By nearly any account, 2019 was a brutal year for many American farmers. The year started with heavy snow cover and continued with the wettest spring on record in many
Cover crops are widely viewed by the soil and water conservation community to be an effective means for reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss and increasing soil health, yet relatively
Moving agricultural production systems toward a greater level of soil health is needed for sustainability. Conservation agricultural systems utilizing no or minimum tillage are an important step forward, but enhancing
Pennycress can be used as a renewable biomass because its harvested seeds can be converted into biofuel, supplying, for example the aviation industry. Pennycress can be adopted as a winter
Soil compaction is a form of degradation affecting future global food security and continues to be a problem for farmers in many parts of the world. Over the past few
On U.S. cropland, the use of cover crops increased by 50 percent between 2012 and 2017. During this same period, Federal and State conservation programs increased efforts to promote cover
Cover crops provide a variety of important agroecological services within cropping systems. Typically, these crops are grown as monocultures or simple graminoid-legume bicultures; however, ecological theory and empirical evidence suggest
With the decision to adopt cover crops, a conservation practice that is becoming increasingly popular throughout the country, the economic picture can admittedly be hard to decipher at first. This
In late 2012 and early 2013, the North Central Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) conducted a survey of farmers who grow
In the first few months of 2014, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) conducted a national survey of farmers about the
This document summarizes information collected from more than 1,200 farmers across the United States who completed an online survey on cover crops in early 2015. A large majority of respondents
The fourth annual SARE/CTIC Cover Crop Survey collected data from 2,020 respondents from 48 states and the District of Columbia. Eighty-one percent described themselves as cover crop users. Their plantings
Cover crops are a key component of conservation cropping systems. They can also be a key component of integrated crop-livestock systems by offering high-quality forage during short periods between cash