Planting a multi-species mixture of cover crops — rather
than a monoculture — between cash crops, provides increased
agroecosystem services according to US researchers. That was the conclusion drawn from a two-year study of 18 cover-crop
treatments, ranging in diversity from one to eight plant species. Cover
crops were grown
preceding a corn crop, with species including oats, canola, sunn hemp, soybean, barley, perennial
ryegrass, forage radish, cereal rye, millet, sudangrass, red clover and
hairy vetch. Five benefits of cover crops were measured, including weed suppression and nitrogen retention, cover-crop above ground biomass, inorganic
nitrogen supply during the subsequent cash-crop season and subsequent
corn yield. The research is published in the September 2016 issue of the Journal of Applied Ecology.
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