These 10 Crops Will Aid in Soil Improvement

Plant (and planet!) health and resilience are significantly influenced by soil quality. The general state of a soil is influenced by a variety of factors, including

• humus's organic material
• composition
• mineral content
• microbiological aggregation

Wonderfully, growing crops that promote one or more of these qualities in the soil is one of the finest ways to improve its quality.

Botanical Advantages

Popular techniques for incorporating soil-improving plants into your production system are cover crops and green manures. They may be cultivated in the winter, in the summer between cash crops, or throughout the entire year.

These crops that improve soil provide a wide range of advantages. They may result in a rise in the fertility and water-holding capacity of the soil. They can enhance texture while preventing and repairing soil erosion and compaction. Additionally, they can be utilized to absorb extra nutrients (from the application of compost or manure, for example) and stop nutrient leaching.

They may also lead to a reduction in weed pressures and an increase in beneficial insect populations, depending on the crop selection and management.

Many soil-improving crops specialize on enhancing soil fertility, which they accomplish in various ways. N2 is fixed by legumes. Some plants generate a significant amount of biomass (both above and below ground), which increases the organic matter in the soil. Others extract minerals from the subsoil and supply them to the topsoil.

Many plants discharge part of the sugars they make during photosynthetic processing into the soil through their roots. These operate as biological stimulants, supplying the mycorrhizal fungus and other members of the microbial soil community with energy for development and vigor. This benefits the plant community by improving the soil's ability to store water and the availability of minerals.

When the soil-improving crops come from plant families that are normally underrepresented on farms and in gardens, this can be especially beneficial. At the same time, they will increase ecological biodiversity.

The plants listed below provide a variety of advantages for improving soil. Pay attention to their distinctive qualities and consider how they might collaborate, either concurrently or successively!

Buckwheat

Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum), a common green manure that appreciates loose, moist (but not soggy) soil, suited for spring planting and renowned as a superior soil conditioner.

Another of its best qualities is the ability to shade out and control weeds because to its quick establishment and dense canopy.

Buckwheat is an annual plant and a member of the rarely observed rhubarb family. It produces plant root exudates, which increase the biological diversity of the soil. They also increase the soil's ability to hold phosphorus.

Cowpea

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), which may grow to a height of three feet, is favored for controlling erosion and weed growth. It is a legume that fixes nitrogen and boosts soil fertility.

This annual was designed to resist the sweltering summers thanks to its exceptional heat and drought tolerance. It can also be utilized as a living mulch because to its tolerance of partial shade.

Berseem Clover, Egyptian

Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum), an annual with a high rate of nitrogen fixation, is tolerant to a variety of soil types (with the exception of sand) and ambient temperatures. Additionally, it can endure prolonged periods of drought, excessive soil wetness, and salinity, yet it will positively flourish in mild alkalinity.

This top-notch fodder yields a significant amount of biomass under ideal circumstances. Due to its quick growth and capacity to control weeds, this clover is perfect for a variety of circumstances.

Harvest chicory

This perennial has a large taproot, which is a trait shared by other members of the sunflower family. Its root system aids in its ability to withstand drought, enhance soil texture, and mine minerals.

Chicory intybus, a forage plant, prefers full sun, medium to well-drained soils with medium to high fertility. Cattle love it, and it makes a great supplement to a varied animal diet. Additionally, it naturally has a decreased propensity to blossom than its well-known roadside sibling.

Phacelia Lacy

Lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), attractive to the eye and many insects, but all animals prefer to view it from a distance due to the scratchy pubescence covering it, balances soil nutrient levels. It is a nitrogen scavenger, more particularly. This implies that nitrogen is gathered and held in the soil, avoiding any runoff and keeping it there for use by subsequent crops.

It is an annual that spreads quickly and competes with weeds for nutrients and water, suppressing them. This borage family member has a reputation for being a topsoil conditioner that improves soil more than any other plant.

Japanese Radish

Korean Radish, or Asian Daikon Radish (Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus), considerably increase soil tilth by dislodging compaction and plow pans due to its massive, deeply rooted roots. You might want to remove a few for use as food or animal feed.

This biannual flowering annual, which can be sown in the spring or the fall to overwinter, is regarded as a biofumigant of the soil because it releases root exudates that can eradicate root-knot nematodes. The growth of many plants can be harmed by the presence of these soil pests, but the production of root crops is completely destroyed.

Oat

As this annual decomposes, it leaves behind a loosening of the soil texture due to the thick mass of roots it creates. Avena sativa, or oats, can be planted either early in the season for summer growth or later in the year. They are delicate enough to winterkill (see "A Management Position," below) and turn into an automated mulch for the next spring, but they are cold-hardy enough to continue growing when cool weather sets in.

Oats are known to contain compounds that have an allelopathic or chemically inhibitory effect on seed germination, which works well in weed management. They are also known to be a forage-able grass crop and nitrogen scavenger.

Pheasant Pea

As long as you provide this legume a spotlessly prepared seed bed, it is simple to cultivate. It is unsuccessful in battling perennial plants. The partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata), which thrives in ordinary to dry soils and the summer heat, normally grows to a height of 2 feet.

Farmers typically use it in regions where erosion control is important since it is a nitrogen fixer (naturally). It retains the soil, and its lovely appearance provides beauty that people value. This plant also includes extra-floral (nonflower) nectaries, which attracts a lot of pollinators and other helpful insects in addition to its attractive blooms.

Secale cereale, sometimes known as rye, is unusual in many ways. It produces a lot of roots, which results in below-ground biomass that penetrates the subsoils. It is a grass that also scavenges nitrogen, is (strongly) allelopathic, and inhibits root-knot nematodes.

Rye

Rye is frequently regarded as the hardiest crop for improving soil since it can be grown in ice-cold soil and has a late planting window (an advantage when dealing with crops harvested late in the year).

It is a winter annual and begins to grow again in the spring. Additionally, because it can tolerate some shadow, there are more options to blend its growth with that of other plants, either concurrently or in succession.

Melilotus officinalis, also known as yellow sweetclover, and Melilotus alba, also known as white sweetclover, are both enormous nitrogen fixers, producers of above-ground biomass (which could grow to a height of six feet), nutrient miners, and correctors of soil compaction, all of which are aided by their deep, aggressive taproots.

Although white sweetclover, an annual, is taller and "stemmier" and is occasionally thought to be a better soil tilther, yellow sweetclover, a biennial, has better drought tolerance, heat tolerance, and biomass production. For better establishment, these obliging self-seeders are best planted early in the chilly, moist spring months.

An Administrative Position

Crops that improve soil can be planted on a big scale (like a plot or field) or a small size (like a row or bed). Just manage them appropriately based on the circumstance. However, you must first make choices regarding your crops for enhancing the soil.

What will they be, and when should they be planted—spring, summer, or fall? Are you ready to keep an eye out for diseases or insect outbreaks that could harm nearby or upcoming cash crops that share the same susceptibilities while monitoring soil-improving crops (as can occur with radish or mustard soil-improvers)?

Do you want to plant different species together to have a bigger impact? For instance, when grown together, a grass will keep nitrogen in the soil while a legume fixes it from the atmosphere.

Or a crop that grows quickly will "nurse" a crop that grows more slowly, creating circumstances that allow both to establish themselves. Although, as an example, oats nursing Egyptian clover is an annual nursing an annual, this is frequently an annual crop nursing a perennial.

Will you finish your crop by mowing, harvesting, or grazing it, followed by tillage, rolling/crimping, hand hoeing, or manual pulling, or will you let the cold weather winterkill it?

Simply timing your actions correctly is part of management. For instance, you can cut off your crop before it forms stiff stalks that can withstand decomposition (an issue with rye). A blossoming soil-improvement crop should also be clipped before it sets seeds to prevent weedy reseeding (sweetclover, hairy vetch and radish, to name a few, are known for this).

The timing of the coordination between cash crops and crops that improve the soil is equally important. Crop decomposition consumes moisture (preventing it from being used for the growth of new plants), and it also takes time for its nutrients to be released.

Additionally, some soil improvers' allelopathic effects on seed germination might affect succeeding crops as well as weeds. The impact is transient and occasionally limited to small-seeded crops. In general, a 2- to 3-week interval will prevent any resource competition or unfavorable influences between the removal of your improving crop and the planting of your cash crop.

What additional purposes will you find for your crops that improve the soil? Prior to flowering, those that produce enough biomass can be regularly chopped for use as mulch sources (the majority of plants that have reached the reproductive (flowering) stage will not re-grow after being cut). Through grazing, mowing, or harvesting, other substances that are pleasant to animals (such as cattle, goats, pigs, or chickens) can be used as a source of food for them.

Furthermore, allowing crops to flower will benefit beneficial insects, such as pollinators, by providing food sources and other benefits. Finally, it's important to remember that conventional blooming plants, such as cornflowers, cosmos, and dwarf sunflowers, can be added to a planting to add beauty, boost insect populations, and increase diversity in addition to providing advantages to the soil.

The utilization of soil-improving crops will benefit your plants regardless of your agrarian goals, whether they be personal or professional, or the size of the soil you manage.

Additional Details

Different Methods for Diverse People

Planting soil-improving crops in a variety of circumstances will result in a positive outcome. A planting may be done with the intention of protecting or improving the soil. Even when improving the soil isn't the main objective, it nevertheless contributes to the achievement of the main objective because healthy plants will always perform better in healthy soil.

Clovers, vetches, grasses, buckwheat, self-heal, sunflowers, rudbeckias, and salvias are just a few examples of plants that can be utilized in most or all of the plantings below to improve the soil.

In order to achieve and maintain good air, soil, and/or water quality, land is kept in a buffer strip with permanent vegetation.

It may give an area of protection from pesticide drift, support a stream bank, reduce wind erosion, limit surface runoff, or provide some other environmental service.

Filter Strip One way to think about a filter strip is as a specific form of buffer strip. They are in place expressly to lower levels of silt, pesticides, nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural land that seep into surface waters.

Crop Cover

A cover crop is cultivated between cash crops, when a cash crop wouldn't typically be growing (in the temporal sense). This often entails planting crops that are winter annuals or perennials and cultivating them over the winter months (perhaps short-lived ones).

Although the advantages of cover crops and green manures (described below) are nearly comparable, erosion control is frequently regarded as being especially crucial with cover cropping since it protects soil that may otherwise be left naked during a nonproductive season.

Green sludge

Green manures are raised throughout the primary growing season in place of a cash crop. Cover cropping is more common than green manures since it doesn't require as much "sacrifice" of production time.

However, if you chose a cash crop with a very short growing season (such as leaf lettuce or other cutting greens, radishes, etc.) or a green manure with a very short growing season, like buckwheat, you might be able to plant a green manure and a cash crop in the same season.

Green Mulch

A living mulch develops beneath the canopy of a cash crop where it has been interplanted or undersown during the main growth season, similar to green manure but without replacing it (a cover crop that is grown in between cash crops spatially instead of temporally).

It lives up to its name and offers the additional advantages of mulching, such as soil temperature regulation and moisture retention due to a covered soil surface, in addition to the benefits it gives for the soil.

Insectary Strip Insectary strips can be permanent, include shrubs and trees, and require strict management. As they are situated on land that could be used for production, the temporary or annual insectary strip is more likely to contain species typical of these plantings and will help improve soil conditions for crop planting.

However, the primary purpose of insectary strips is to provide food sources and habitat/nesting materials to support beneficial insects. Depending on the plant species and upkeep techniques employed, these may be the advantages of the various planting techniques.

Beetle Berm vs. Beetle Bank

A planting known as a "beetle bank" is one that is made primarily to sustain beneficial insects, particularly predaceous ground beetles.

They are supported as a component of an integrated pest management strategy meant to lessen the need for insecticides.

A beetle bank is a raised bed or berm that is surrounded by or found in cash crop fields. It is planted primarily with local grasses and flowers.

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