Novel Cover Crop Planting Equipment and Methods for Vegetables and Strawberries.

Cover cropping can provide a multitude of benefits such as nitrate scavenging, weed suppression and on-farm carbon production to improve the sustainability of high-value, high-input vegetable and strawberry production systems in the central coast region of California. One way to possibly increase the adoption of this best management practice in organic and conventional systems is to develop novel approaches and equipment for cover cropping in these tillage-intensive systems. This equipment would provide an alternatives to standard cover crop planters such grain drills that are not designed for planting on fields with beds. This presentation will highlight on-going efforts to evaluate novel equipment that has been developed at the USDA-ARS in Salinas California for planting cover crops on (1) standard vegetable production beds, and (2) in the furrow bottoms of plastic mulch covered strawberry beds. This equipment can facilitate the use of lower seeding rates, precise weed control, and water-efficient ways of cover crop establishment before the onset of winter rainfall.