Cover crops are on the minds of many producers but knowing how to approach the practice can be challenging. During a recent Farmer 2 Farmer tour more than 70 people went to multiple fields in Pawnee ...

(Beyond Pesticides, November 2, 2021) Cover crops create habitat that draw in pest predators and help mitigate crop injury, finds research published in the journals Agroecosystems and Biological ...

‘Prosperity,’ customer pressure help stir cover crop interest The ‘yo-yo’ principle of managing cover crops Is USDA overpromoting cover crops? This is the first part of a four-part series examining ...

The Midwest Cover Crops Council’s annual meeting and cover crop conference will be held in Dubuque, Iowa in February 2026.

Producers can break even in as little as two years But seed, planting costs challenge economics Landowners can frustrate farmers’ cover crop hopes This is the second part of our four-part series ...

Maybe after you finish your vegetable harvest, you mentally say, “I’m done this year,” and wait to start again next year. But a cover crop could benefit you in several ways. By researching now, you ...

Establishing winter cover crops after or between harvests can be a great way to preserve soil structure, protect against erosion and produce biomass that feeds the soil ecology. However, if you’re in ...

An overarching goal for planting cover crops is to produce as much biomass as possible during the growing window. Higher levels of cover crop biomass will reduce soil erosion, inhibit weed growth, and ...

A field planted with cereal rye, one of the most common cover crops in Iowa. Photo by Ally Larson/Iowa State University. AMES, Iowa – Planting ground cover in fields between cash crop growing seasons ...