b'Are Cover Crops an Answer to Mitigating Climate Change?THERE IS Alot of talk about climate change. Many people point to agriculture as one of the potential sources to the answer of mitigating it. Carbon dioxide is usually talked about as the bad greenhouse gas. Agriculture has an excellent answer to help balance atmospheric CO .2Photosynthesis is the process of combining CO2and water in a plants chlorophyll to produce sugar KEVIN ELMY and oxygen. When a plant is in the vegetative stage, it Elmy is founder ofwill release up to 80% of the sugar and other carbon-Cover Crops Canada.based compounds into the soil to feed soil biology. His book CoverOver a plants life, it will release between 30% and 50% Cropping in Westernof the total carbon pulled out of the air as root exu-Canada is availabledates.through FriesenIn the past, organic matter was thought to be built Press, Amazon, andfrom the above-ground plant residues. Research has digitally throughshown that up to 80% of the carbon in the above-ground Apple Books, Kindle,parts of the plant are lost to the atmosphere. How stable and Google Play.organic matter is made is through root exudates and a healthy functioning soil microbial population.One of the ways to capture COand store it is 2through plants, especially plants in the vegetative stage. Cash cropping annual species has most plantsBy including a cover crop as either a relay cover crop or a in the vegetative stage for 30-40 days. This is wherepost-harvest cover crop, we allow usable root exudates cover crops have potential for agricultural producers toto be released for more days of the year by feeding more crank up their carbon sequestration.soil microbes, building organic matter, and sequestering By including a cover crop as either a relay cover cropcarbon by having a vegetative plant growing.or a post-harvest cover crop, we allow usable root exu-dates to be released for more days of the year by feeding more soil microbes, building organic matter, and seques- Using cover crops will help get more carbon into tering carbon by having a vegetative plant growing. the soil, assuming goals are set and appropriate spe-By increasing the amount of carbon held in ourcies are utilized. Species used as cover crops should soil, the soil health rises. Increases in health come fromhave delayed maturity, be low growing so as not to feeding the soil microbiology, stronger soil aggrega- interfere with harvest, should support mycorrhizal tion, quicker water infiltration, improved drought toler- fungi and tie up excess nutrients (but at the same time ance and a lot more. Meanwhile, the COis removedbe able to release them as the crop requires them, and 2from the atmosphere. With the increase of carbon into continue to feed the soil biology root exudates).the soil, the soil will be able to hold more moisture.By making this one addition to our current manage-Water actually contributes more as a greenhouse gasment, we can make a difference in both the soil health than what COdoes. Plus, having more moisture in ourand also help to mitigate climate change. Getting 2soils will help plants produce under times of reducedcarbon into the soil is a win for everyone. Keeping a rainfall. That is the end goal of decreasing atmosphericvegetative plant growing for as many days as possible CO . is one of the keystones of soil health principles.SW2OCTOBER 2021SEEDWORLD.COM /43'