Video Clip: Spring Cover Crop: Field Pea and Oats from Vegetable Farmers and their Innovative Cover Cropping Techniques

Source:

Farmers and their Innovative Cover Cropping Techniques [DVD]. V. Grubinger. 2006. University of Vermont Extension. Available for purchase from: http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/Videos/covercropvideo.html (Verified 31 Dec 2008).

This is a Vegetable Farmers and their Innovative Cover Cropping Techniques video clip.

Watch video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoL4sbjrHKM

Featuring

Eero Ruuttila, Nesenkeag Farm. Litchfield, NH.

Audio Text

As soon as I can get on the ground, I’ll seed field peas and oats, spin it on and then lightly harrow it in. And one of the things I really like about it is that it also brings in an early income, our earliest income in the spring, because the young pea shoots are very popular with the restaurant trade and also with Southeast Asian or Asian chefs. And usually within about 4-6 weed of seeding I have something I can start to harvest. That’s a really good starter for the springtime. The pea tendrils, pea shoots, pea tips different names for it, its not something you can sell tons and tons per acre, I have tons of and that’s one of the reasons I’m growing it for, the biomass of the nitrogen that the peas are fixing. But in a normal year I can realize gross sales of between 8 and 10 thousand dollars on 5-7 acres that might be seeded to field peas and oats.

This video project was funded in part by the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (USDA).

Published June 15, 2011

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