The presence of cover crops in the U.S. Midwest maize and soybean fields has shown to be a beneficial practice from an environmental benefits viewpoint. Cover crops reduce water runoff, increase infiltration, improve soil organic matter and overall soil health, reduce soil erosion, nitrate leaching and suppress weeds. Inter-seeding cover crops in maize during the early vegetative growth stages is an opportunity to establish a grass or broadleaf cover crop and ass rotational diversity to improve overall system productivity. The objective of this study was to assess optical and thermal reflectance of maize inter-seeded with cover crops across spatial scales using remotely sensed imagery maize.