How Planting Cover Crops Today Helps Keep Your Next Generation Covered With Lower Input, More Profitable Farmland

Healthy soil leads to healthier crops, lower input costs and more sustainable success.

More farmers are discovering cost savings and benefits of building healthy, living soils. With practices like no-till and reduced tillage, diverse crop rotations and expanded use of cover crops, farmers are seeing rewards within a few years. Based on a Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) survey, 58% of farmers who planted cover crops reported they saw soil health benefits in under two years. Better yet, the benefits naturally grow and multiply for generations to come. With a soil health action plan, you can help get your soil working for you by making more nutrients available for plants, protecting against disease and reducing the need for expensive crop inputs. Additional rewards include better water Infiltration with less runoff and erosion, greater drought resistance, higher-value farmland and a stronger foundation for sustainable success.

Agricultural conservation practices that help build soil health include:

• Practicing conservation tillage (reduced-till, strip-till or no-till)
• Reducing soil compaction by minimizing passes over the field
• Extending rotations with a diversity of crops
• Planting cover crops between growing seasons
• Growing perennial vegetation
• Integrating livestock onto the land

Cover crops are a versatile way to capture more carbon, feed soil microbes and add organic matter to your fields.

While cereal rye is the species most commonly planted as a cover crop, many grass species and legumes, like clovers and hairy vetch, can be used. Other crops with added value can potentially be added as cover crops to your fields.

A 2020 CTIC cover crop survey reported that the most important reasons for using cover crops were soil structure and soil health improvement (94%). Other reported benefits of cover crops include improved weed management (81%), soil erosion control (71%), improved infiltration (63%), beneficial insects (49%), improved insect or disease control (43%), better driving or walking surface (21%) and reduced dust (21%). Farmers also reported a slight yield improvement of around 3 bushels per acre for both corn and soybeans after cover crops.

Top Reasons for Planting Cover Crops

• Soil health 94%
• Weed control 81%
• Erosion control 71%
• Water infiltration 63%
• Insect & disease control 43%

How cover crops can contribute to cost reductions:

In the survey, 49% of corn farmers with cover crops reported reduced fertilizer costs, and 39% reduced their corn herbicide costs. 41% of soybean growers reduced soybean herbicide costs as well. A full 87% of the farmers reported noted soil improvement within three years after using cover crops.

The survey also found that 53% of the farmers practice “planting green” into living cover crops, and 21% are doing it on more than 80% of their acreage. The driving reasons reported for doing this are moisture management (68%) and the ability to get into fields for earlier planting (54%). Also, 71% of the farmers reported improved weed control.

Soil bacteria improve crop yields in combination with fungi.

Microbes are the primary drivers of nutrient cycling in the soil. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AMF)—a common fungi found in low disturbance environments—transports those nutrients to crop roots. AMF establishes symbiotic relationships with the roots of 70% of all land plants. A management system that supports both bacteria and fungi can lead the way to cost-effective, eco-friendly methods of enriching soil health and improving crop yields while reducing farmers’ reliance on conventional fertilizers.

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