Cool season grass cover crops

Cover crops have potential to control soil erosion, improve soil properties, promote nutrient cycling, control pests and diseases, suppress weeds, increase or maintain subsequent cash crop yields, and provide numerous other benefits (Scavo et al., 2022; Camargo et al., 2023). However, the extent of cover crop benefits depends on many factors (Scavo et al., 2022). In particular, the cover crop functional group – e.g., grasses vs. legumes – affects nearly all of these benefits (Marcillo and Miguez, 2017). Grass cover crops differ from legume cover crops in such functions which include N fixation, decomposition rates, nutrient cycling, growing season, biomass production, and weed suppression. Grass cover crops include winter rye, wheat, triticale, barley, oats, black oats, and annual ryegrass. One of the most common cool season grass cover crops in the U.S. Midwest and other cool temperate regions is winter rye (Ruis et al., 2019). The rapid growth and winter hardiness of this species favor its selection, particularly in corn-soybean and continuous corn systems where winter rye is planted in fall, either before or after crop harvest, and terminated in spring of the following year before planting crops.