Farmers’ Experiences of How Under-Sown Clovers, Ryegrasses, and Timothy Perform in Northern European Crop Production Systems

Abstract

Early adopter-farmers form a living lab of farms that have a great deal of hidden knowledge about the cultivation of cover crops (CCs). Understanding of how early adopters use and value CCs provides valuable knowhow to be shared with other farmers. This study gathered information about the most common under-sown CCs in Finland. A structured survey was used to collect farmers’ experiences considering CCs’ regional suitability, growth, competition, and impacts on soil and cash crop yields. The respondents were both conventional and organic farmers who cultivated CCs in 2020. One thousand one hundred and thirty farmers answered the survey. Four hundred and ten times they shared knowhow about the use of under-sown CCs. They were mostly familiar with clovers, ryegrasses, and timothy as CCs. They answered 27 specific statements on CC (a Likert scale, five answer choices). Farmers’ experiences were well in line with the understanding gained from field experiments. Farmers had experienced positive impacts of CCs on soil health. Organic farmers were slightly more positive than conventional farmers. This is attributable to a longer period of having CCs in organic farms, and general differences in means to control weeds and manage crop nutrition. Gained experience with common species used in grassland mixtures had strengthened farmers’ trust in their use of CCs. Farmers having high cereal areas are an important target group for sharing the early adopters’ experiences, as cereal farmers were more challenged to use even common CCs. Future research and on-farm experiments should focus on CCs with other cash crops instead of cereals (grain legumes, rapeseed, and other minor crops).