Research: On-Farm Demonstration of Cover Crops

Iowa Learning Farms has received several grants to research cover crops on farmer partner fields. The projects explore the benefits of cover crops on Iowa farmland using winter rye over eight years and using cover crop mixes.
 
Partners for the projects include the Iowa Cover Crop Working Group, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship State Soil Conservation Committee, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service and Iowa State University farmer association farms.
 

On-farm Demonstration of Cover Crops

The study includes Iowa farmer partners using winter rye on a portion of their fields for five years. Findings from the farmer partners have been summarized into documents available for download:
 
Winter Cereal Rye Cover Crop Effect on Soil
Year 7 Update
Year 5

Winter Cereal Rye Cover Crop Effect on Cash Crop Yield 
Final - January 2020
Year 10
Year 9
Year 8 
Year 7
Year 6
Year 5