Cover Crops

Cover Crops

by | Mar 3, 2023 | Uncategorized

What exactly is a cover crop? A cover crop is a crop that was planted specifically to help the soil rather than use for a harvest. These crops can be used for many reasons such as slowing down soil erosion and breaking up compaction, they can also help control disease and pests. Another great reason to plant cover crops is they can assist you in adding nutrients back into the soil depending on what your soil lacks and needs.

It’s always best to test your soil first to see exactly what is missing before planting anything. Specific cover crops can help with specific issues, they can even be mixed to help you with several things at once. For example, if you want to add more nitrogen into your soil then you would be looking at legumes as a good cover crop option.

Let’s talk about timing and when it’s best to seed down a cover crop. Typically cover crops are planted in the cooler seasons after the last harvests of the year. However, they can be used in the summer if you need to let some soil rest and can be used before your summer planting season begins by seeding the crop down in early spring.

As mentioned earlier, certain crops can add specific nutrients based on what you need. There are four main cover crop groups: Grasses, Legumes, Non-Legume Broadleaf and Brassicas. Below is a more specific look at what each crop group can do.

Grasses = (ex: rye or barley) reduces erosion, holds on to nitrogen, weed suppression, can increase organic material and seeks out nutrients 

Legumes = (ex: alfalfa or clover) are nitrogen fixers, increase organic matter and soil porosity, breaks pest cycles and increases microbes in the soil

Non-Legume Broadleaf = (ex: spinach or flax) can help reduce soil erosion, suppress weeds, searches for leftover nutrients such as nitrogen, and adds organic material into the soil

Brassicae = (ex: radish and turnips) is great to help break up compacted soil, reduces erosion, can suppress weeds, and suppresses pest and disease

When using cover crops, it’s key to terminate the crop before it goes to seed. Some crops need to flower before termination, while others need to be terminated before flowering. Be sure to look into what crop you plan to grow in order to know what timing is best. One of the easiest ways to terminate a cover crop is letting it get killed off by the winter cold, but other ways include mowing or tilling, roller crimping or grazing. When utilizing grazing as a termination method, one thing that should be considered before you lay down a cover crop is knowing which crops may be toxic to your livestock. Some crops such as sorghum and amaranth can be potentially toxic, so it’s best to know what you are seeding before doing so. It also depends on what type of livestock you plan to graze, cattle may be more susceptible than sheep and vise versa.

Cover crops can be a really great tool to utilize in between growing seasons and can do a lot of the work for you organically without the use of pesticides.

// Jess Rollar

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Hello and Welcome!

Hello and Welcome!

by | Feb 8, 2023 | Uncategorized

Hello and welcome to the new blog space for the northeastern Arizona agriculture community.

This will be a place of multiple voices and views around the different facets of our complex area. What do we mean by complex? Ranchers and farmers who have worked in the area for a long time know three main things: the winds will blow, the soils are difficult and rainfall is not consistent. Perseverance and patience was (and still is) the key to farm and ranch survival.

Many times I get calls or emails from interested new farmers and ranchers looking at land who always use the “just” statement, such as “don’t worry, I will just drill a few wells’” or “don’t worry, I will just plant my 20 acres in grass, how hard could that be? “. Wells are expensive and successfully managing one acre, not to mention 20 acres, can be difficult. This is not to be discouraging since people always have different levels of financing and personal energy to complete projects. Instead, we talk about managing expectations. Start out small and grow, don’t tie up all your resources and money at the very beginning. It is great to dream big, but know your limits and stick to your budgets. Temptation will always be there to have more and be more. At the end of the day, your biggest success may be that all your livestock stays in the fences, or you have a bucket of farm raised vegetables to sell at the local market.

The focus of this blog space will be to have real time and real life examples to share with the agriculture community. Farmers and ranchers of all varieties make our counties special. Quick reminder- the definition of a farmer (agriculture product producer) by the US government is a profit of $1,000 per year (ers.usda.gov), usually filed on a IRS schedule F form. This is also true of ranchers. It is not by the size of your land, what crop (food, fiber, animal, etc) that you grow, or the size of your social media following. Farmers and ranchers have an undying passion in their hearts to want to feed their communities and families.

I have not met one farmer or rancher in northeastern Arizona that runs their operation the same as any others. There are always similarities but the overall day to day decisions and management is always based on that person (or family) and their goals. If you are new to the northeastern Arizona agricultural community, welcome! If you have been here awhile, we look forward to meeting you and hearing your story.

Thank you

– Anita Thompson
(Assistant Area Agent, Navajo, Apache and Northern Greenlee Counties)