News Release

March 7, 2022 –  Despite the ongoing controversy of “who started the corned beef and cabbage” tradition, many still celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with this meal. The March 7, 2022 Sustainable, Secure Food Blog looks at ways to grow your cabbage organically while reducing the number of weeds that grow in the cabbage fields.

Organic management avoids pesticide use, including herbicides to manage weeds that reduce yields. One of the reasons that organic head of cabbage costs more is the added labor to manage weeds throughout the season, including hand-weeding like you might in your home garden.

However, a group at Cornell University published a paper last year in Agronomy Journal, a publication of the American Society of Agronomy. They studied cover crop use in cabbage fields that could sidestep the weed issue while also managing nutrients in the field. Studies were performed in New York and Michigan.

The cover crop treatments tested in cabbage fields were rye-legume mixtures. Rye is a cereal crop that can grow densely while the legume can add nitrogen to the soil. The researchers overwintered the rye-legume mixtures and then used strip till to plant the cabbage. Strip till “drills” a row into the existing cover crop, with little soil disturbance.

To read the entire blog, visit https://sustainable-secure-food-blog.com/2022/03/07/how-is-cabbage-grown-organically/

About us: This blog is sponsored and written by members of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America. Members are researchers and trained, certified professionals in the areas of growing the world’s food supply while protecting the environment. Members work at universities, government research facilities, and private businesses across the United States and the world.