Ground cover

Full ground cover is a key tactic in reducing weed problems. A crop seldom uses all the nutrients, moisture and light available to it. As a result there are opportunities for other plants, which often turn out to be weeds.

Weeds often establish on bare ground because they are adapted to it better than most crop and pasture plants are. Weeds can establish where they weren't before because there is a gap in the ground cover and

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Nature will fill any vacuum.

Unfortunately, nature will not fill it with a wheat plant and probably not with a pasture plant, except for some of the more aggressive ones, such as subterranean clover. Nature will however fill it with whatever lands there on the wind and is able to work there. As far as any farmer is concerned that is most likely to be a weed.

When plants cover every scrap of ground from one boundary to the other throughout the year, they guard every bit of the soil from weed invasion. Whenever there is a gap for part of the year in just a small area, weeds can take that spot.

The trick is to maintain full ground cover of living plants year round if you can. If you can't cover all the ground with actively-growing plants, at least have plants that are taking up space in the ground and dormant until the new season and new growth starts. And if you can't do that because of conditions, at least maintain a good coverage of Litter to get all of its protective benefits as well as any potential Allelopathy to suppress germination and/or growth.

Related info:

Green manures

Green manures in orchards and vineyards

Green manures under sweet corn or tomatoes

Squeezing a green manure in

Return a third to the soil



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This page was updated on December 27, 2007