Patterns of cover crop use, adoption, and impacts among Indiana farmers

ABSTRACT

Cover crops have recently been generating a lot of interest in agriculture for their agronomic benefits, including erosion control, nutrient restoration, and increased cash crop yield. However, the value of these benefits is not well established and likely highly variable. The factors that influence a farmer’s decision to adopt or not adopt cover crops are also a point of interest to conservationists and policy makers. As part of a long-term study estimating the benefits and costs of cover crops, this study analyzed five years of historic information collected from Indiana farmers, who either grew or did not grow cover crops. No significant impact was found from cover crops on cash crop yields, but several interesting correlations in cover crop use were found. Cover crop use was higher on steeper fields. There was also a high correlation between the use of cover crops and no-till.

KEYWORDS:

• Conservation agriculture
• cover crop economics
• farm demographics
• field data analysis
• soil health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For additional literature on the benefits that cover crops can provide, see Balkcom and Wayne Reeves (2005), Campiglia et al. (2010), Chen and Weil (2009), and De Baets et al. (2011).

2. The brand name tillage radish is used here in place of the generic daikon radish because this reflects the language used in the literature.

3. While average cover-cropped yields were higher for both crops in the 2012 survey, no statistical test was done this year.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Resources Conservation Service [Conservation Innovation Grant].