Are you looking for a temporary cover-crop or something that will remain when you plant the trees? If you're planning on leaving what you plant, do some research into orchard groundcovers. Some options will have distinct disadvantages (negative-allelopathic influence on future plantings, disease-harboring issues, pest-harboring issues, maintenance problems, etc).

You might contact the ag extension people over at UT, specifically whoever does the fruiting-crop consulting work (maybe Dave Lockwood / lockwood@utk.edu), and see what they recommend.

Please let us know what you find out. I'd be very interested in more info on this subject.

I'm going to let things look pretty rough at first. The goal is to get some trees in the ground and get them started in the midst of all the carnage.

In the mean time, it would be nice to disguise the revolting appearance of the freshly churned clay/dirt. The volunteer weeds might be fine... was thinking that there might be some "oh great!" option that would be more walkable-turf type of surface.

I'll check on your contact.