Green Manure

In agriculture, green manure refers to crops which have already been uprooted (and have often already been stuffed under the soil). The then dying plants are of a type of cover crop often grown primarily to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil (i.e. nitrogen-fixing crops). Typically, a green manure crop is grown for a specific period of time, and then ploughed under and incorporated into the soil while green or shortly after flowering. Green manure crops are commonly associated with organic agriculture, and are considered essential for annual cropping systems that wish to be sustainable. Traditionally, the practice of green manuring can be traced back to the fallow cycle of crop rotation, which was used to allow soils to recover.