Crimson clover may be used as a cover crop, green manure, pasture, or hay. It often is used as a winter annual cover crop in annual rotations. It has been used successfully in reduced-tillage farming systems, and in orchards and vineyards where it can be managed to reseed itself.
Fava bean is used as a winter or spring cover crop, green manure, silage, forage, hay, and vegetable. It is capable of producing large amounts of dry matter and accumulating large quantities of nitrogen (N), part of which is available to subsequent crops.
Hairy vetch is used as a cover crop, green manure, pasture, silage, and hay. It is capable of accumulating large amounts of dry matter and nitrogen. When planted alone as a winter cover crop in annual vegetable rotations, it can provide substantial amounts of nitrogen (N) to a following crop.
Field pea can be used as a cover crop, green manure, forage, hay, and silage. Hay is good quality, but pea is more succulent than vetches and more difficult to cure. Regrowth after mowing or grazing is poor.
Annual ryegrass is an erect, robust cool-season bunch grass that reaches a height of 3 to 4 feet. Plants are yellowish-green at the base and have 12-inch long glossy leaves. This species has a heavy, extensive, fibrous root system.
Cereal grains are grasses and may have a prostrate, semierect, or erect physical stature. All have fibrous root systems.
Barley, oats, triticale, and wheat are each comprised of hundreds of varieties whose growth characteristics vary considerably.
Buckwheat is not likely to increase
soil organic matter content much
because dry matter production is
relatively low and tissues are succulent
and decompose very rapidly
when incorporated. However,
buckwheat can improve short-term
soil tilth and has been used to
prepare fields for transplants.
Cereal rye is an erect annual grass with greenish blue, flat blades and an extensive fibrous root system. It resembles wheat, but usually is taller (3–5 ft) and tillers less. Flowering is induced by 14 hours of light in spring.