Evaluating Multispecies Cover Crops for Forage Production

Cover Crops in Sustainable Food Production

Cover crops are important components of sustainable agricultural systems. They increase surface residue and aid in the reduction of soil erosion. They improve the structure and water-holding capacity of the soil and thus increase the effectiveness of applied N fertilizer. Legume cover crops such as hairy vetch and crimson clover fix nitrogen and contribute to the nitrogen requirements of subseq...

Breeders Workgroup Legume Breeding and their Utilization as Forage and Cover Crops

Cxciii. the Composition of Forage Crops

MANY papers dealing with the composition and digestibility of forage crops are to be found in the literature, but the analyses are usually restricted to those few groups included in the conventional methods of agricultural analysis. These rarely extend beyond the determination of ash, or mineral constituents, crude protein, crude fibre and ether-soluble material. The sum of these analyses is fa...

Conservation Tillage Corn and Forage Crops

Several reduced, or conservation tillage (CT) approaches are currently being evaluated in Central Valley forage production systems. In theory, these practices reduce costs and minimize the time needed to go from one crop to the next. Recent single-year trials with dairy forage producers in Stanislaus and Tulare Counties have evaluated the potential of several CT systems and have identified a nu...

Evaluation of Cross-fertilization in Forage Crops

In the improvement of forage crop varieties knowledge of~e .extent of cross-fertilization is of value for (1) de~g the extent and randomness of crossing in breedmg procedures, (2) estimating varietal changes due to contamination and mechanical mixtures, and (3) evaluating effects of cross,fertilization in the development and production of synthetic and hybrid combinations. Genetic markers can a...