Interreg Europe · Co-funded by the European UnionABCDEX

The data exchange of the ABC Interreg project

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Cover crops

7 species in the room, drawn from no source yet across no regions yet.

RegionAllNLLVROSIITEL
Water demandAllLowModerateHigh
N-fixingAllYesNo

Buckwheat

Fagopyrum esculentum

Summer-quick non-legume; flowers in 30 days, biomass in 60. Mobilises soil phosphorus and competes with weeds — fits the gap between an early-harvested cereal and an autumn cover.

coverwater · moderate
no source yet

Fodder radish

Raphanus sativus var. oleiformis

Brassica with deep taproot — bio-drilling for compacted soils, frost-killed in northern winters. Good fit before spring-planted miscanthus on heavier land.

coverwater · moderate
no source yet

Italian Ryegrass (cover/green manure)

Lolium multiflorum

Green manure/cover crop used in the flax/hemp rotation on clay soils. Produces high (underground) biomass, strongly increasing soil organic matter when incorporated.

coverwater · moderate
1 source

Phacelia

Phacelia tanacetifolia

Non-legume, non-brassica break crop. Fast cover, top pollinator value, releases nutrients quickly into the spring slot — a clean reset between rotations.

coverwater · moderate
no source yet

Tillage radish

Raphanus sativus 'Daikon'

Large-rooted radish bred for bio-tillage on compacted arable soil. Frost-kills in northern Europe; the decaying taproot opens drainage channels before a spring miscanthus crop.

coverwater · moderate
no source yet

White mustard

Sinapis alba

Quick brassica cover, suppresses soil-borne pests and lifts 60–100 kg residual N. Frost-killed in most NL/RO winters — leaves a low-residue spring seedbed.

coverwater · moderate
no source yet

Winter rye (catch crop)

Cover/catch crop sown after maize in the miscanthus rotation scenario to reduce nitrogen leaching.

coverwater · moderate
1 source

Indicative ranges in the species notes (nitrogen fixation, biomass, planting windows) come from European cover-crop agronomy literature and are not source-linked per row. The carbon gate still applies to any per-region coefficient that lands on this surface.

What's missing

These partner regions have not contributed a cover-crops source yet. A short note to the regional lead usually does it — they know which manual or trial dataset is the right one.