Cover crop

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Broadly defined, a cover crop is any annual, biennial, or perennial plant grown as a monoculture (one crop type grown together) or polyculture (multiple crop types grown together), to improve any number of conditions associated with sustainable agriculture. Cover crops are fundamental, sustainable tools used to manage soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds (unwanted plants that limit crop production potential), pests (unwanted animals, usually insects, that limit crop production potential), diseases, and diversity and wildlife, in agroecosystems (Lu et al. 2000). Agroecosystems are ecological systems managed by humans across a range of intensities to produce food, feed, or fiber. To a large degree, humans shape the ecological structure and function of natural processes that occur in agroecosystems.

As agroecosystems often interact with neighboring natural ecosystems in agricultural landscapes, cover crops that improve the sustainability of agroecosystem attributes may also indirectly improve qualities of neighboring natural ecosystems. Farmers choose to grow specific cover crop types and to manage them in specific ways based on their own unique needs and goals. These needs and goals are influenced by biological, environmental, social, cultural, and economic factors of the food system within which farmers operate (Snapp et al. 2005).

Soil fertility management

Cover crops also called "green manure" are used to manage a range of soil macronutrients and micronutrients. For example in Nigeria, the cover crop Mucuna pruriens (velvet bean) has been found to increase the availability of phosphorus in soil after a farmer applies rock phosphate (Vanlauwe et al. 2000). With respect to nutrients, the impact that cover crops have on nitrogen management has received by far the most attention by researchers and farmers, because nitrogen is often the most limiting nutrient in crop production.

Cover crops known as “green manures” are grown and incorporated (by tillage) into the soil before reaching full maturity, and are intended to improve soil fertility and quality. They are commonly leguminous, meaning they are part of the fabaceae (pea) family. This family is unique in that all of the species in it set pods, such as bean, lentil, lupins and alfalfa. Leguminous cover crops are typically high in nitrogen and can often, to varying degrees, provide the required quantity of nitrogen for crop production that might normally be applied in chemical fertilizer form (called fertilizer replacement value) (Thiessen-Martens et al. 2005). Another quality unique to leguminous cover crops is that they form symbiotic relationships with rhizobial bacteria that reside in legume root nodules. The genus Lupinus is nodulated by the soil microorganism Bradyrhizobium sp. (Lupinus). Bradyrhizobia are encountered as microsymbionts in other leguminous crops (Argyrolobium, Lotus, Ornithopus, Acacia, Lupinus) of Mediterranean origin. These bacteria convert biologically unavailable atmospheric nitrogen gas (N2) to biologically available mineral nitrogen (NH4+) through the process of biological nitrogen fixation.

Prior to the advent of the Haber-Bosch process, an energy-intensive method developed to carry out industrial nitrogen fixation and create chemical nitrogen fertilizer, most nitrogen introduced to ecosystems arose through biological nitrogen fixation (Galloway et al. 1995). Some scientists believe that widespread biological nitrogen fixation, achieved mainly through the use of cover crops, is the only alternative to industrial nitrogen fixation in the effort to maintain or increase future food production levels (Bohlool et al. 1992, Peoples and Craswell 1992, Giller and Cadisch 1995). Industrial nitrogen fixation has been criticized as an unsustainable source of nitrogen for food production due to its reliance on fossil fuel energy and the environmental impacts associated with chemical nitrogen fertilizer use in agriculture (Jensen and Hauggaard-Nielsen 2003). Such widespread environmental impacts include nitrogen fertilizer losses into waterways, which can lead to eutrophication (nutrient loading) and ensuing hypoxia (oxygen depletion) of large bodies of water. An example of this lies in the Mississippi Valley Basin, where years of fertilizer nitrogen loading into the watershed from agricultural production have resulted in a hypoxic “dead zone” off of the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey (Rabalais et al. 2002). The ecological complexity of marine life in this zone has been diminishing as a consequence (CENR 2000).

As well as bringing nitrogen into agroecosystems through biological nitrogen fixation, cover crops known as “catch crops” are used to retain and recycle soil nitrogen already present. The catch crops take up surplus nitrogen remaining from fertilization of the previous crop, preventing it from being lost through leaching (Morgan et al. 1942), or gaseous denitrification or volatilization (Thorup-Kristensen et al. 2003). Catch crops are typically fast-growing annual cereal species adapted to scavenge available nitrogen efficiently from the soil (Ditsch and Alley 1991). The nitrogen tied up in catch crop biomass is released back into the soil once the catch crop is incorporated as a green manure or otherwise begins to decompose

Soil quality management

Cover crops can improve soil quality by increasing soil organic matter levels through the input of cover crop biomass over time. Increased soil organic matter enhances soil structure, as well as the water and nutrient holding and buffering capacity of soil (Patrick et al. 1957). It can also lead to increased soil carbon sequestration, which has been promoted as a mitigation strategy to help offset the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (Kuo et al. 1997, Sainju et al. 2002, Lal 2003).

Although cover crops can perform multiple functions in an agroecosystem simultaneously, they are often grown for the sole purpose of preventing soil erosion. Soil erosion is a process that can irreparably reduce the productive capacity of an agroecosystem. Dense cover crop stands physically slow down the velocity of rainfall before it contacts the soil surface, preventing soil splashing and erosive surface runoff (Romkens et al. 1990). Additionally, vast cover crop root networks help anchor the soil in place and increase soil porosity, creating suitable habitat networks for soil macrofauna (Tomlin et al. 1995).

Soil quality is managed to produce optimum circumstances for crops to flourish. The principal factors of soil quality are soil salination, pH, microorganism balance and the prevention of soil contamination.

Water management

By reducing soil erosion, cover crops often also reduce both the rate and quantity of water that drains off the field, that would normally pose environmental risks to waterways and ecosystems downstream (Dabney et al. 2001). Cover crop biomass acts as a physical barrier between rainfall and the soil surface, allowing raindrops to steadily trickle down through the soil profile. Also, as stated above, cover crop root growth results in the formation of soil pores, which in addition to enhancing soil macrofauna habitat provides pathways for water to filter through the soil profile rather than draining off of the field as surface flow. With increased water infiltration, the potential for soil water storage and the recharging of aquifers can be improved (Joyce et al. 2002).

Just before cover crops are killed (by such practices including mowing, tilling, discing, rolling, herbicide application) they contain a large amount of moisture. When the cover crop is incorporated into the soil, or left on the soil surface, it often increases soil moisture. In agroecosystems where water for crop production is in short supply, cover crops can be used as a mulch to conserve water by shading and cooling the soil surface. This reduces evaporation of soil moisture. In other situations farmers try to dry the soil out as quickly as possible going into the planting season. Here prolonged soil moisture conservation can be problematic.

While cover crops can help to conserve water, in temperate regions (particularly in years with below average precipitation) they can draw down soil water supply in the spring, particularly if climatic growing conditions are good. In these cases, just before crop planting, farmers often face a tradeoff between the benefits of increased cover crop growth and the drawbacks of reduced soil moisture for cash crop production that season.

Weed management

Thick cover crop stands often compete well with weeds during the cover crop growth period, and can prevent most germinated weed seeds from completing their life cycle and reproducing. If the cover crop is left on the soil surface rather than incorporated into the soil as a green manure after its growth is terminated, it can form a nearly impenetrable mat. This drastically reduces light transmittance to weed seeds, which in many cases reduces weed seed germination rates (Teasdale 1993). Furthermore, even when weed seeds germinate, they often run out of stored energy for growth before building the necessary structural capacity to break through the cover crop mulch layer. This is often termed the cover crop smother effect (Kobayashi et al. 2003).

Some cover crops suppress weeds both during growth and after death (Blackshaw et al. 2001). During growth these cover crops compete vigorously with weeds for available space, light, and nutrients, and after death they smother the next flush of weeds by forming a mulch layer on the soil surface. For example, Blackshaw et al. (2001) found that when using Melilotus officinalis (yellow sweetclover) as a cover crop in an improved fallow system (where a fallow period is intentionally improved by any number of different management practices, including the planting of cover crops), weed biomass only constituted between 1-12% of total standing biomass at the end of the cover crop growing season. Furthermore, after cover crop termination, the yellow sweetclover residues suppressed weeds to levels 75-97% lower than in fallow (no yellow sweetclover) systems.

In addition to competition-based or physical weed suppression, certain cover crops are known to suppress weeds through allelopathy (Creamer et al. 1996, Singh et al. 2003). This occurs when certain biochemical cover crop compounds are degraded that happen to be toxic to, or inhibit seed germination of, other plant species. Some well known examples of allelopathic cover crops are Secale cereale (rye), Vicia villosa (hairy vetch), Trifolium pretense (red clover), Sorghum bicolor (sorghum-sudangrass), and species in the brassicaceae family, particularly mustards (Haramoto and Gallandt 2004). In one study, rye cover crop residues were found to have provided between 80% and 95% control of early season broadleaf weeds when used as a mulch during the production of different cash crops such as soybean, tobacco, corn, and sunflower (Nagabhushana et al. 2001).

Disease management

In the same way that allelopathic properties of cover crops can suppress weeds, they can also break disease cycles and reduce populations of bacterial and fungal diseases (Everts 2002), and parasitic nematodes (Potter et al. 1998, Vargas-Ayala et al. 2000). Species in the brassicaceae family, such as mustards, have been widely shown to suppress fungal disease populations through the release of naturally occurring toxic chemicals during the degradation of glucosinolade compounds in their plant cell tissues (Lazzeri and Manici 2001).

Pest management

Some cover crops are used as so-called "trap crops", to attract pests away from the crop of value and toward what the pest sees as a more favorable habitat (Shelton and Badenes-Perez 2006). Trap crop areas can be established within crops, within farms, or within landscapes. In many cases the trap crop is grown during the same season as the food crop being produced. The limited area occupied by these trap crops can be treated with a pesticide once pests are drawn to the trap in large enough numbers to reduce the pest populations. In some organic systems, farmers drive over the trap crop with a large vacuum-based implement to physically pull the pests off of the plants and out of the field (Kuepper and Thomas 2002). This system has been recommended for use to help control the pest lygus bug in organic strawberry production (Zalom et al. 2001).

Other cover crops are used to attract natural predators of pests by providing elements of their habitat. This is a form of biological control known as habitat augmentation, but achieved with the use of cover crops (Bugg and Waddington 1994). Findings on the relationship between cover crop presence and predator/pest population dynamics have been mixed, pointing toward the need for detailed information on specific cover crop types and management practices to best complement a given integrated pest management strategy. For example, the predator mite Euseius tularensis (Congdon) is known to help control the pest citrus thrips in Central California citrus orchards. Researchers found that the planting of several different leguminous cover crops (such as bell bean, woollypod vetch, New Zealand white clover, and Austrian winter pea) provided sufficient pollen as a feeding source to cause a seasonal increase in Congdon populations, which with good timing could potentially introduce enough predatory pressure to reduce pest populations of citrus thrips (Grafton-Cardwell et al. 1999).

Diversity and wildlife

Although cover crops are normally used to serve one of the above discussed purposes, they often simultaneously improve farm habitat for wildlife. The use of cover crops adds at least one more dimension of plant diversity to a cash crop rotation. Since the cover crop is typically not a crop of value, its management is usually less intensive, providing a window of “soft” human influence on the farm. This relatively “hands-off” management, combined with the increased on-farm heterogeneity created by the establishment of cover crops, increases the likelihood that a more complex trophic structure will develop to support a higher level of wildlife diversity (Freemark and Kirk 2001). In one study, researchers compared arthropod and songbird species composition and field use between conventionally and cover cropped cotton fields in the Southern United States. The cover cropped cotton fields were planted to clover, which was left to grow in between cotton rows throughout the early cotton growing season (stripcover cropping). During the migration and breeding season, they found that songbird densities were 7–20 times higher in the cotton fields with integrated clover cover crop than in the conventional cotton fields. Arthropod abundance and biomass was also higher in the clover cover cropped fields throughout much of the songbird breeding season, which was attributed to an increased supply of flower nectar from the clover. The clover cover crop enhanced songbird habitat by providing cover and nesting sites, and an increased food source from higher arthropod populations (Cederbaum et al. 2004).

Conclusions

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Cover crops have an unparalleled range of potential to improve the sustainability of agroecosystems. Various forms of cover cropping have been utilized historically by different groups around the world. However, cover crops were popularized by the organic agriculture movement, which has been experiencing phenomenal growth as an industry. This exposure has attracted substantial cover crop research attention, and has led to the advancement of findings across agroecologically related disciplines, as discussed above. Many of these findings will likely provide some of the building blocks for the successful integration of cover crops into agroecosystems, to ultimately improve their sustainability.

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