Green manures & cover crops: Practical information
The use of cover crops and green manures has some potential to control soil-borne diseases of field and hor-ticultural crops. But as their immediate efficacy is lower compared to more radical methods, such as chemical soil disinfestation or heat treatments, they have to be used in a more preventive and strategic manner. Cover crops and green manures are grown with no inten-tion of harvesting their biomass, either partly or comple-tely, at the end of the cropping season. The difference between these two types of crops is their final use. The above-ground part of green manures is incorporated into the soil at the end of the growing period with the aim of returning accumulated nutrients (e.g., nitrogen) or useful secondary metabolites (e.g., glucosinolates) to the soil. Cover crops are grown for different reasons, such as to reduce leaching of nutrients (e.g., nitrate, then also designated as catch crops), avoid erosion, improve soil structure or suppress weeds. A combined use is also possible, a crop can serve first as cover crop (e.g., for weed control) and then be incorporated as green manu-re (e.g., for nutrient input) (Campiglia et al., 2009).
Detail description
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Contribution detail info
- Location
- Europe
- Authors
- Vincent Michel
- Alfred Grand
- Michaela Schlathölter
- Purpose
- Education/Training
- File type
- Document
- File size
- 835 kB
- Created on
- 04-04-2022
- Origin language
- English
- Official project website
- BEST4SOIL
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND
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