Sustainable Agriculture

Growing certain types of plants close to each other can help reduce pest pressure, provide habitat for beneficial insects, and even increase crop productivity.

A cover crop is a plant that is primarily planted to slow soil erosion, improve soil health, enhance water availability, suppress weeds, help control pests and disease, increase biodiversity, and bring a plethora of other benefits to your farm. 

Cover crops are typically grown in the off-season before a field is needed or part of a field's crop rotation.  Covers crops are an indispensible tool for sustainable agriculture.  There is extreme variety when it comes to the types of species planted as cover crops.  Some common cover crops include winter rye, oats, buckwheat, red clover, vetch, beans, daikon radish, and mustards.

Cover crops have been shown to:

• Increase yield
• Protect against soil loss - by keeping roots in the soil year-round
• Improve soil fertility by increasing soil organic matter and with legume cover crops adding nitrogen to the soil
• Improve moisture availability especially during erratic weather
• Suppress Weeds
• Control infestations of pests and diseases

For more information on cover crops visit the SARE Learning Center Cover Crop Topic Room

Growing a greater diversity of crops allows farmers to reap the environmental advantages of longer, more complex crop rotations.  A common crop rotation in Nebraska is a 2-year rotation of corn and soybeans.  However, to maintain productivity over the long-term and reduce use of synthetic chemicals, more complex rotations are needed. Research shows that diverse crop rotations (multi-year, multi-crop rotations) will:

1. Manage pests and weeds with less dependence on chemical pesticides,
2. Ehnance soil fertility with less need for synthetic fertilizers, 
3. Produce good yields for each crop in the rotation.  

Diversity is an ecosystem's natural defense mechanism against pest and diseases. Diversity in genetics, micro-organisms, plant species, colors, insects, and all forms of life have multiple benefits. 

Grass-fed cows add natural fertility to the land for the following season. Photo Courtesy of Dan Hromas of Prairie Pride Acres.

Basil plants in a hydroponic set up at Paradigm Gardens in Omaha, Nebraska.  Hydroponics is a system of growing plants without soil, using nutrient solutions for fertility and recycing water.  Indoor hydroponic systems in Nebraska on the commercial scale or home gardener scale allow for year-round production, reduced water use, and protection from the elements. 

Can you spot the ladybug on the basil leaf?

Indoor growing systems are still susceptible to pest issues.  One common vegetable pest in greenhouses and hydroponic growing systems are aphids.  Instead of using synthetic pesticides, Paradigm Gardens encourages natural predators, like ladybugs, to control aphid populations!  A single ladybug can eat up to 5,000 aphids in its lifetime! 

Photo Courtesy of Paradigm Gardens.

"We use rotational grazing and more specifically strip-grazing, using a single strand of electric fence we focus our cows to a specific area and move them every single day. The benefits to this approach include more uniform grazing (the cows eat most if not all plants in each grazing cell, rather than eating just what they like), more uniform manure distribution, helps disrupt the parasite cycle, and provides the cows with high quality forage each day. The purpose of all this is to help rebuild the soil in our pastures, which then increases the water retention potential of the pastures, and also increases the overall forage base of our small pastures. We try to give 30 days rest between each area we graze, but we also try to be as adaptive as possible, paying close attention to what the grass is telling us and adjusting our grazing time/size etc to the current conditions."

- Bill Alward of Little Mountain Ranch & Garden, Fort Calhoun NE