b'COVER CROP CORNERAre Cover Crops an Answer to Mitigating Climate Change?THERE IS A LOT of talk about climate change. Many people point to agriculture as one of the potential sources to the answer of mitigating it. Carbon dioxide is usually talked about as the bad greenhouse gas. Agriculture has an excellent answer to help balance atmospheric carbon dioxide.Photosynthesis is the process of combining carbon dioxide and water in a plants chlorophyll to produce sugar and oxygen. When a plant is in the vegetative stage, it will release up to 80 per cent of the sugar and KEVIN ELMY, is founder of Coverother carbon-based compounds into the soil to feed Crops Canada.soil biology. Over a plants life, it will release between His book Cover Cropping in30 and 50 per cent of the total carbon pulled out of the Western Canada isair as root exudates.available through Friesen Press,In the past, organic matter was thought to be built Amazon, andfrom the above-ground plant residues. Research digitally through Apple Books,has shown that up to 80 per cent of the carbon in Kindle, and Googlethe above-ground parts of the plant are lost to the Play. For more info on Coveratmosphere. How stable organic matter is made is Crops Canada visitthrough root exudates and a healthy functioning soil covercrops.ca microbial population.One of the ways to capture carbon dioxide store itCanola being used as a nurse crop for perennial ryegrass, is through plants, especially plants in the vegetativeBy including a cover crop as either a relay cover crop or a stage. Cash cropping annual species has most plantspost-harvest cover crop, we allow usable root exudates to be released for more days of the year by feeding more soil in the vegetative stage for 30 to 40 days. This is wheremicrobes, building organic matter, and sequestering carbon cover crops have potential for agricultural producers toby having a vegetative plant growing.PHOTO: KEVIN ELMYcrank up their carbon sequestration. By including a cover crop as either a relay coverproduce under times of reduced rainfall. That is the crop or a post-harvest cover crop, we allow usable rootend goal of decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.exudates to be released for more days of the year byUsing cover crops will help get more carbon into the feeding more soil microbes, building organic matter,soil, assuming goals are set and appropriate species and sequestering carbon by having a vegetative plantare utilized. Species used as cover crops should have growing. delayed maturity, be low growing so as not to interfere By increasing the amount of carbon held in ourwith harvest, should support mycorrhizal fungi and soil, the soil health rises. Increases in health cometie up excess nutrients (but at the same time be able to from feeding the soil microbiology, stronger soilrelease them as the crop requires them, and to continue aggregation, quicker water infiltration, improvedto feed the soil biology root exudates).drought tolerance and a lot more. Meanwhile, theBy making this one addition to our current carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere. Withmanagement, we can make a difference in both the soil the increase of carbon in the soil, the soil will be ablehealth and also help to mitigate climate change. Getting to hold more moisture. Water actually contributes morecarbon into the soil is a win for everyone. Keeping a as a greenhouse gas than what carbon dioxide does.vegetative plant growing for as many days as possible Plus, having more moisture in our soils will help plantsis one of the keystones of soil health principles. 42SPUDSMART.COM Fall 2021'