By Michael Hsu
For the first time, farmers in California and throughout the West have a decision-support tool that recommends cover-crop species based on growers’ unique situations and goals.
“This tool is the first of its kind – publicly available, free to use, and validated by experts in the Western region, about Western cropping systems,” said Sarah Light, University of California Cooperative Extension agronomy farm advisor for Sutter, Yuba and Colusa counties.
Light, president of the Western Cover Crops Council that spearheaded the project, is the principal investigator on the tool, which can be found at: https://westerncovercrops.org/decision-tools/.
With this addition of the Western region (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming), the resource now includes all 50 states.
Light credited a broad coalition of partners for their input and guidance in completing the two-year project – farmers, academics, technical assistance providers, seed company representatives and other agency and industry personnel.
“This project was a collaboration between the Western Cover Crops Council, Precision Sustainable Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service,” she said. “This partnership enabled the project’s success, as the WCCC verified the data, while PSA provided technical expertise around data stewardship and website development.”
Tool offers recommendations, database of suitable cover-crop species
Cover crops can provide a wide range of benefits for growers and the environment, such as improving soil health, suppressing weeds, reducing erosion and sheltering pollinators. But choosing specific species from an enormous palette can be daunting.
“When farmers start using cover crops, they always ask what cover crops to start with,” said Nick Andrews, Oregon State University organic vegetable Extension specialist and Western Cover Crops Council secretary. “That’s always a complex decision to make, because it depends on their reasons for cover cropping, their soil and climate, when they can grow cover crops during the year, and other factors.”
After pulling in auto-populated soil and climatic data at a given location, the new online tool allows farmers to select up to three goals for their cover crops and adjust settings tailored to their own operation and setting. The tool then generates a custom list of recommended cover crops, which are sortable by goal priorities and filterable by a variety of characteristics.
Source : ucanr.edu