Do Cover Crops and Reduced Tillage Modify Soil Microbial Dynamics and Increase Vegetable Productivity?.

Cover crops are an important component of sustainable agroecosystems. Cover crops improve soil structure, prevent erosion, reduce weeds, help to retain water and nutrients, and reduce surface and groundwater pollution. We hypothesize that a correlation also exists between cover crops, soil microbial community composition and crop health. Our primary goal is to determine if judicious selection of cover crops and reduced soil tillage can promote healthier soils and increase crop productivity. We will evaluate this by quantifying populations of beneficial and detrimental fungi and bacteria, tracking total soil microbial diversity and measuring disease incidence in vegetable crops following plantings of various cover crop species, with and without soil tillage in field trials. We will also conduct greenhouse trials to investigate the relationship between soil microbial community dynamics in response to cover crops and other organic amendments, and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) genotype on resistance to Early Blight (Alternaria solani).