Tips For Taking Cover Crops To The Next Level

Improving and maintaining soil health is not an overnight fix, but a lifelong endeavour that requires patience and experimentation. In this second part of a three-part series on cover crops and soil health, US farmer and cover crops coach Steve Groff shares a number of valuable tips on using cover crops as a tool for achieving sustainable soil health. Lloyd Phillips reports.

- Lloyd Phillips

Aspirant and existing conservation agriculture farmers need to appreciate that improving and maintaining good soil health is a never-ending process. During this lifelong journey, there will be times when they experience hurdles and failures in their conservation agriculture actions. Instead of throwing in the towel, they should understand that every setback is temporary and, with research and persistence, can be overcome. So says US farmer and cover crops coach Steve Groff.

“I’ve been practising conservation agriculture for 35 years. It’s a long time. As long as I’m alive, I expect to be constantly learning in my journey of achieving and maintaining good soil health on my farm.

“Nowadays, even if my farm has heavy rain, there’s very little run-off, no erosion, and high moisture infiltration. This is due to soil cover and the constant presence of living plants on my fields. But when I first started with no-till and cover crops, it took me a number of years to achieve these benefits.”

Groff urges farmers to go out to their lands when it rains to personally observe whether the soil is capturing the rainwater rather than allowing it to run off, taking topsoil, nutrients and moisture with it.

HERBICIDE RESISTANCE

A proliferation of weeds resistant to herbicides, particularly glyphosate-based products, has been observed in many countries, including South Africa. This worrying phenomenon poses a threat to food security. Groff gives the assurance, however, that, with good management, cover crops can help rid croplands of herbicide-resistant weeds.