cover crop

American  

noun

1. a crop, usually a legume, planted to keep nutrients from leaching, soil from eroding, and land from weeding over, as during the winter.

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cover crop British  

noun

1. a crop planted between main crops to prevent leaching or soil erosion or to provide green manure

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Etymology

Origin of cover crop

First recorded in 1905–10

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cover crop

There’s the crawling vines of the beans, the cover crop of the squash grown below, and the shade being produced by the cornstalks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2024

Darby has spent 20 years working with Vermont farmers to grow cover crop rye.

From Salon ● Jan. 18, 2024

Swiss-headquartered agrichemicals and seeds group Syngenta began offering a cover crop seed mixture in Spain this year.

From Reuters ● Sep. 14, 2023

Brandt also touted cover crops and other sustainable farming practices, and ran a cover crop seed company and a seed-cleaning business on his 736-acre farm in Carroll, Ohio.

From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2023

Great quantities of manure are hauled upon the oat stubble in the early spring, and these fields are planted to corn, while the corn stubble is fertilized by the cover crop, and oats are sown.

From The Fat of the Land The Story of an American Farm by John Williams Streeter

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