Sudangrass and Sorghum Sudangrass Hybrids As Summer Cover Crops for Rotational Plantings and Soil Health Improvement

Sorghum and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids (Sorghum bicolor X S. sudanense) can be used as summer annual cover crops in vegetable crop rotations since they may fit into a second crop or in between crop. They may increase soil organic matter when grown properly and incorporated. Sudangrass and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids are annual warm season grasses that are heat and drought tolerant; making excellent summer cover crop choices. Both can grow from 1.83m to 2.44m tall and produce large amounts of dry matter. Management considerations, like providing nitrogen fertility and mowing to increase biomass production via regrowth, can increase organic matter contribution to soil. Both of these cover crops winter kill with the first hard rost. Sundangrass and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids offer several benefits as a cover crop. They can be used to store residual nitrogen, suppress weeds, improve soil quality, and may suppress some nematodes. Research and grower experiences with sudangrass and sorghum-sudangrass for summer cover croppping has proven effective in improving soil health and subsequent crop yields and quality. Researched showed, when grown for a 62 day period, at a seeding rate of 56.7kg/ha, on sandy loam soils in Southern New Jersey, sudangrass (Sorghum bicolor var. sudanense) cv. 'Piper', yielded 4,022.23kg/ha dry matter. Although shown to provide multiple benefits, even when grown for a short period during a production system, wide scale adoption of sudangrass and sorghum-sudangrass hybrids has not occurred. The reason is mainly due to farmer time management in summer. Increased promotion and education about this practice is needed. For more information see the Rutgers NJAES fact sheet 994 at http://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/publication.asp?pid=FS994.