Cover crop impacts on US cropland carbon sequestration

Abstract

Cover crop management can sequester soil carbon (C), but the potential of cover crops to do so across the United States has not been clearly quantified. With concern about the rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth's atmosphere, solutions that sequester atmospheric CO2 are being sought. The soil has significant potential to store C (Batjes 1996), and the potential contribution of agricultural practices like cover crops to sequestering C in the soil is of particular interest to farmers, scientists, and policy-makers across the globe (Lal 2015).