Building Soils for Better Crops, 2nd Edition

	Producer Profiles Alex and Betsy Hitt Graham, North Carolina When the horse stable down the road went out of business, it forced Alex and Betsy Hitt to re-evaluate their farm fertility program. The Hitts, who raise 75 varieties of vegetables and an equal number of cut flowers just outside Chapel Hill, N.C., were forced to search for an alternative to horse manure to amend the soil on their five-acre farm. The Hitts, who have made the most out of every acre, created an elaborate rotation that includes both winter and summer cover crops to supply organic matter and nitrogen, lessen erosion and crowd out weeds. "We designed a rotation so that cover crops play a clear role," Alex Hitt says. "Many times, where other growers might say, 'I need to grow a cash crop,' we'll grow a cover crop anyway." The Hitts stay profitable, however, thanks to a marketing plan that takes full advantage of their location near Chapel Hill, home to the University of North Carolina. Their more unusual produce such as leafy greens, leeks and rapini find a home in restaurants, and alongside their most profitable lettuce, tomato, pepper, and flower crops sell well at area farmers markets. A typical year in one unit of the Hitts' rotation includes a cool-season crop, a summer cover crop such as soybeans and sudangrass, followed by a fall season cash crop and then a winter cover. "We have made a conscious decision in our rotation design to always have cover crops," Alex Hitt says. "We have to it's the primary source for all of our fertility. If we can, we'll have two covers on the same piece of ground in the same year." While other farmers grow beans, corn or another profitable annual vegetable in the summer after a spring crop, the Hitts don't hesitate to take the land out of production. Instead, Alex Hitt says, their commitment to building organic matter in the soil yields important payoffs. The farm remains essentially free of soil-borne diseases, which they attribute to "so much competition and diversity" in the soil. And, despite farming on a five-percent slope, they see little or no erosion. Alex and Betsy Hitt's Rotation (cover crops in bold) Year 1. Tomatoes (half no-till) Oats w/ Crimson Clover Year 2. Cool Season Flowers Sudangrass w/ Soybeans Oats w/ Crimson Clover Year 3. Spring Lettuce Summer Flowers Rye w/ Hairy Vetch Year 4. No-till Squash Year 5. Over-wintered Flowers Sudangrass w/ Soybeans Rye w/ Hairy Vetch Year 6. Peppers (half no-till) Wheat w/ Crimson Clover Year 7. Summer Flowers Oats w/ Crimson Clover Year 8. Mixed Spring Vegetables Cowpeas Year 9. Over-wintered Flowers Sudangrass w/ Soybeans Oats w/ Crimson Clover Year 10. Summer Flowers Wheat w/ Hairy Vetch "There are a billion benefits from cover crops," Alex Hitt says. "We have really active soil we can see it by the good crops that we grow, and by the problems that we don't have." The Hitts' rotation works well for growing flowers, a profitable direct-to-market crop that usually requires less nitrogen than vegetables. The challenge, Alex Hitt says, is in choosing the right cover prior to the next crop to get the maximum growth from the cover. They continue to test different cover varieties this year it's Austrian winter peas and several different clovers in a quest for covers that are easy to establish and incorporate. The Hitts are beginning to grow some crops in a no-till system, so an easy-to-kill cover crop is paramount. Not only does the rotation help improve soil quality, but it also goes far toward controlling weeds. The covers smother weeds by crowding and shading them out. A summer crop of cow peas, for example, covers all bare soil. Even more effective is the Hitts' complex rotation, which confounds the weeds by varying the timing and spacing of planting and cultivation season to season. "We either have a different crop or we're planting it differently, so we don't get the same weeds the same time every year," Alex Hitt says. "When we went to a longer rotation and changed the timing, we noticed it quickly." The Hitts keep in touch with their soil mineral balance by testing all sections annually. They watch pH (calcium and magnesium), phosphorus and potassium levels. Keeping the proper balance in the soil, plus their complex 10-year rotation has helped reduce agricultural pests, Alex Hitt says. "The whole system works better," he says. "We don't have many diseases and we have a lot of beneficial insects. The whole thing is really in balance, and the rotation and cover crops have a lot to do with that."   Top