Exploring Henbit as a Natural Cover Crop
25 Mar 24

Matt delves into henbit as an effective natural cover crop for southern regions, where its growth thrives in winter. Henbit benefits soil health, including erosion control and nutrient cycling and is a practical solution for furrow-irrigated farming.

00:00 So guys, I'm out here. I just wanted to kind of talk about something today. See, behind me here is my cover crop. 00:05 That's the thing that everyone wants to do, is have a cover crop. You know, it's good for your soil, 00:09 it's good to bring nutrients up. It's good for erosion. And I just want you to take a look at what we've got here. 00:15 Um, you know, that's a pretty decent looking cover crop. It covers a whole bed. We're on raised bed. 00:20 So this ground, this fall, when we got through with the crop, we, we put our bed back up and just, you know, put our ditches in the end for the, 00:29 you know, for the drainage. And then we just left it from here. But you can see what kind of cover crop we have behind us 00:34 and, and how thick it is and how good it is. Now. We sprayed this, I don't know, last week. So you can see it starting to kind of die. 00:42 You know, we always learn things from each other in extreme ag and with the extreme ag members 00:46 and the people that, that we work with. This right here is henbit. So this is a absolute free cover crop in the south. 00:55 You know, we're fairly warm temperatures, so, you know, we, we are able to grow things in the winter. 01:00 Pretty good. So my question to you is, if you're in the south, you know, and, and, and, and we need to get in these programs, 01:06 sustainability programs are one of the best things you could ever be in. You know, why can't we get this to be approved as a natural 01:14 cover crop crop? The, the henbit brings nutrients to the ground. It is shallow rooted. There are some cover crops out there 01:20 that are way more beneficial. But with a fur irrigated guy, we have, we struggle with cover crops 'cause we have to have 01:26 that furrow in the middle, you know, to be able to irrigate with our poly pipe. So we always come in here, you know, till our ground, 01:34 you know, get a bed back up after the previous crop, and then we let the natural hem bit come up. You know, sometimes there'll be rye grass, which is terrible 01:43 and, you know, different species and different weeds out here. You know, I'd like for somebody to, to, uh, 01:48 do some research on that and tell me why this wouldn't work, you know, as a cover crop. 01:53 So, and see what your opinions are. I learned as much from you as probably more from you than you learned from me. 01:59 So let me know something.

Growers In This Video

See All Growers