Boosting Ecosystem Health

Problem

How can cover crops be enhanced to improve ecosystem services?

• Cover crops are used to increase the quantity of organic carbon returned to the soil between cash crops such as corn, to limit erosion, and to add soil nitrogen.

Findings

In a recent study as a part of a continuous experiment conducted since 2011, researchers focused on cover crop roots, known to be essential in increasing soil carbon levels. They evaluated cover crop treatments including monocultures of triticale, canola, and crimson clover as well as a five-species mixture dominated by those three species to learn about root-trait variation among species, and how that variation impacts mixture design.

• By measuring the ratio of root biomass to aboveground biomass, or the root-to-shoot ratio, and relating that to the amount of nitrogen in the plants, the team could determine how these parameters differed between cover crop treatments. They found that the mixtures increased total carbon input and promoted higher carbon inputs from corn crop residues.

Impact

This study improves understanding of the linkages between root traits and the ecosystem services that cover crops provide, giving clearer insight into how to design cover crop mixtures with complementary root traits that can deliver added boosts to cash crops that follow.

Research Credit

Team

• Joseph Amsili, Jason Kaye

Participating Department

• Ecosystem Science and Management

Partner

• Penn State Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center

Competitive Funding

• USDA NIFA (OREI)

Federal and State Appropriations

• USDA NIFA Hatch Project PEN04710, Accession #1020049

Emerging Discoveries

Cover crop roots are an essential key to understanding ecosystem services

August 12, 2020

To judge the overall effectiveness of cover crops and choose those offering the most ecosystem services, agricultural scientists must consider the plants’ roots as well as above-ground biomass, according to Penn State researchers who tested the characteristics of cover crop roots in three monocultures and one mixture.

Mixed cover crops capture carbon in soil, could help mitigate climate change

September 21, 2022

When it comes to adding carbon to the soil, all cover crops don’t perform equally, according to a team of researchers whose new study revealed the disparity for the first time.

Published Research

Root traits of cover crops and carbon inputs in an organic grain rotation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems

• Amsili, J. P., & Kaye, J. P. (2021). Root traits of cover crops and carbon inputs in an organic grain rotation. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 36(2), 182-191. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742170520000216