Effect of cover crop species composition on biomass production and soil quality

Abstract

The experiment [was] conducted in the field of American Farm school. The study area is the cover crops as single species and as mixtures and how they can operate in an Agricultural System. The cover crops can prevent Νitrogen(N) leaching and help in the accumulation of the soil Nitrogen and thus improve the soil structure. Something else is that they are important for the biodiversity and this is a very important aspect for the agricultural sustainability, because this is the key to the maintenance of the world. By the experiment, there were measurements for the total fresh biomass, legume and grasses biomass and Nitrogen, Carbon and C/N ratio, was conducted that legumes and grasses can affect the system. The conclusions of the results found that the legumes don’t contribute as much as grasses in the total biomass and the mixtures that contained more grasses had better results. From the single cover crops Triticale had the higher amount of biomass. In the other measurements of the Nitrogen, Carbon and C/N ratio there weren’t many differences, and this might be due to the microclimate, the period of the cover crops cultivated and the break out of Covid 19 in the spring of 2020 that the experiment took place.