Presentation describing cover cropping practices on the Cannon Horticulture Plots at the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture in southeastern Oklahoma

1. The Kerr Center's horticulture program
operates in fields originally converted –
organically! – from bermudagrass
pasture.

2. Controlling bermudagrass is a challenge...

3. ...but repeated cover crops of sorghum-
sudangrass shade it out. For details, see
“Market Farming with Rotations and Cover Crops.”

4. Sorghum-sudangrass is one of several cover
crops, both warm- and cool-season, that are
used in the rotation on the Cannon plots.

5. Cover crops, both winter and summer, are
an important part of organic system design.

6. The system features a four-field rotation.
Each year, half the land is in a “green
fallow” of full-season cover crops.

7. Grain rye is one of
the main winter cover
crops.

8. Mowing cover
crops (here,
rye/vetch) with a
sickle-bar mower...

9. ...leaves long stems intact on the surface
as a “green mulch.”

10. A 2011 organic no-till demonstration used
this approach to grow pumpkins and squash
Find out how it worked.

11. The project experimented with a roller-
crimper as another way to kill cover crops.

12. In addition to suppressing weeds, cover
crops add fertility. Vetch, a winter cover
crop, adds nitrogen to the soil.

13. Purple hull peas, a warm-season cover crop, fix
nitrogen too. (They also make tasty eating.)

14. When flowering, purple hull peas also
provide habitat for beneficial insects.
To learn more about using cover crops to
support beneficial insects, read this report.