How Cover Crops and Cover Crop Seed Help Farmers

Cover crops—also known as green manure—can be one of a farmer’s very best friends. Not only is it easy to plant and care for cover crop seed, cover crops can:

• Improve the soil in which they are grown
• Prevent weeds from overrunning the land
• Help prevent the spread of various diseases and pests
• Allow other crops to grow and flourish

Regardless of the size of a particular farming operation, these crops can help any other vegetables that farmers might produce. This article will go over the benefits of planting cover crops seed. After that, we will look at a few examples of good, easy-to-grow cover crops.
 
Benefits of Cover Crops
 
As mentioned above, planting the seeds of cover crop can have help farmland in a variety of ways. These include:
 
Conserving Water and Soil
 
The mulch from cover crops allows more water to permeate the soil in which it grows. It also reduces the amount of water that evaporates from the soil’s surface as well as runoff after a rain.
 
Restoring Nutrients and Organic Matter to the Soil
 
By planting cover crop seed and letting cover crops grow and decompose, farmers can add the crops’ organic matter to the soil. This helps build up levels of nutrients like nitrogen, calcium and magnesium within the soil, which other crops can use to grow.
 
Keeping Weeds from Spreading
 
Whenever soil is bare, weeds use it as an opportunity to set up residence. Cover crops keep these interloping plants from sucking up water and nutrients from a farmer are other crops. They do this by taking up space and creating shade, thereby giving weeds less opportunity to take root.
 
Protecting Crops from Pests and Diseases
 
By adding their organic matter to the soil, cover crops help feed microbes that ward off various diseases. Cover crops can also create hospitable environments for insects that feed on pests.
 
Forage Complete can provide farmers with high-quality cover crops like smash mustard and rocket lettuce. By planting alfalfa seed such as these, farmers can break up hard ground, suppress weeds and enrich the soil for future crops.
 
About Forage Complete
 
Forage Complete is a top supplier of cover crop seed, non GMO alfalfa seed and other high-quality forage seed products. By combining innovative genetic technology withthorough research and testing, the company provides farmers with some of the finest seed available anywhere.
 
For additional information, visit Foragecomplete.com