A 12-year study from the University of Illinois shows that while the use of cover crops does not improve crop yield, the practice increases the amount of organic carbon sequestered in the soil using three different soil management systems. Soil scientist Ken Olson of U of I evaluated plots submitted to scarification pall and aiveca pall with and without rye cover crops and hairy vetch.

"In 2012, we found that crops that had vegetation cover treatments had more organic carbon stocks in the soil than those without vegetation cover for the same soil root zone and tillage treatment," Olson said.

In fact, Olson said the no-tillage system, with cover crops, has sequestered most of the soil's organic carbon compared to pre-treatment soc stock of no-till age 2000. "In addition, no-till, scarifying and aiveca plow plots with cover crops have sequestered organic soil carbon above the basal pre-treatment levels of the same crop treatment."

With the addition of cover crops to all cultivation treatments for the 12-year study, the gains in soil organic carbon stocks were 30% higher for no-tillage plots, 10% higher for scarifier and 18% for plots with aiveca plow.

"This suggests that the losses of soil organic carbon stocks by crop, water erosion and some disturbances or mixtures during no-tillage, aeration, nitrogen injection in corn years and mineralization were lower than the organic carbon gain treatment of cover crops. said Olson.

Source: Agrolink