Cover Crops as Living Mulch under Organic Vegetables

View the project final report

• 2015 annual report

Commodities

• Agronomic: clovers
• Vegetables: brussel sprouts, cucurbits

Practices

• Crop Production: cover crops
• Education and Training: on-farm/ranch research, participatory research

Incorporating long-standing leguminous cover crops into vegetable rotations is commonly known to improve soil quality and increase nitrogen availability to subsequent crops.  Small vegetable growers, however, struggle to include season-long covers on limited land.  Further, it can be difficult for growers to establish winter covers after harvest of late season crops like winter squash and Brussels sprouts.  Using cover crops as living mulches under vegetable crops could address both of these issues if growers can find a balance between vegetable and cover crop resource use.  In the first year, this research project will look at establishing two clovers under two vegetable crops while minimizing loss of vegetable yields.  In the second year, it will look at planting two vegetable crops into those established clover aisles, again with minimal vegetable yield loss.  If the cover crops can be established under vegetable crops in this way, small-scale growers can have more total land protected by winter covers and can increase soil quality through the use of legumes without having to take land out of vegetable production.  Organic vegetable farmers in south central Wisconsin will cooperate on this research which is targeted at the north central region of the United States.

• • Build on existing research to further develop a living mulch system that will maintain vegetable yields as compared to clean cultivated controls.

• • Gather information on how two vegetable crops perform in year 1 and year 2 of a living mulch system.

• • Share information with growers at two field days (2015 & 2016). Expected attendance at each field day is 35 to 40 growers.

• • Write up project findings and recommendations in an illustrated info sheet to be posted on the FairShare website and disseminated through the FairShare listserv and the Southern WI Vegetable Production Workshops.