Consider cover crops your most important crops, because the
requirements for abundant food crops — building soil fertility,
improving soil texture, suppressing weeds, and inhibiting
disease and crop-damaging insects — can be best met by the
abundant use of cover crops, season after season. 5 Benefits of
Cover Crops Soil Fertility. A vast array of soil organisms
decompose once-living plants into nutrients easily taken up by
plant roots, and add to your soil’s humus content (the final
residues of organic matter in your soil, which assist nutrient
uptake, improve texture and hold moisture). I grow organic
matter in place using cover crops because, in many ways, a
living cover crop is even better than adding manure and compost
for fertility. The area of most intense biological activity —
ultimately the definition of soil fertility — is the
rhizosphere, the zone immediately around plant roots. Plants
release nutrients through their roots to feed their buddies in
the soil — beneficial microbes and mycorrhizal fungi