How Cover Crops Make Healthier Soil

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Right now is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme and cruel agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability at the polls and in the press has a fighting chance. We have our work cut out for us, and we still need to raise upwards of 400,000 by June 30 to give it everything we can. Please help:

Also read Tom Philpott’s story on no-till, cover-crop farming evangelist David Brandt.

1. After the harvest, the farmer plants a cover crop, which sucks CO₂ out of the atmosphere. (Some—like legumes—also enrich the soil with nitrogen.)

2. The cover crop dies, leaving behind organic matter that makes soil more fertile, keeps weeds from growing, and moderates soil temperature.

3. The soil is not tilled before planting cash crops like corn or soybeans so that buried organic matter won’t oxidize CO₂, and soil-enriching microbes and worms are preserved.

4. Over time, cover crops create a layer of carbon-rich topsoil (humus) resistant to both drought and erosion.