DCHP-3

catch crop

Prairies
DCHP-2 (May 2016)

Non-Canadianism

This is a word that our editors have determined is not a Canadianism.

n. — Agriculture

a secondary crop grown between or alongside plantings of a main crop.

Growing catch crops between main crops seems to be a fairly common agricultural practice, especially in the US (see Chart 1).
See also ITP Nelson, s.v. "catch crop", which is marked "Prairie Canada".

Quotations

1898
The clover also acts as a catch crop, gathering the fertilizing constituents which are brought down with the rain, and thus there is added to the soil, at a comparatively small cost, a large quantity of those elements of fertility which growing crops require.
1993
Use quick-maturing crops like lettuce, spinach, radish, kale, carrots, beets and bunching onions as "catch crops" between rows of slower maturing vegetables in wide row systems or on any bare soil area left after harvesting an earlier crop on the narrow bed system.
2007
"For insects, you can pick them off, you can plant catch crops beside so the insects will go to dill (or other catch crops) before they go to something else," she said.

References

  • ITP Nelson

Images

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 17 Jan. 2014

Chart 1: Internet Domain Search, 17 Jan. 2014