ABSTRACT
Cover crops are becoming increasingly popular on farms around the world. Generally defined as a plant that provides conservation cover when a ‘cash crop’ is not being grown, cover crops play many roles in helping protect and improve soils, prevent environmental degradation, improve biodiversity and enhance long-term profitability and sustainability of farms (Sarrantonio and Gallandt, 2003; Schipanski et al., 2014). For these reasons, many farmers are adding cover crops as a major management component of their farming operations. In the United States, 4.2 million hectares (10.3 million acres) of cover crops were planted in 2012 (USDA Census of Agriculture, 2014), and it is expected that US cover crop acreage will exceed 8.1 million hectares (20 million acres) by the year 2020.
