Cover crops slow erosion, improve soil, smother weeds, enhance nutrient and moisture availability, help control many pests and bring a host of other benefits to your farm. At the same time, they can reduce costs, increase profits, and even create new sources of income. You will reap dividends on your cover crop investments for years because their benefits accumulate over the long term. Increasing energy costs will have a profound effect on farm economics in coming years. As we go to press, it is impossible to predict how fast energy costs will increase, but since cover crop economics are rooted in nitrogen dynamics (how much N you save or produce with cover crops), fuel costs (the cost of N and trips across the field) and commodity prices, energy prices will certainly impact the economics of cover crop use.