The Soil Health Benefits of Cover Crops
Wayne Fredericks, a farmer in Osage, IA, was no stranger to regenerative practices before adopting cover crops on his farm. Since 1991, he’d been growing no-till soybeans, and moved to strip-till corn in 2001. But planting cover crops on his farm added additional benefits, like:
- Increased soil water absorption
- Increased soil organic matter
- Reduced runoff
- Improved weed control
Want to dig deeper? Check out these studies that detail some of the practices Wayne implements on his farm:
- Changes in Soils and Crops along a Transformational Journey (Hatfield & Fredericks, 2022)
- Impact of Management Practices on Carbon and Water Fluxes in Corn-Soybean Rotations (Dold et al, 2019)
- Quantifying soil carbon change in a long-term tillage and crop rotation study across Iowa landscapes (Al-Kaisi & Kwaw-Mensah, 2019)
- Yield stability analysis reveals sources of large-scale nitrogen loss from the US Midwest (Basso et al, 2019)
