Improving Fall Organic Vegetable Crops with Summer Cover Crops, Poster Board #061

Cover crops and chicken litter compost are two methods used to improve soils and vegetable crop production. A study is underway at Crystal Springs, Mississippi testing the influence of four cover crops: sunn-hemp, sesame, sorghum-sudan grass and a sunn hemp + sesame blend, in combination with four concentrations of chicken litter compost: 0, 1.25, 2.5 and 5.0 tons/acre. The cover crops, in four replicates, were established in Summer 2011, mowed and incorporated in. The chicken litter concentrations were applied within each subplot and tilled before bedding of Broccoli cv. marathon. Soil tests were done before and after the cover crop was incorporated, total tissue analysis was done on cover crop haulms and the harvested broccoli was weighed and counted in marketable and unmarketable groups. While the lowest yield resulted from sorghum with no chicken litter compost, the highest yield resulted from sunn hemp with 2.5 t/acre chicken compost. Comparing the marketable yield, sorghum with no chicken litter compost produced the lowest and sunn hemp with 2.5 t/acre chicken litter compost had the most.