Cover Crops at the Kerr Center

The Kerr Center's horticulture program has converted bermudagrass pasture to

organic horticulture production.

Controlling bermudagrass is a challenge...

...but sorghum-sudangrass shades it out. For more detail, see

“How We Converted Bermuda Pasture to Organic Vegetables.”

Sorghum-sudangrass is one of several cover crops, both warm- and cool-season, that are

used in the rotation on the Cannon plots.

Cover crops, both winter and summer, are an important element of the evolving organic system design. For more information, read

“Rotations, Cover Crops, and Green Fallow....”

The system features a 4-field rotation. Each year, half of the land is in a "green

fallow" of full-season cover crops.

We grow grain rye as a winter cover crop.

George Kuepper mowing a rye/vetch cover crop

with a BCS walk-behind tractor with sickle-bar

mower attachment

The mowed material can be tilled in, or left on the surface as a "green mulch."

A 2011 organic no-till demonstration used this approach to grow heirloom pumpkins and

squash. Results: 2011 Organic No-till Pumpkin Demonstration

The project is experimenting with using a roller-crimper as another way to kill cover crops.

In addition to suppressing weeds, cover crops add fertility. Vetch, a winter cover

crop, adds nitrogen to the soil.

Purple hull peas, a warm-season cover crop, fix

nitrogen, too. (They also make tasty eating.)

When flowering, purple hull peas also provide habitat for beneficial insects.