Cover Crop and Living Mulch Seed
Cover crops provide a living carpet of perennial plants for orchards. A ‘living mulch’ of low-growing legumes can provide many advantages, especially compared to grass, which aggressively competes with your fruit trees for water and nutrients. Cover crops can:

• suppress weeds without the use of herbicide,
• protect valuable topsoil from wind and water erosion,
• reduce compaction caused by frequent mowing,
• increase organic matter, earthworms and beneficial micro-organisms,
• increase the soil's available nitrogen and moisture retention,
• bring deep minerals to the surface and break up hardpans,
• provide habitat, nectar and pollen for beneficial insects and reduce populations of pests, and
• Improve water, root and air penetration in the soil.

What is a Legume?
Legumes are plants such as clover, lucerne, peas, beans, medics and chickpeas. An important advantage of legumes is their unusual ability to obtain nitrogen, a major element needed for plant growth, from the soil air, as most plants are unable to do this. They do this by forming a symbiotic relationship with a group of bacteria called Rhizobium, which live within a specialised structure, called a nodule, on the plant's roots. The Rhizobia can take nitrogen (N2) from the air and convert it to the form plants normally obtain from the soil. This process is called nitrogen fixation.

Why Inoculate?
Rhizobia occur naturally, but they are very host-specific, that is, any one species of Rhizobia will only live with a few different types of legume. Consequently, when sowing legumes, the seed should be coated with a culture of the correct Rhizobium before sowing. This is referred to as inoculation. The bacteria are stored in peat, and as this is a living culture, it must be treated with care. It should be stored in the fridge and used within 3 months. To use, moisten the seed with a small amount of water and stir in the inoculant until seeds are coated. Then to allow even spreading of the seed over the seedbed, mix in enough agricultural lime, superfine lime or rock phosphate to dry the mixture out (use approx. 6 g of lime to 100 g of seed). This is called pelleting and makes fine seed easier to spread. Do not inoculate the seed until you are ready to sow it and do not leave the inoculated seed in the sun.

Planting Tips

• Check the pH, legumes dislike acid soil,
• correct any nutrient deficiencies (except nitrogen) before sowing,
• cover the seed to a depth of 2-3 times the width of the seed and firm the soil,
• irrigate in all but rainy weather for best results, and
• it is important to select both summer and winter vigorous ground covers to reduce weed invasion.

Plant species should be selected for suitability to climate, ease of establishment, perennial habit, nitrogen-fixing capacity and shade tolerance. Avoid climbing legumes such as Lablab. Aim for a flowering meadow in your orchard rather than sterile, bare earth or a grass ground cover.

Getting Started
Growing a cover crop is particularly easy in new orchards as the soil can be cultivated. The seed is then spread as evenly over the area as possible followed by raking to cover the seed. In established orchards a variety of techniques may need to be used. Poultry in movable cages can be used to bare the ground, which is then sown with seed. Alternatively an organic herbicide can be used to kill any grass or an area can be mulched with newspaper and hay until the grass has died.

Find information on mulch here.
Find information on organic soil improvement here.

SK114 Temperate Cover Crop Kits
SK112 contains Lucerne 'Sequel' (375g), Barrel Medic (150g), Red Clover (100g) and White Clover (100g) UT I No WA
SK113contains Lucerne 'Sequel' (1.5kg), Barrel Medic (600g), Red (400g) and White Clover (400g) UT I No TAS / WA