Lack of attractive short-term economic returns to growers and limited time for cover crop establishment following maize and soybean harvest are major reasons for slow cover crop adoption. Therefore, alternative
Winter camelina and pennycress are both oil seed crops and cold tolerant species that require less pest management inputs than winter rye and can serve as an alternative cover crop.
In colder agricultural regions like the upper Midwest, the availability of cold tolerant cover crop species is limited, which also limits double-cropping practices, especially in maize-soybean cropping systems. Although double-cropping
The corn-soybean cropping system dominates the Midwestern U.S., and Iowa often leads in hectares of corn and soybean. Though corn and soybean are highly productive in Iowa for a portion