Deep rooted cover

phil_n · Jun 2, 2015

Hi all. We just bought a 5 ac lot in central British Columbia that is/was mostly treed and has what the locals call 'new' soil. There is an average of maybe 3 to 4 inches of something that resembles top soil then the subsoil is mostly clay (and rocks). I'm not worried about trying to farm anything on it but I think we may as well try to improve the soil where we can with a cover crop, so my question is what would have a root system that may penetrate some of that clay over time? I've heard that alfalfa and clover both go deep and help the soil. Is that true and what else would work? Rye?

Thanks.

phil n

paul · Jun 2, 2015

Well technically, trees are about as deep rooted as it gets so you had a deep rooted crop there?

Alfalfa grows deeper and fatter every year, so if you plant alfalfa and let it be 3-5 years, that is as good as it gets.

Rye sends down fine roots and is a great companion crop, grows anywhere and tough.

Clover is finer roots not as deep, but is a good cover.

If you need to kill ever year or fit into a shorter timeframe, tillage radish in late summer or fall, and turnips any time, are real good at sending a
small tap root down deep and pulling up any nutrients it finds down there into the tuber at the surface. They mix well with rye or cheap oats to
make a nice mix of cover crop.

In my oats field I mix in some plow down blend (seed store mixes cheap alfalfa seed and clover seeds) with some turnip seed, plant it all in
early spring, swath and combine the oats, bale the straw, let it grow some, the lost oats seeds reseed if we catch a rain, and is get some nice
fall grazing for the cattle from the clover, alfalfa, turn up tops and bulbs, and regrow oats. It would make a fine green cover without the grazing.

Paul

tomNE · Jun 2, 2015

Rapeseed! lots of seed per lb and it's root system penatates down and the roots let moisture into the subsoil.

phil_n · Jun 2, 2015

Thanks. Any idea if one of them is more 'aggressive' than another in the sense of competing with existing growth? I can't get in to plow it (partly because I don't have a plow yet

) so I'll just be broadcasting by hand over top of the weeds and shrubs that are there now.

The trees here don't seem to send down tap roots so much - one of them blew over in the wind the other day and pulled the roots right out of the ground.

paul · Jun 2, 2015

Perhaps timing will be more of a problem for you.

In early spring you can frost seed, or seed before things green up, with rye, oats, and the rest, and they will sprout and compete with whatever
else comes up.

Now, we are into early summer, and the weeds growing are there and toughened up, they will steal the water away from any seeds you put out
and laugh at the weakling sprouts as the weeds crowd them out and smother them.

If this were April you woulda had some options. Now, well you can toss seed out and hope and pray we have unusual weather that lets it
work....

Paul

Deep rooted cover

phil_n

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paul

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tomNE

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phil_n

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paul

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