Editor’s Note: Jay Fuhrer, retired NRCS soil health specialist and conservationist at the Menoken Demonstration Farm in Menoken, N.D., wrote the 5 principles of soil health. In this series, Fuhrer explains each principle and provides an on-farm example of the theory in practice. In the first installment of this series, Fuhrer examines soil health principle 4: continual living plant.

The first time we look at cover crops we usually question the seed cost, labor, equipment, time, water, nutrient, and even the social acceptance of partners, neighbors, and friends. 

Given time, our thoughts go to asking what benefits additional plant physiology can provide on my farm? 

It starts by understanding every green plant is a carbon inlet and provides the microbial world with carbon sugar exudates the first 4-8 weeks. Cover crops can check several soil health principles simultaneously. Consequently, very few best management practices can compare with covers when it comes to providing food and a home for life. 

Our perennial grasslands and forests consisted of a highly diverse plant community. Adaptable plants would grow during the cool spring and fall weather, as well as the summer heat. This allowed continual live plants photosynthesizing and providing carbon exudates to the soil food web during the entire growing season. Today’s cropland systems typically grow annual cash crops, which have a dormant period before planting and after harvest.

Cover crops can fill in the dormant period and provide the missing photosynthesis and live root exudate, which is the soil food web’s…