Grant ID Number: LNE08-274
Grant Recipient: Paula Shrewsbury, University of Maryland, College Park MD
The benefit cover cropping offers to production nurseries, specifically three and shrub nurseries, is comparable to other forms of production agriculture in terms of minimizing erosion and runoff in environmentally sensitive areas. The project manager will test crop species, implementation, and benefits to soil health and pest control; this will be complemented by nursery field days, print, and web publications, and by an impact assessment to measure changes in practices as the research and outreach mature. Of the 150Maryland and Northeast nursery growers participating in trainings, 25 will adopt the use of cover crops in at least one field, and five will adopt at least one new ecologically based pest or soil management practice.
