Growing season long cover crop/soil builder

looking for recommendations for a soil building cover crop to be planted this spring, terminated in late august, and incorporated with chicken litter, and reseeded to a cover crop to for N fixation, to be seeded into corn the following spring. Very sandy, light, low organic matter soil. Looking for moisture holding biomass, N producing and fixation. I will benefit more $ for $ by not doing a crop of beans this year, and benefiting from the cover crop the following year in corn. Goal is to have this farm go into a continuous No till/ cover cropped, field.

Here in the dirty south we use sorghum/sudangrass for poor dirt to build organic matter. It puts off less organics than corn but is not nearly as demanding of the soil as corn. It is very drought tolerant and is forgiving of low soil pH. Just give it a little dose of Nitrogen and some heat and it will grow. Being grown as a cover crop it could be terminated at any point in the life cycle.

It will produce quite a bit of residue (it can grow upwards of 10 ft. tall which could be a little tough to manage as you plant your winter legume but then again if it didn't produce a good deal of residue it wouldn't be adding organic matter..

We have used this strategy before. We planted the sorghum/sudan, let it grow to 8-10 ft tall then used the rotary cutter to shred it then worked the ground deep with a heavy disk to incorporate the stubble to be able to overseed for the winter.

google "peas as cover crop". Any other legume as well if you are fixated on N fixation. LOL

I just realized that I misread your desire. I thought you were wanting a residue producing crop for the summer then following it with a legume.

Cancel the sorghum and head for the peas. Be sure to inoculate for best N fixation. They wont create nearly as much mass but they will produce your needed N.

Yellow clover is perhaps a better N producer but it may not be quite a tough on the poor soils as the peas.

Here is a brief bit of info on yellow/sweet clover.
Yellow Clover

Can you plant sorghum/sudan grass and bale it try? Isnt there something else called trical that is similar? I know dairy farmers use the above for sileage, just wondered if it could be put up dry or not.

I used buck wheat, its a good soil builder and makes the soil mellow.

Go to utube, look up gabe brown, and cover crop cocktails.

I like buckwheat when I can find it. Hal

Yes, it can be stored as dry hay. It has to be cut before the stem becomes tough. It seems to work best if cut when it reaches chest high range. It needs to run through a conditioner. Once it's baled you simply apply another shot of nitrogen and repeat.

How about sweet clover. That's what my Dad used.

It keeps growing back or you have to re-plant after each cutting? For dry hay, how long should you wait before each cutting and how many cuttings can you get each year?

Cowpeas do well on light, sandy soil. Make a lot of mass and fix nitrogen. Deer browse it, but it holds up well.

Larry

A mix of buckwheat and sweet clover. The honey bees will love it.

Yes, it keeps coming back. It is by nature a grass which means that so long as it never makes a seed head it keeps growing till frost.

The timing of each cutting is determined in theory by timing to achieve the best quality forage but in real life a guy cuts it when there is enough sunny days in the forecast to get it down and back up without a rain shower. It becomes stemmy if not cut at the appropriate time.

The number of cuttings is determined by how early it is planted, ambient temperature, rainfall and the capacity of your soil. Most folks are able to get three cuttings. It will make some serious tonnage.

Like corn, nitrates can be high during droughty times with sudan.

I've never known anyone to put it up as wet hay, but if cut at the appropriate time I would think it would be suitable and based on it's difficulty in drying, might be a good plan.

One of my work cohorts prefers an oat/crimson clover mix for his wet hay over sorghum-sudan because of it's higher protein content but obviously the tonnage of the sorghum sudan would surpass the oat/crimson by a good deal... Just another thought if you are looking for a quality forage and have access to a silage roller and a wrap machine.

Plow down alfalfa

We have used Sunn Hemp here the last few years between spring and fall seasons and been very happy with it. Look up on utube and you will see it.

ok thanks, I think some guys here in ohio use it for sileage.

Mixture of Red clover, white clover, bird's foot trefoil, or vernal alfalfa.