Legume Cover Crops - Add Great Benefits To Soil
by John Yazo
A legume is a plant or fruit of a plant from the Fabaceae family. The fruit of these plants are commonly called pods. The most common legume plants are alfalfa, clover, peas and beans.
Legume plants have the ability to capture nitrogen gases from the air and convert it with bacteria in the plants root system into nitrogen that is usable to benefit plant growth. This process is know as nitrogen fixation.
Crop rotation using legume plants is also a good method to replenish nitrogen back into the garden soil that has been depleted by crops.
The planting of legume and non-legume cover crops or green manure will add great benefits to the gardens soil by adding both nitrogen rich nutrients and organic matter to improve the structure of the gardens soil while improving the fertility of the soil at the same time.
Legume plants have a quicker release time of nitrogen than non-legume plants do to there ability to convert nitrogen from the air directly into the soil through there root system.
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