Most farmers are familiar with the benefits of cover crops: they reduce erosion, improve soil health, and help suppress weeds. Cover crops are often incorporated into fields as part of crop rotations, but they can also be planted in the aisles between cash crop beds, providing cover during a time of year when the soil is typically bare. These “living aisles” add additional advantages, such as reducing mud during rainy periods, allowing farmers to access beds when the ground is wet, and keeping harvest bins cleaner. Depending on the species used, living aisles may also be allowed to grow into beds after harvest to provide winter cover.
This article walks through the different parts of and considerations around calibrating and using a backpack sprayer in diversified vegetable systems.
This article walks through the timing, tools, and methods for seeding cover crops in diversified vegetable crop systems.
Dan Marzu, UW–Madison Extension Nutrient and Pest Management Outreach Specialist, and Guolong Liang, UW–Madison Extension Agriculture Water Quality Outreach Specialist, discuss managing nitrogen in potato and vegetable crops.
This video showcases cutting-edge technologies such as laser weeders, spot cultivators, and AI-driven imaging systems, with a focus on real-world research using laser weeders in onion production.
Are you interested in getting certified organic, or just curious? In this webinar, you’ll hear from three diversified vegetable farmers about their perspectives on organic certification.
For those with the space and energy to experiment, mechanizing a cut-and-carry mulch system is an excellent way to reduce labor while increasing the resiliency of soil on diversified vegetable farms.
This guide offers the latest recommendations for disease, insect, and weed management in Wisconsin’s most common commercial vegetable crops. Also included are lime and fertilizer recommendations as well as insect identification information and keys.
Do you want to get a head start on managing next year’s insect pests? Focus on managing your crop residue. Removing or tilling in crop residue this fall could make a big impact towards pest management. Read for pest-specific strategies on residue management as well as other cultural control options.
Harvesting small grains or processing crops in the summer months provides a great opportunity to plant a variety of cover crop species that can achieve several different benefits or goals such as soil erosion protection, nitrogen (N) supply to subsequent grain crops, and weed suppression.
Guest host Guolong Liang, outreach specialist for the Agriculture Water Quality Program of Extension in the Central Sands of Wisconsin, talks with UW-Madison Horticulture Professor and Extension Specialist Jed Colquhoun, John Ruzicka of Guth Farms in Bancroft, Wisconsin and Dylan Moore, a Seneca Foods Field Representative, about the use of cover crops and no-till to reduce nutrient runoff in canning and processing vegetables.
An interview with Eric Rygg, President of Silver Springs Foods and Huntsinger Farms, the largest grower and processor of horseradish in the world, based in Eau Claire, WI. Resources Silver Springs Foods
