Tasmanian farm trialling cover crops
Houston's Farm's trial covers nearly six hectares and has been set up to look at how cover crops can be integrated into the farm's production systems, and what effects the various crops might have on soil conditions, disease control and future yields from trial plots.
Crop production manager for Houston's Farm, Petra Doust, said there's nothing new in the concept of cover crops.
"The things that our grandfathers did are the right things — we just have to re-educate ourselves."
Trial plantings started in late December last year and the project will continuously monitor outcomes with the prime focus on improving soil quality.
"What we are finding with the intensive cropping system that we have in place, we deplete soil health — we have very low organic matter and carbon levels in the soil" said Ms Doust.
"We're hoping that we'll get real, beneficial results from it, not just for ourselves but for everyone in agriculture."
source: abc.net.au
