Squash in Cover Crop Mixes: Early Results from Our Test Plot

0:00 Okay this is squash. This is something new that we've just recently started trying. We wanted to try to get some squash out in our cover crop mixes for

0:09 The added diversity, the plant itself is incredibly impressive. We look at how much plant we've got here after about six weeks of growth, we've already got.

0:18 Fruit starting to form on the squash itself we're pretty well convinced the cattle are going to eat this pretty well and in conjunction with other cover.

0:27 Crops that are planted and it's kind of the three sisters approach that the Indians had with planting corn, squash and beans together so we talked.

0:37 About this as we found the missing sister yeah one benefit that squash performed in the three sisters mix that the Indians had was just brown cover you.

0:49 Can see the amount of leaf area just dominating this effort to untangle this from all the other forms, an interlocking really interesting to see what happens.

1:26 That may or may not be an issue traded corn over root worm insecticide if you are not using either of those we like just putting a little bit of this in and.

1:51 Kinds of other blooming plants out here. It's right next to the buckwheat. We've got mustard blooming right next to it, and so we're hoping with the

1:58 Diversity of insects that were pulling in. We won't see the squash bugs and other damaging insects come in on this.

2:04 The other caution would be is.

2:07 If you get this started and your neighbors find out they may be coming to try to harvest some flour and attracting squash bugs at a low.

2:15 Level may not be all bad if you can attract squash bugs and if you have prey, you're going to have predators. And there are things that eat squash bugs and maybe we can provide little biological control.