We did drill a multi species cover crops on a very degraded field that had been hit hard with glyphosate two years in a row prior to us working on it and it worked an absolute treat. We are in southern Sweden.

All we added was about a ton and a half of lime/ha in early spring (very low calcium, about 2%om).

2 rounds of harrowing pre drilling.

We used among others:

Peas, oats, oil radish, phacelia, buckwheat, plantain, chicory, crimson/red/white clover, common/hairy vetch, lucerne, rye grass, cocksfoot, timothy….

I can find the exakt mix if someone is interested. It might have been a bit too heavy on the legume side 🙂 but it worked really well.

It was quite amazing to watch it. We got a nice rainfall just after drilling, but then we had a very dry summer. It looked at times like there was just radish, phacelia and vetch 🙂 but after some rain in late summer early autumn it got more diverse and balanced and the perennials established fine.

We did graze it with gothland sheep, was a bit tricky at the start because of all the legumes.

The second year it was a really nice perennial cover. Some annuals came back, a few crimson clovers and buckwheat, but no radish or phacilia.

So the lesson out of this for us… diversity rocks 🙂