Donald Danforth Plant Science Center

Awards Issued Prior to January 20, 2025, Were Funded Under Previous Administrations and May Not Reflect the Priorities and Policies of the Current Administration. Cover Cropping Has Been Largely Considered a Major Conservation Approach to Improve Ecosystem Services for Sustainable Agriculture. With Current Adoption Rates Low Across Us Farmlands, Extensive Investments From Government and Private Sectors Have Strongly Encouraged Farmers to Employ Cover Crops. However, the Rapid Momentum From These Investments Is Not Well Supported by a Sufficient Foundational Knowledge Base of Cover Cropping Such That We Are Ready to Scale Up Its Adoption With Maximum Effectiveness. a Major Barrier Is the Limited Understanding of Cover Crop Root System Traits and Their Empirical Effects on Soil and Cash Crops, Especially Across the Spectrum of Cover Crop Species Diversity. in This Project We Will Conduct Multi-year Trials of Twelvecover Crop Species That Integrate With Corn Production, and Use Root Phenomics, Cutting-edge Sensing Technologies, and Machine-learning Enabled Agroecosystem Modeling to Gain an Improved Understanding of the Variation for Root Traits That Exists Among Diverse Cover Crop Species and Their Influence on Soiland Cash Crops. the Societal Benefit of This Study Will Be to Utilize Our Enhanced Understanding of These Relationships to Provide More Informed Species Selection That Maximizes Both Yield and Ecosystem Benefits and Thereby Supports Widespread Adoption of Cover Crop Management Practices in the Us.