Cover Crop Conservation Practices

This multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary project aims to encourage widespread adoption of practices that improve soil health by demonstrating the environmental and economic benefits that can be achieved by implementing a system of conservation practices. The suite of practices that will be adopted are cover crops, conservation crop rotation, residue management/no-till, nutrient management, and pest management. The purposes of this proposal are to: 1) demonstrate the environmental benefits of adopting a production system focused on soil health. Benefits include reducing offsite nutrient loading and pesticide losses to surface water, soil erosion, and improving soil quality, 2) demonstrate increased soil water availability and biomass, and 3) promote the adoption of soil health conservation systems by demonstrating the effectiveness and successful implementation. The study will also demonstrate benefits of the proposed techniques for reducing dependency on fossil fuel, energy savings through adaptive management, reductions in nonpoint source pollution (NPSP), and agricultural chemical inputs by incorporating legumes into conservation practices that reduce or eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizers.