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Estimating Plant-Available Nitrogen Release from Cover Crops

Dan Sullivan and, Nick Andrews (November, 2012)

Summary

Cover crops provide many benefits: reduced soil erosion, improved soil tilth, and increased soil biological activity, to name a few. Legume cover crops are especially important for maintaining nutrient balance in organic cropping systems because they are one of the few organic inputs that supply nitrogen (N) without phosphorus (P) or potassium (K). Cereal cover crops are planted mainly with two goals: (1) maintaining vegetative cover in winter (to reduce soil erosion) and (2) to take up residual soil nitrate-N from the summer crop that might otherwise leach to groundwater.