Cover crops slow erosion, improve soil, smother weeds, enhance nutrient and moisture availability, help control many pests and bring a host of other benefits to your farm. At the same time, they can reduce costs, increase profits and even create new sources of income. You¿ll reap dividends on your cover crop investments for years, since their benefits accumulate over the long term. This book will help you find which ones are right for you. Captures farmer and other research results from the past ten years. The authors verified the info. from the 2nd ed., added new results and updated farmer profiles and research data, and added 2 chap. Includes maps and charts, detailed narratives about individual cover crop species, and chap. about aspects of cover cropping.

Charles Dowding, the UK’s leading no-dig guru shows how to grow a year's worth of healthy, organic crops while preserving the soil's integrity. Using seasonal checklists and expert no-dig advice, this month-by-month journal helps you plan bumper harvests the no-dig way. From tomatoes to basil, carrots to coriander, follow simple steps to find success with growing more than 35 vegetables and herbs. Start a no-dig vegetable plot on virgin or dug ground, improve the soil and become an expert mulcher and weeder, as well as learning the techniques for intercropping, companion planting, seed viability and crop succession. This easy-to-follow step-by-step guide by one of Britain's top gardeners is illustrated with photos to help you learn how to plan a vegetable garden, construct a raised bed, sow seed indoors and outdoors in spring, grow on young crops, protect plants from the weather and pests through the season and, finally, celebrate the joy of harvesting. Organised monthly from January to December, this journal is full of key dates for sowing, staking, harvesting and storing, as well as time-saving monthly checklists to help ensure a successful no-dig harvest.

Over the past 50 years, triazines have made a great impact on agriculture and world hunger by assisting in the development of new farming methods, providing greater farming and land use capabilities, and increasing crop yields. Triazines are registered in over 80 countries and save billions of dollars a year. The Triazine Herbicides is the one book that presents a comprehensive view of the total science and agriculture of these chemicals. With emphasis on how the chemicals are studied and developed, reviewed, and used at the agricultural level this book provides valuable insight into the benefits of triazine herbicides for sustainable agriculture. - Presents previously unpublished information on the discovery, development and marketing of herbicides - Includes a vital section on the origin, use, economics and fate of triazine herbicides - Covers benefits of triazines in corn and sorghum, sugarcane, citrus, fruit and nut crops - Establishes best management practice and environmental benefits of use in conservation tillage

During the last 35 years, green manure/cover crops (gm/ccs) have become recognized widely as an important agricultural technology for the developing world. Millions of farmers use traditional gm/cc systems, and millions more now use systems developed and introduced during the last three decades. Faced with so many promising possibilities, even well-informed agronomists find it difficult to choose the best gm/cc system for a given situation. This happens in part because, unfortunately, some 20 different factors must be considered in selecting the gm/cc systems that will have the greatest potential in any given situation. These factors include everything from local food habits, current market conditions, the dominant cropping systems and the major weeds, to local economic needs, environmental conditions and farmer preferences. Furthermore, the best gm/cc systems almost always include not just one, but several species of gm/cc.

In this lively and inspiring book, veteran horticulturalist Robert Kourik (aka "Bob") unfolds his manifesto of "Inspired Laziness"--using efficiency and forethought to create gardens and landscapes with a lot less work and a lot more enjoyment. By following Kourik's relaxed and readable guidance, both beginning and accomplished gardeners will discover how to save time and money, enrich their soil, increase their yields, and reduce their effort, all while absorbing "Bob's" philosophy of kicking back and growing more good times. Drawing on over four decades of immersing himself in horticultural work (and writing about it), Robert shares his hard-won secrets for the easiest planning, planting, cultivating, landscaping, irrigating, de-pestifying, and finding enjoyment in settings ranging from window-box herbs to showy ornamental plantings to the now-classic "edible landscape." In Lazy-Ass Gardening, you'll learn how to: Ease into gardening, if you're a newbie. Figure out which edibles to raise, with a careful selection of the most care-free varieties and tips for easy growing. Lay out your garden to balance effective growing area with space for enjoyment, relaxation, and play. Cultivate creatively to grow your own nutrients and build healthy self-sustaining (no-till) soil for the future. Attract the best pollinating insects and deter hungry pests. Plan your "hardscape" (paths, patios, arbors, etc.), for an easy-care (and more fun) aspect of your yard or garden. Choose the right plants for your landscape, climate, soil, and water supply, not to mention your aesthetic and nutritional needs. Learn how to develop a personal garden that manifests your own eccentricities. Grow more, stress less.