The future of cover crops: opportunities, challenges and R&D needs

Cover crops are grown during ecological niches in crop rotations that would otherwise be fallow. Fallow periods make our cropping systems ‘leaky’. With a loss of potentially captured sunlight through photosynthesis come decreases in soil health, losses of nutrients by runoff or leaching, lack of habitat for natural enemies, and loss of biodiversity. Cover crops are grown to fill these niches for nutrient management, water management, pest management, soil improvement, carbon sequestration, or the broader ecosystem services of water quality improvement, increased biodiversity, or climate resilience.