Results from the annual Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council crop survey show Iowa farmers planted more than 3.8 million acres of cover crops in the 2023 crop year.

INREC initiated the yearly survey in 2017 as part of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy to track tillage practices, crop rotations and nitrogen, phosphorus and manure fertilizer applications. These practices can reduce the amount of nutrients, notably nitrogen and phosphorus, that run off cropland and into waterways.

Ben Gleason, the council’s executive director, said the use of cover crops has increased significantly since the non-profit started the survey.

In 2017, just 1.6 million acres of Iowa’s approximately 23 million acres of corn and soybean cropland had a cover crop planted. That amount has more than doubled in the past seven years, bringing the percentage of cropland with a cover crop to nearly 17% in 2023, according to the most recent survey results.

“That’s not a small amount,” Gleason said.

Cover cropping is a practice of seeding a crop such as cereal rye, oats, wheat, radishes or turnips into the soil between cash crop (corn and soybean) rotations to improve soil health, minimize soil erosion and in some operations, create pasture for cattle.

According to Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, cover crops can reduce the amount of nitrogen runoff from a field by nearly 50%.

“We’re making progress, but we’ve got a long ways to go just because of the scale we’re trying to reach,” Gleason said.

Gleason also said conservation practices, “don’t happen in a vacuum,” and that the council is always considering what else might have caused the use of a certain practice to increase or decrease in a given period.

Bill Frederick, co-owner of Iowa Cover Crop, a seed and service company that helps farmers implement cover crop systems, said his business has increased by 30% to 50% each year since opening.

“We’re always chasing that next level of adopters,” Frederick said and noted that the company has also retained most of its customers over the past 10 years.

There are a number of private and public funding streams that Frederick said his company helps farmers navigate so they can implement a cover crop for “basically no cost” which makes it an “easier sell.”

According to the Environmental Working Group conservation database, Iowa farmers received nearly $300 million to help implement conservation practices through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives Program, between 2017 and 2022.

For farmers who also raise cattle, Frederick said the cost of the cover crop is easily offset by grazing the cattle on the crop.

Frederick said he is “optimistic” for future adoption of cover cropping, and isn’t discouraged by the only 10% increase over the past seven years.

“I mean, you’re totally changing the way people are farming and I think it’s a big ask to just have people jump in,” Frederick said.

“Our big thing is everybody thinks of this conservation as something that we have to do. We’ve always looked at it as a potential income source.”

Starting next year, sustainable aviation fuel producers would be eligible for a new federal tax credit if they produce their fuel with corn and soybeans grown on farms that employ sustainable practices, including cover cropping and no-till, to offset some of the carbon emissions of the fuel production.

Frederick said he already has new customers seeding cover crops to be able to sell to these producers.

“So that’ll be the next big leap, I think,” Frederick said.

Nutrient Reduction Strategy

The nutrient reduction strategy is Iowa’s contribution to a multi-state effort aimed at reducing the size and severity of the hypoxia, or dead zone, in the Gulf of Mexico. The hypoxia is caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus transported down the Mississippi River into the gulf.

Practices like cover crops keep plants in the soil and help keep those nutrients in the soil, rather than washing off downstream, but other practices, like reducing tillage and being more efficient when applying fertilizer, are also part of the nutrient reduction strategy.

Cover crops planted on Iowa corn and soybean acres have more than doubled since 2017

Click to enlarge

Source: Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council
Graphic by: Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch

According to the 2023 survey results, 63% of corn and soybean acres were farmed with either no till or conservation tillage practices, which leaves 30% or more of the field untilled.

The survey also shows a 7% decrease in the rates of commercial nitrogen applied to continuous corn operations since 2017.

2023 tillage practices for soybean and corn acreage

Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council crop year survey data

Click to enlarge

Source: Iowa Nutrient Research & Education Council
Graphic by: Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch

The nutrient reduction program also tracks point-source pollution from municipal and industrial wastewater facilities, which also contribute to the N and P loads in the water.

Gleason said his council works with the Iowa State University center for survey statistics and methodology to randomize and extrapolate the survey data, collected from about 100 ag retailers, to generate figures that are representative of the entire state.

“We feel, using the stat lab, that it’s representative of the state,” Gleason said.

In part, the survey was initiated to track the progress of these conservation practices and gather some of the water-quality data that Gleason said is necessary to qualify for cost-share programs.

Gleason said these practices, especially around fertilizer application, have grown in popularity because farmers are more aware of the programs, and also because they realize it can help their bottom lines.

“Number one, is certainly there’s more awareness of nutrient reduction strategies and the suite of strategies we have for farmers,” Gleason said. “I also think some of it is economic … Farmers are trying to be as efficient as possible with their budget.”

The efforts in Iowa and in other states along the Mississippi have made a difference in nitrogen levels of the Mississippi, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 report. Gleason said he also likes to emphasize the impact these practices have on local water systems.

“What’s good for the land here is good for the water here,” Gleason said. “And obviously we want to help out the Gulf of Mexico — but we have our own issues to work on, too.”