Ithaca, New York, USA
June 10, 2010

Cornell researchers will study the use of cover crops in organic farming and how different organic farming practices affect yields, both with new funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Organic Research and Extension Initiative (USDA-OREI).

"Organic agriculture research has taken a long time to be taken seriously in the scientific community, though there are a great number of interesting scientific questions well-suited for study, and now we are getting real money to do that research," said Thomas Bjorkman, associate professor of vegetable crop physiology, who is project director for an $894,000 four-year grant from the USDA-OREI to study how summer cover crops such as buckwheat, sorghum-sudangrass and mustard can improve the biological processes underlying organic agriculture and how to transfer such knowledge to farmers.

Cover crops not only provide soil cover but also can suppress weeds, improve the supply of air, water and nutrients in soil and limit soil erosion, all of which are major challenges facing organic farmers.

"We'd like to see cover cropping as something that organic farmers do as a matter of standard practice," said Bjorkman, who is collaborating with co-project directors John Masiunas at University of Illinois-Urbana and Dan Brainard at Michigan State University. "It's effective, economical and not too complicated."

The research will determine appropriate production procedure, seeding
and planting dates, and expected benefits to farmers from cover
cropping. The researchers also will work with farmers to find the
easiest methods for integrating such crops into their production
systems.

"We want people to have success from the get-go," said Bjorkman.

The researchers are also developing a training curriculum for
extension advisers so they might provide the best possible support to
growers, said Bjorkman. And, the project will seek to make organic
cover crop seeds available at reasonable prices.

"We began the research component on university farms this spring and
are starting to work with growers to incorporate summer cover crops
in their systems," said Bjorkman.

Charles Mohler, a senior research associate in the Department of Crop
and Soil Sciences, also received a four-year USDA-OREI grant for $1.4
million to continue two experiments, one for grains and the other for
vegetables, that began in 2005 to compare various organic growing
strategies.

"We are mimicking what four different farmers would do, for both
experiments," to see which methods maximize net profits, effectively
cycle nutrients and build healthy soil, said Mohler.

In the grain experiment, the four strategies include: high nutrient
input with poultry manure compost; a very low-input "bare-bones"
system; intensive weed management with extra cultivation and high
tillage; and a reduced tillage system that saves energy costs and
time. Grains planted in a three-year rotation include soybeans, spelt
and corn, with legume green manures that supply nitrogen for all
systems.

The vegetable experiment uses four-year rotations of winter squash
(delicata), cabbage, lettuce and potatoes. The four growing
strategies include: an intensive management system that uses high
compost rates to produce six crops in four years; an intermediate
intensity system with the basic rotation of one crop a year and
legume cover crops; a low intensity system that has one vegetable
crop every other year, with cover crops and a period of bare fallow
to reduce the weed seed bank; and a reduced tillage system with cover
crops and vegetables planted in the bases of soil ridges.

In both experiments the researchers track soil nutrients, nutrient
cycling budgets, weed populations, indicators of soil quality and
economics to better understand the ecology of organic agriculture.

Website: http://www.cornell.edu

Published: June 10, 2010