Strategies to increase cover cropping and improve water quality
Timeline
February 1, 2009 to January 31, 2012Description
The overall goal of this project is to decrease agricultural nonpoint source pollution to the Missisquoi Bay and St. Albans Bay watersheds. To work towards this goal, the effectiveness of available cover crop "Best Management Practices" to help maintain and improve water quality will be developed, evaluated and verified. Specifically, the objective is to develop research-based agronomic recommendations for cover cropping strategies that will increase the number of acres planted to cover crops in the Lake Champlain watershed, to improve farm viability, and ultimately, to reduce runoff, erosion and leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus into the water every year. The information garnered from this work would be valuable to all farmers and natural resources organizations in the Lake Champlain Basin.