The mixed effects of recent cover crop adoption on U.S. cropland productivity

The mixed effects of recent cover crop adoption on U.S. cropland productivity | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article The mixed effects of recent cover crop adoption on U.S. cropland productivity David Lobell, Stephania di Tommaso, Qu Zhou, Yuchi Ma, James Specht, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-5146628/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 28 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Sustainability → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Farmers in the United States have rapidly expanded the use of cover crops (CC), with national CC area nearly doubling since 2012. Despite many benefits that motivate public subsidies, questions remain about potential downsides. Using satellite observations from over 100,000 fields, half of which recently adopted CC, we demonstrate that CC led to: (i) declines in average yields for corn and soybean, by ~3% and ~2%, respectively; (ii) delays in sowing of corn (4 days) and soybean (3 days); (iii) reduced damages in the wet spring of 2019, with CC fields only half as likely to experience prevented planting as non-CC fields. CC appears to reduce important aspects of farmer risk in wet conditions but increase them in dry conditions. Timely planting of the cash crop deserves emphasis moving forward, as we show eliminating sowing delays would reduce yield penalties by roughly 50% for corn and 90% for soybean. Scientific community and society/Agriculture Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences/Environmental impact Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 28 Jul, 2025 Read the published version in Nature Sustainability → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-5146628","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":381080486,"identity":"b909b77d-ffdd-488c-b6e7-db1714957ce2","order_by":0,"name":"David Lobell","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA3ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDCC4wxsDAwFFnJgTgUDA2MDA4MBfi2HQVoMJIxBFMMZUrQkNhCthe8w87EHHwwk0ufPb3724EDFPdkG9uZtEvi0SB5mSzecYSCRu+EYm7nBgTPFxg08x8rwajE4zGMmzQPSwsZgJv2xLSGxQSLHjLCWP0CHybexf5M4CNIi/4YILUDvJzAc4zGDaJHgwa8F7JceAwnDDcdyyiQOnEkwbuNJK7bAp4XvePOxBz8qbOTlm49vkzhQkSDbz3544w18WjABG2nKR8EoGAWjYBRgAwC8aUb4NgFElgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5969-3476","institution":"Stanford University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"David","middleName":"","lastName":"Lobell","suffix":""},{"id":381080487,"identity":"8af0888a-0759-42f5-97a5-02409dbcba5f","order_by":1,"name":"Stephania di Tommaso","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stanford University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Stephania","middleName":"di","lastName":"Tommaso","suffix":""},{"id":381080488,"identity":"34597fde-19f0-4a91-8d02-7d160bbaea0b","order_by":2,"name":"Qu Zhou","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7710-8541","institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Qu","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhou","suffix":""},{"id":381080489,"identity":"0c6c0e89-991c-4db4-894d-bb63e387e17a","order_by":3,"name":"Yuchi Ma","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stanford","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Yuchi","middleName":"","lastName":"Ma","suffix":""},{"id":381080490,"identity":"5211b41a-08a9-48c7-a7ab-aa9bec785ed6","order_by":4,"name":"James Specht","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Nebraska","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"James","middleName":"","lastName":"Specht","suffix":""},{"id":381080491,"identity":"2b90d929-769e-45b4-b11b-7c71d55f772f","order_by":5,"name":"Kaiyu Guan","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3499-6382","institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kaiyu","middleName":"","lastName":"Guan","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-09-24 16:20:08","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5146628/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5146628/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[{"content":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01599-5","type":"published","date":"2025-07-28T04:00:00+00:00"}],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":87796592,"identity":"b7f74be8-c0c4-4533-8be6-56a5687d3574","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-07-29 07:07:37","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1370689,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"covcrop2024v2092024NSust.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-5146628/v1_covered_02612f15-a2fc-40f1-8161-207e8dadf63a.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eThe mixed effects of recent cover crop adoption on U.S. cropland productivity\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-5146628/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5146628/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Farmers in the United States have rapidly expanded the use of cover crops (CC), with national CC area nearly doubling since 2012. 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