- Author: Ben Faber
Lockeford Plant Materials Center
Cover Crop and Soil Health Field Day
April 6, 2022 - 10 -12pm
Agenda
Fava Bean Advantages in Cover Crop Mixes – Hossein Zackeri, Chico State
Cover Crop performance for the Central Valley - Tom Johnson, Kamprath Seed
Conservation Cover Study – Perennial planting for orchards and vineyards – Margaret Smither-Kopperl, NRCS
Field Border Study in the Healthy Soils Program – Anthony Fulford, UCANR
Changes to Soil Health at the PMC - Demonstration - Z. Kabir, NRCS
Location: Lockeford PMC, 21001 N. Elliott Rd., Lockeford, CA 95237
Please Register for the event here: https://surveys.ucanr.edu/survey.cfm?surveynumber=36926
- Author: Kevin Fontana Fantinatti, Sonja Brodt, Vivian Wauters
In late February, in an almond orchard in the Sacramento Valley, the fall-planted cover crop mix of grasses, brassicas and legumes had barely produced a green fuzz above the soil surface, and it was unclear when it would bloom.
Unfortunately, this scene is becoming more frequent across California, as climate change causes more prolonged droughts and rain-dependent winter cover crops can barely grow, which delays or reduces bloom, essential for supporting pollinators.
Fortunately, California native plant species have evolved with drought and have developed many strategies to survive and reproduce in those conditions.
Would it be possible to capitalize on the over 9 million acres of cropland in California for drought resilience and habitat restoration by utilizing more native species as cover crops? Our team at the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (UC SAREP) spent some time considering various native plant species and their potential ecological and operational attributes as cover crops. For a full list of species and their attributes, see https://ucanr.edu/sites/covercrops/.
Many native species are so well adapted to drought that they will still germinate and bloom during extremely dry years, for example, annuals like Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa) and California poppy (Eschscholzia californica). Alternatively, perennial bulb species like Prettyface (Triteleia ixioides) and Bluedicks (Dipteronstemon capitatus) become dormant during the dry summer, retaining their bulbs below ground and re-growing when the rains return.
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These species could perhaps fit well in no-till orchard systems. Summer dormancy is important for tree nut growers because they usually need clean ground under the trees during harvest. Moreover, the costs to terminate and reseed would potentially be eliminated. While these species are well-known by Native Americans for their edible bulbs, at this point in time, we are not aware of any cover cropping trials having ever been conducted with these species.
A harvestable product
Cover crops are not usually considered marketable crops. However, we should not preclude the potential for some plants that are useful as cover crops to provide a harvestable product as well.
Native perennial fiber plants such as Indian hemp dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum), narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepsias fascicularis), and common nettle (Urtica dioica) could offer the opportunity to cultivate summer cover crops that have a market value, especially in cases where farmers are already willing to irrigate their cover crops to improve their development and amplify the benefits.
Bowles Farming in the San Joaquin Valley is experimenting with growing these three species for fiber production. All three also attract native bees and important butterfly species such as monarchs (as long as farmers avoid spraying insecticides).
While we believe that some native species could open new opportunities for farmers as cover crops, we still have insufficient studies testing the effects and viability of these species.
Organizations like the NRCS Plant Materials Center at Lockeford and the Xerces Society are conducting practical studies with native species, creating plant guides and working with farmers to expand their use. In addition, researchers Lauren Hale of the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Anil Shrestha of California State University, Fresno, are using a 2021 UC SAREP small grant to study the effects of native species mixes on water demand and weed populations in San Joaquin Valley grape vineyards.
Hale suggests that below-ground ecosystems may benefit as much from native plants as above-ground ecosystems. Says Hale, “Because plants and their microbiomes have evolved together for millennia, it seems logical that native plants would promote a good response from the native soil microbiota.”
For additional information:
UC SAREP List of California Native Species for Potential Use as Cover Crops: https://ucanr.edu/sites/covercrops/
Xerces Society lists of pollinator-friendly native species for California: https://xerces.org/pollinator-resource-center/california
NRCS California Plant Materials Center plant guides: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/publications/plantmaterials/pmc/west/capmc/pub/
UC SAREP Cover Crops Database: https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/covercrop
- Author: Ben Faber
Save the Date!
October 31, 9am – 11am
Hansen Agricultural Research and Extension Center
287 S Briggs Rd, Santa Paula
Come gather around a cover crop demonstration for a discussion on cover crop seed selections, appropriate mixes for different cropping systems, and management issues. Other soil health topics include compost applications, Healthy Soils grant opportunities, and technical assistance availability.
This event is free and open to anyone interested in soil health. Please spread the word!
More information to follow, if you can join us please RSVP here:
- Author: Guy B. Kyser
Puncturevine (Tribulus terrestris) kept a low profile during the drought years but seems to have exploded following this year's rains. (It is still ‘lying low', so to speak, but there is a lot more of it.)
Also known as goatheads or caltrop, puncturevine is a prostrate annual that produces large, hard, spiked seeds. The seeds disseminate by sticking to animals, tires, and feet, and can easily puncture bike and ATV tires. I tried to do a puncturevine study once but couldn't get the seeds to germinate; my theory now is that the seeds have to be run over by a vehicle before they'll sprout. Conveniently, the plant is commonly found along dirt roads, on roadsides, and on the edges of ag fields.
Puncturevine is native to southern Eurasia and Africa. It is in the plant family Zygophyllaceae, which also includes the creosote bush native to the Mojave Desert.
Extracts from puncturevine seed and other plant parts are available as a dietary supplement, and are reputed to boost virility. I'm guessing this is a holdover from the old medical idea of homology, where the shape of a plant suggested the ailment it was supposed to cure. And the puncturevine seed looks sort of like a goat head, and goats are, you know, lusty. However, WebMD says “Taking tribulus as a supplement for a short time is probably safe, provided that you're healthy and you are not pregnant or breastfeeding.” Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Two species of weevil from puncturevine's native range have been introduced into the U.S. They help keep puncturevine populations in check but they seem to be locked in a boom-and-bust cycle with the plant: when puncturevine populations crash, so do the weevils, and the plant resurges the following year.
More information on this species, including methods for control, are available in a Weed Report at the Weed Research and Information Center and in UC-ANR's Pest Notes.
- Author: Ben Faber
Problem: There was a Valencia farmer in Ojai, farming on a rocky loam. More rocky than loam, on a 10 % slope, where he had been spraying the weeds down, the soil had gradually washed away and all he had left was scattered cobbles.
Solution: He planted a winter cover crop to protect the soil from erosion. He weed whipped it three times a year because that's all he could afford.
Result: After two years he had stopped the erosion, and there was actually a little duff layer forming in the orchard from the decomposing ground cover.
Problem: But now that wonderful cover crop and the cover it provided had attracted gophers that were chewing on the trees and because of inattention had killed a few of them. He couldn't trap fast enough.
Solution: He brought in a ‘Jack Russell' terrier that did a marvelous job at keeping the beasts down.
Problem: About the same time he noticed that he was getting gobs of snails that were getting into the trees. Even though he had lifted the skirts and painted copper on the trunks, they were still getting into the trees. He couldn't keep up with the winter weeds.
Solution: He brought in weeder geese to help with the ground cover and chickens to help with the snails and they worked.
Problem: Now the terrier is distracted by the fowl and is killing the chicks and goslings, as well as the gophers. In fact, he would prefer chasing the fowlings to going after gophers.
Solution: He tied a tether ball around the terrier's neck which slowed it down enough so that the young ones could get away.
Problem: Also with the introduction of birds, he also brought in coyotes which killed the larger birds.
Solution: He brought in a ‘Queensland Heeler' which is a bred that is noted for killing dingos in Australia. They are short-legged, barrel chested dogs that roll over on their back and pretend to be dead and when the coyote comes sniffing around, it grabs the coyote's neck and kills it.
Problem: What's next in this cause and effect chain of events?
This is a true story, but in today's world because of Food Safety and Good Agricultural Practices Certification would not happen with all these animals in the orchard, but something like it happens every time we overturn the flow of events. This is not the only scenario that is played out in agriculture. But hey, that's what a good grower is doing, managing a somewhat chaotic chain of events.