Recent Rapid Increase of Cover Crop Adoption Across the U.S. Midwest Detected by Fusing Multi-Source Satellite Data

Cover crops have critical significance for agroecosystem sustainability and have long been promoted in the U.S. Midwest. Knowledge of cover cropping variations and impacts of government policies remains very limited. We developed an accurate and cost-effective approach utilizing satellite fusion data, environmental variables, and machine learning to quantify cover cropping in corn and soybean fields from 2000 to 2021 in the U.S. Midwest. We found that cover crop adoption in most counties was stagnant from 2000 to 2011, but has significantly increased from 2011 to 2021. The adoption of 2021 is four times that of 2011, which was highly correlated to the funding for conservation programs. However, the percentage of cover crop adoption in the U.S. Midwest is still low (7.2%). Our work fills a critical gap in quantifying long-term field-level cover crop adoption at large regions and highlights the potential importance of incentive programs to promote sustainable agricultural practices.