Leguminous Green Manure Plants

Legumes are plants whose roots work with the bacteria in the soil to grab nitrogen in the atmosphere.

Leguminous green manure plants. Green manures work by drawing goodness out of the soil and storing it in the plant s cells and root nodules. Legume green manure crops provide cover and promote soil retention by helping to build soil structure. Green manure cover crops referred to hereafter as gmccs are plants used to cover and improve the soil as well as to positively impact the ecology of the land and other crop plants. The charity garden organic recently found that growing green manure can reduce the loss of the key nutrient nitrogen in the soil by up to 97 percent compared to soil left bare.

Planting cover crops some gardeners sow cover crops plants in spring especially in new garden plots to improve the soil and choke out weeds. The seed is also called a pulse legumes are grown agriculturally primarily for human consumption for livestock forage and silage and as soil enhancing green manure well known legumes include alfalfa clover beans peas chickpeas lentils lupins. Erosion control fallow operations especially tillage can leave the soil exposed to wind and water erosion. Disease control legume green manures provide a break in cereal and oilseed crop rotations to help minimize disease pressure.

So green manures seem to be the perfect solution. This performs the vital function of fertilization. Green manures belonging to the pea and bean family legumes have the additional capacity of storing fixing nitrogen from the air to their root nodules but only in summer. Used to refer to a plant that has its seeds in a pod such as the bean or pea.

Green manure is the final product when crops are grown to be sewn back into the soil instead of harvested for human consumption. Grasses such as annual ryegrass oats rapeseed winter wheat and winter rye. Leguminous green manures such as clover and vetch contain nitrogen fixing symbiotic bacteria in root nodules that fix atmospheric nitrogen in a form that plants can use. This is called nitrogen fixating and is helped along by an inoculant or treatment medium to help the legumes work.

Green manures usually perform multiple functions that include soil improvement and soil protection. Nitrogen is a valuable plant nutrient. Types of green manure. Many plants can be used as gmccs but this document focuses on legumes plants belonging to the fabaceae family.

There are two types of green manures. Summer grown green manures such as buckwheat and fenugreek form dense foliage that will effectively suppress weeds.