Annual Cover Crop Survey Focuses On Farm Advisors

Interest in cover crops continues to increase, according to farm advisor survey from SARE & ASTA

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.

More than 650 farm advisors from across the U.S. participated in a survey on cover crops, shining light on the factors they consider when advising growers on cover crops…

To view the content, please subscribe or login.
 Premium content is for our Digital-only and Premium subscribers. A Print-only subscription doesn't qualify. Please purchase/upgrade a subscription with the Digital product to get access to all No-Till Farmer content and archives online. Learn more about the different versions and what is included.

Mackane ag 150

Mackane Vogel

Mackane Vogel is the Managing Editor of Farm Equipment, No-Till Farmer, Cover Crop Strategies and other Lessiter Media publications. An avid writer for the last 10 years, he previously served as the editorial intern for 88Nine Radio Milwaukee and also wrote for several different sports journalism outlets before joining the Lessiter Media team in 2022. Mackane is a 2020 journalism graduate of Marquette University.

Contact: mvogel@lesspub.com

Top Articles

Current Issue

NTF-July-2026_BookWithPages_Curl_art-link.png

No-Till Farmer

Get full access NOW to the most comprehensive, powerful and easy-to-use online resource for no-tillage practices. Just one good idea will pay for your subscription hundreds of times over.

Subscribe Now

View More

Must Read Free Eguides

Download these helpful knowledge building tools

View More
Top Directory Listings