels? Will it improve growing conditions for tomatoes? Improve flood resistance/drainage? Improve pest pressure? Increase yield? Have unfavorable weed pressure? 

Objective 1: Measure soil moisture in high tunnel area covered in clover cover crop versus area covered with landscape fabric

Objective 2: Measure pest pressure of tomato plants grown in clover cover crop versus plants grown in landscape fabric, focusing specifically on tomato hornworms and the presence of parasitic wasps.

Objective 3: Measure economic viability of tomato plants grown in clover cover crop versus plants grown in landscape fabric

Objective 4: Measure weed pressure of tomato plants grown in clover cover crop

Objective 5: Share our findings with other farmers and farm adjacent professionals