If you’re wondering which cover crop might be best for your farm, you’ll want to check out the Cover Crop Chart from the USDA’s Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory.
The interactive PDF outlines more than 50 cover crop options, from alfalfa and clovers to barley, oats, millet and more.
Click on the crop of choice—say, cereal rye—and you’ll go to a quick list of growing requirements and attributes as well as a few photos. Cereal rye, for example, is a self-pollinator that’s “rated ‘very good’ at scavenging nitrogen from the soil.”
The chart also provides crop sequence effects for various plants, in case you are unsure how plant residue might affect the performance of a particular cover crop.
You can download the chart here. You may need to provide a limited amount of personal information to o access it.
