Biomass Production and Carbon/Nitrogen Ratio Influence Ecosystem Services from Cover Crop Mixtures

Increasing plant diversity in agroecosystems with cover crops has been a successful strategy to augment ecosystem services from agriculture, and increasing diversity of cover crops may provide even greater benefits. Productivity and ecosystem services from multi‐species cover crop mixtures were measured in a 2‐yr field study of 18 cover crop treatments preceding conventionally tilled corn in central Pennsylvania. Increasing the number of species in a stand increased cover crop biomass ( R 2 = 0.15). However, mixing cover crop species that were complementary in phenology or N acquisition strategy did not result in mixtures that produced more biomass than high yielding monocultures. Increasing cover crop biomass…

• NS
  Northeast SARE

  Award: GNE11-017
• NI
  National Institute of Food and Agriculture