Translations:Manfred Klett: Von der Agrartechnologie zur Landbaukunst/834/en

Where longer intervals are available between harvest and new sowing — for instance, after the summer cereal harvest and the establishment of a root crop the following spring — a mixture suggests itself, composed predominantly of strongly taproot-forming legume species: field bean (*Vicia faba*) and lupin (*Medicago*), as well as the richly rooting summer vetch (*Vicia angustifolia*), pea (*Pisum sativa*), together with ryegrass (*Lolium perenne*), phacelia (*Phacelia tanacetifolia*), and, as a supporting crop, sunflowers (*Helianthus annuus*). Sown if at all possible still in July, this mixture builds up large fodder masses — partly used for in-situ grazing — a rich root penetration of the soil, and towards autumn a diverse nectar offering for flower-visiting insects. Such mixtures — sown also as flowering strips subdividing larger root-crop fields, for instance, or as border strips between the stands of different crops — can become a bee pasture and altogether a gathering-place of an abundantly teeming insect life. The perennial fodder legumes, red clover and lucerne with admixtures of fodder grasses and herbs, are introduced as a rule in spring as undersowings, preferably into early-clearing winter crops (rye, barley). In the same way, cover crops that are tolerant of a nurse crop can also be undersown: red, white, and yellow clover (*Trifolium* spp.) in mixture with ryegrass (*Lolium* spp.), as well as serradella (*Ornithopus sativus*).