1. Is Cover Crop Species Mixture and Diversity More Important at Building Soil Health than Shoot Biomass in a Semi-arid Region?

Cover crop mixtures (CCMs) as partial fallow replacements have the potential to increase soil health, yet long-term studies on CCMs, especially in semi-arid environments are relatively rare. An eight-year study at two locations in semi-arid Montana sought to evaluate the effect of functional group (N fixer, tap roots, fibrous roots, brassicacae) and species richness (2, 6, and 8 species in a mix) on a range of biological, physical and chemical soil parameters. Although several soil health... P. Miller, C. Jones, C. Zabinski, K. D'agati, M. Housman, S. Tallman