Cover Crops

A cover crops are plants used primarily to slow erosion but, can improve soil health, enhance water availability, smother weeds, help control pests and diseases, increase biodiversity and bring a host of other benefits to your farm. Cover crops have also been shown to increase crop yields, break through a plow pan, add organic matter to the soil, improve crop diversity on farms and attract pollinators. Growing cover crops can increase resilience in the face of erratic and increasingly unpredictable climate changes. Cover crops help when it doesn’t rain, they help when it rains, and they help when it pours! Cover crops should be viewed as a long-term investment in improved soil health and farm management. They can begin to pay for themselves in the first year of use, or it may take a few years for them to lead to a net positive economic return. From Washington State to Florida farmers are increasing their use of cover crops and adding them permanently into the cash crop rotations.

FOTR is cost-sharing cover crops because we realize to help reduce groundwater nitrates soil health must be built up. Cover crops are just one leg of the three legged soil health building stool.