Subject: Re: looking for a cover/companion crop in corn

From: Elaine Ingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:16:32 -0500

Researchers at Washington State in Pullman have tested and use purselane.  I believe the cultivar they use has a long day requirement to go to seed, so not that much seed is produced.  It is also a short cultivar.  You can drive on it and it survives.  They strip till into the cover crop in the spring and it takes until mid-summer for the purselane to grow back into the row.  They can get on their fields much earlier, because they don't have the mud, and the plants give support to the tires.

If you don't like purselane, investigate other short, good-crown, enough seeds to fill in bare areas, overwinters, doesn't tiller, can be driven on, plants that we have considered weeds up to now.  Try 5 or 6 different "weeds" in different areas of your field to see which works best.  Mix them all together in one area and see if that doesn't work.

Talk to your extension botanist or University plant ecologist about which plants have the characteristics you want.

Don't forget to check out the native species as well, although seed availability can be a limitation.  But if enough folks start doing this, that problem goes away.

Territorial Seed here in Cottage Grove, Oregon would probably help by growing the seed for you, if you contact and talk with them.  But you maybe have a specialty seed company more local you could work with.

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com

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