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Can Taller Cover Crops Help Clean the Water in Farm Country?

Civil Eats

Iowa farmers, for example, apply it on 87 percent of their fields at a rate of 149 pounds per acre. Annual crops take up only about half of the nitrogen applied, and the rest often ends up polluting groundwater in the form of nitrate. ” Mark Stokes has been using no-till cropping for 26 years.

Crop 140
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A pillar of the climate-smart agriculture movement is on shaky ground

Food Environment and Reporting Network

Researchers, using satellite data, found that cash crop yields in the corn belt dropped significantly—on average 5.5 percent for soybeans—on fields that were cover-cropped, compared to fields that were not. Such losses could dissuade farmers from planting cover crops, no matter the financial incentives.