Green Manuring Seeds and Mixtures

Green Manures are good for your soils and must be seen as an investment for your future cropping results.  It’s likely though that Green Manuring will become a greater part of the agricultural landscape in the UK and it is something that the EU are looking at very closely and may in the future be seen as good farming practice helping  prevent Soil Erosion and leaching after crops such as Maize for example. It may perhaps eventually become part of EU compliance.

Green manure crops are sown to enrich the soils to improve soil tilth – adding organic matter to the soil is a measure taken to benefit future crops-  see them as an investment into your soils for better future results.

Green Manuring is a technique that has been used by our farming  ”fore fathers”  over generations for very  good reasons – our predecessors could see yield benefits in crops that followed the green manure
process.

Green manures are sown and grow very quickly and reliably to a crop that after ploughing under, and incorporation into the soil, prevent leaching of Nitrogen and can actually slowly release the Nitrogen it absorbed back into the soil over a much longer period of time.

It’s known that soils can still  benefit from the release of Nitrogen from some green manures  up to 160 days after incorporation.

Green manures can help suppress weedage by smothering weeds out and can in some cases add natural fertility and they certainly deter pests such as soil borne nematodes.

Worthy of note would be Mustard, Hungarian Grazing rye and Vetches.

Mustard: a vivid yellow flowering brassica that smothers weedage and can easily be incorporated, some substantial Gamecover and shooting fringe benefits from this very cost effective crop.

All Mustard varieties have some help against Wireworm and many varieties used by Hurrells also have nematode control benefits too as required in many European countries.

We recommend the varieties of Mustard  Zlata and Asta that are well proven and offer some degree of early winter tolerance though no variety is winter persistent.

Hungarian Grazing Rye One of the best green manures for winter use.  Sow in August/September, or as late as October in the South.  A good cover crop to prevent nutrient-leaching a cereal that has enormous capacity for growth in very cold soils and can be also grazed as an early bite or in some winters all through the winter time. Obviously this helps suppress weeds. The final outturn of organic matter can then be ploughed under for increase in soil quality.

Vetches:    very useful legume capable of fixing more Nitrogen than almost any other – useful not just as a stand alone but can be used with Hungarian Grazing Rye or a Ryegrass, for excellent results. Vetches are a member of the Pea family and can be very useful as a weed suppressant.  Vetches  grow with intertwining tendrils like peas and can fix 200kilo/acre of Nitrogen. The crop  should take 2-3 months to maturity and is especially useful to break up and grow on heavy soils. Not excessive amounts of biomass produced but a very high producer of Nitrogen.

We recommend continental varieties such as Candy.

View our full range of Green Manuring Seeds and Mixture by clicking here