b"Servicing Your Soil throughCOVER CROPPINGCover crops are an important part of keeping your soil in good health. BY: ASHLEY ROBINSONSOIL IS AN IMPORTANT part of the farm, just as crucial asFood and Rural Affairs, said during a presentation at the Ontario the farm machinery or anything else that helps you plant crops.Potato Conference on March 2, 2023. As a farmer youll spend hours servicing your machinery andTheres a lot that cover crops can help with on your farm, getting it in top working condition, so why not treat your soil theVerhallen explained. She credits them with stopping wind same? and water erosion; being able to scavenge or create nutrients; Anytime I talk about cover crops I always talk about, webuilding soil structure, structure, or organic matter; and disease/got to start with the why? Because cover crops have a purpose.pest/weed suppressionadding this all helps your fields build What problem is it solving? What service is it providing? Theresresilience.a colleague of mine who prefers to call them service cropsAnd while everyone plants cover crops for their own reason, rather than cover crops, which there's a point to that becauseVerhallen said the key thing to focus on when making the they have a job, Anne Verhallen, soil management specialistdecision to plant a cover crop is considering how it fits into your for horticultural crops with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture,crop rotation. She added you need to keep track of the time it will take to plant and maintain it, what species you plan to use and if youre going to use a single or multispecies, the seeding rate and target seeding date, whether youre going to overwinter it or terminate ittheres a lot of details to consider before planting the crop. But why are cover crops so important to the soil and your farms profits? In 2020, Verhallen worked with a colleague to calculate the dollar amount of soil to find out the true value of preserving it. In the calculations it was found soil is worth $19 per cubic yard, at 134.4 cubic yards for one inch soil depth in an acre, the soil on your farm is worth $2,554.40 per acre at a one-inch depth. We lose with erosion, we lose the best part of our soil, we lose a lot of the organic matter and the nutrients. But when we prevent erosion with cover crops, we're also gaining in terms of better water quality, Verhallen said. Its not just erosion cover cropping assists with, they also can be important tool in the fight against herbicide resistant weeds. With more weeds becoming resistant to herbicides, cover crops are one way to do weed suppression in your fields without fear of Theperfect addition to yourleading to increased herbicide resistance. eet. All aluminum trailer insertsYou wont spray your way out of resistance. It's really hard \x1fwill transform your dry vans intoto build resistance to cover crops because it's another plant. self-unloading bulk trailers. BuiltIt's competing for water, nutrients, and shading. Pretty hard to lightweight without troughs forcompete with that, she explained.maximum product capacity. With cover cropping, its only one part of creating resilient soil. Call today to see how we can help you maximize yourVerhallen cautioned that when cover cropping you need to keep product payload and reduce your transportation cost. in mind other soil management practices you are using and how they will interact with each other. 42SPUDSMART.COM Spring 2023"