ArticleNature food2021
Large-scale farmer-led experiment demonstrates positive impact of cover crops on multiple soil health indicators.
Article in Nature food, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Enhanced soil health and greenhouse gas mitigation potential are linked to microbial network restructuring under long-term organic farming.Fundamental research · 2026Article
- Long-term legume green manure residue incorporation is more beneficial to improving bacterial richness, soil quality and rice yield than mowing under double-rice cropping system in Dongting Lake Plain, China.Frontiers in plant science · 2025Article
- Conservation agriculture improves soil health and sustains crop yields after long-term warming.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Influence of Natural Risks and Non-Agricultural Income on Agricultural Trusteeship Decisions in Northeast China.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Spatiotemporal co-optimization of agricultural management practices towards climate-smart crop production.Nature food · 2024Article
- Fuelling the future of sustainable sugar fermentation across generations.Engineering biology · 2022Review
- Optimisation of root traits to provide enhanced ecosystem services in agricultural systems: A focus on cover crops.Plant, cell & environment · 2022Review
- Satellite assessment of winter cover crop and conservation tillage outcomes to support adaptive management in working landscapes.Journal of environmental qualityArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cover crops are touted for their potential agronomic and environmental benefits, and are currently incentivized through state, federal and private investment in the USA. There is a need to quantify the impact of on-farm use of cover crops at spatial (2-5 years) and temporal (regional-to-national) scales aligned with such investment programmes. Here we report soil health data from a farmer-led trial of cover crops on 1,522 strip-years, from 78 farms across 9 US states over 5 years. We found that up to 5 years of cover crop use had small but increasing impacts on four of six selected soil health indicators, with active carbon concentration responding the most rapidly. Soil texture, the length of time a field was in the trial and a farm-level random effect were also strongly related to soil health properties. Our results fit with evidence from controlled trials and suggest that the use of cover crops can begin to influence soil health within several years after adoption.
Identifiers
37117404What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.