But I've never really engaged cover crops as a routine,
soil-building, insect-trapping, forage-producing strategy, no matter how much I've "wanted" to.
(During a fallow period, land is allowed to "go wild" or
soil-building fallow crops are sown.
"Hemp is a fantastic crop with
soil-building properties.
Some of the special sessions scheduled are the one day educational forum focusing on
soil-building processes and another one day workshop discussing on-farm processing.
Rodale, a New York City tax accountant who turned his belief in the health and
soil-building properties of organically grown food into a magazine, Organic Farming and Gardening, and that magazine into a family of health-related publications.
The goal is to replace unmanageable weeds with manageable
soil-building plants.
It took awhile before the
soil-building program that I developed for the vineyard starting having noticeable effects.
Hepperly says
soil-building crops and composts help build carbon levels in the soil while keeping up productivity.
Plant
soil-building green manure, such as buckwheat, vetch, peas, and clover, let it grow, and sheet mulch that with cardboard, and put straw on top.
To this end, he and ARS research technician Calvin Vick at the Oxford lab have been evaluating several
soil-building legumes for winter hardiness and their ability to reseed earlier than traditional cover crops like crimson clover.
Since forage crops are often considered to be "
soil-building crops" (Troeh et al.), it is not unreasonable to assume yields may actually increase when grown in fields previously in CRP.
They constituted an exceptional,
soil-building, biomass-producing, hydrating ecosystem that occurred without hybrids, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, or tractors.
Put your garden to bed and tuck it in with these
soil-building blankets that we have mentioned.
Because of their role in
soil-building, Berry says worms are "a natural" for research by the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, where he works.