Covering the Bases:Optimizing nitrogen, mulch with perfect proportions.. .and poultry litter

摘要

Most people think farmers grow and harvest crops for food. That's true for many crops: they either feed humans or farm animals. However, there's another category of crop that has a vital function in agricultural systems."Cover crops are usually planted between the regular crop production periods," says Hanna Poffenbarger, a graduate student in the department of agronomy at Iowa State University who researched cover crops in her graduate work at the University of Maryland. "They protect the soil from erosion and take up excess nutrients when the ground would otherwise be bare."