CHAPTER XI 

 COVER CROPS 



An orchard cover crop is a crop that is grown among the trees in 

 the orchard, during the normal seasons of tillage, for the purpose of 

 serving as a mulch and helping to provide plant food. Technically 

 considered, an orchard cover crop is a crop that is grown for the 

 benefit of the trees during the late summer and fall, and is left on 

 the ground through the winter and worked into the soil in the spring. 

 It is not a crop at all in the sense that it is to be removed from 

 the land like grain or forage ; neither should it be confused with a 

 permanent sod of grass. The growing of cover crops in the late 

 summer and early fall presupposes some sort of cultivation during 

 the spring and early summer. 



Benefits derived from cover crops. Some of the benefits to be 

 derived from the growing of a cover crop in the orchard are 

 summarized below : 



i . A heavy growth of herbage will have a tendency to prevent 

 deep freezing of the soil, especially in those sections where the 

 bare ground is exposed to low temperatures either through lack of 

 snow or through the action of the winds in blowing the snow away. 



2. The roots of plants and their growth aboveground help to 

 keep the soil from being washed or worn away. This retention of 

 the soil aids greatly in preventing the roots of the apple trees from 

 being exposed and injured by freezing. 



3. When the mass of plant material, either green or dead, that 

 has been grown for a cover crop is plowed under, it adds to the 

 soil that very important factor, humus-making material. By this 

 means the physical condition of the soil is in time greatly improved. 



4. Stiff clay soils are so much improved by a few years of cover 

 crops plowed under that they are subsequently much easier to 

 work. As a result, the time and cost of doing the necessary work 

 is lessened. 



