TAKEAWAYS

• The advisors who used cover crops on their own farms were five times more likely to recommend cover crops to farmers not yet using them compared to advisors who did not farm with cover crops themselves.
• Advisors using cover crops on their own farms tended to have a much higher percentage of clients using cover crops — 22.3% of the advisors who use cover crops themselves reported 25-50% of their clients using covers, compared to 9.1% at the same level of adoption among clients of advisors who did not personally use cover crops.
• The farm advisors surveyed used a wide range of information sources to learn about cover crops. Advisors who reported that they learned about cover crops on-the-job rather than through formal academic or training channels preferred training sessions (63.9%) and webinars (57.4%) for learning new cover crop insights, but also liked learning from farmers one-on-one (58.3%) and visiting field trials (30.6%).
• Looking ahead, a majority of the farm advisors (56.9%) expected to see cover crop acreage continue to increase. They also expected farmers to continue increasing use of cover crop mixes (46.7%) and trying ways of combining other soil health practices with cover crops (52.9%). The advisors expected a moderate amount of interest in newer cover crop topics like planting green (29.2%), grazing cover crops (32.2%) and others.