Definition of cover crop
: a crop planted to prevent soil erosion and to provide humus
Examples of cover crop in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web Choose the cover crop — like legumes, clover, etc. — to meet the soil’s needs.
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Nan Sterman, San Diego Union-Tribune, "September chores for home gardeners," 5 Sep. 2020 The areas with high cover crop — prime food for fire — fared much worse.
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Esther Mobley, SFChronicle.com, "Some of Napa's oldest Cabernet vines destroyed in Hennessey Fire," 4 Sep. 2020 In a few days last month, after lockdown restrictions eased somewhat, researchers used the autonomous machines to plant what’s known as a cover crop to protect the soil.
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Simon Akam, Bloomberg.com, "Driverless Tractors Are Getting Ready for Harvest Season," 10 Nov. 2019 Dee uses a mixture of plants such as radishes, turnips, clover, winter peas and oats as cover crops for her 4,000 acres of row crops.
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Dennis Pillion | Dpillion@al.com, al, "Alabama farmer looks to cash in on carbon storage," 1 Dec. 2019 For the past 10 years, he's been planting about half of those acres with cover crops in between growing seasons.
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Adam Brewster, CBS News, "Can farmers sow their way out of climate change?," 5 Nov. 2019 Plant cover crops to add nitrogen and organic matter to your vegetable garden.
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Nan Sterman, San Diego Union-Tribune, "29 garden chores for October," 2 Oct. 2019 Another approach is to plant cover crops, sometimes called green manures, during periods between crops.
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Washington Post, "Heavy rains can damage a vegetable garden — but the gardener can protect it," 24 July 2019 One of these is Maryland’s cover crop program for local farmers.
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Washington Post, "Maryland continues funding for protective crop plantings," 27 Nov. 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'cover crop.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for cover crop
The first known use of cover crop was in 1899
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