Cover crops

[Guest guest]

Prabhus, another question for you.

 

I have been looking into green cover crops, and the only things available

here are setaria or elephant grass. Both of these are perennials, but they

are also nitrogen fixers, and fast growers.

 

How does one use a perennial as a cover crop? Wont it keep springing up and

smother your veggies?

 

If we have to stick to annual grasses, we will have a problem as many are

not allowed here as they cross pollinate with sugar cane.

 

Can anyone give any advise as to how a perennial grass can be used in

vegetable production, as a mulch crop, without hogging the beds? Do you have

to plough it up, or what. Would it be good in a no till system?

 

I can get the setaria and elephant grass from the fodder production people

here.

 

Any ideas anyone?

 

Another thing. I got 50 Kgs of wheat from the importer for grinding into

flour, and tried to cultivate some of it. Its growing nicely. I presume it

must be a hybrid. So the question is, what kind of seed will it set. Is it

worth letting it grow out, or will the resultant grain be useless? I am

going to let it go anyway, if only to provide some carbon (straw) for

compost. But can anyone give me an idea what to expect?

 

YS Samba das

[Guest guest]

>

> Can anyone give any advise as to how a perennial grass can be used in

> vegetable production, as a mulch crop, without hogging the beds? Do you have

> to plough it up, or what. Would it be good in a no till system?

>

 

First thing to determine is how does it propagate itself? If if spreads by

root

rhizomes, proceed with caution. If it is a clump type grass that only

propagates by seed, you would be safer, provide you are vigilant to keep it

from going to seed, which can be a problem some time if you are facing limited

time scenarios with the option of preventing seeding on one hand, and

harvesting perishable high value crops on the other.

 

>

> Another thing. I got 50 Kgs of wheat from the importer for grinding into

> flour, and tried to cultivate some of it. Its growing nicely. I presume it

> must be a hybrid.

 

Randomly variable with a 99 % chance of an inferior product. Some hybrids can

be stable, but most aren't.

 

> So the question is, what kind of seed will it set. Is it

> worth letting it grow out, or will the resultant grain be useless?

 

The grain itself will be useful The difficulty will be in loss of yield and

disease resistance potential, stuff like that.

[Guest guest]

Haribol Samba

On your wheat you can expect a good harvest. Depending on the type of

wheat. Hybrids are simply plants that have been bred to produce one trait

that the growers felt would enhance its character. The wheat that I have

grown is very easy to grow. You can expect a hardy tough grass of a length

from ankle high to almost waist high, it will set a seed head and you can

pick it when the wheat turns golden and is dry. What ever seeds set will be

eatable. I only have heard of two varieties of tropical wheat. So I don't

know if your wheat will reach fruition or not. If you get full heads of

wheat use it. small amounts can be rubbed between your hands and the delude

kernels can be smashed with a stone then placed in boiling water salted it

makes a great nutritious food that really sticks to your ribs, is easy to

store, and it is the basis of noodles, bread, pancakes and well the list goes

on...Do measure how high the wheat stalks get wheat straw is great for mulch

and I suspect it would make a good hay bale house.

Carol