Planting a perennial cover crop
alongside annual crops such as corn and soybeans
RegenPGC stands for Regenerating America’s Working Landscapes to Enhance Natural Resources and Public Goods through Perennial Groundcover. We are a transdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers, funded by USDA-NIFA, with a shared vision of making year-round groundcover on working lands the norm, rather than the exception, for Midwestern US agriculture and beyond.
Central to our approach is developing and de-risking perennial groundcover (PGC) systems, where a perennial cover crop is planted once and then persists for multiple years alongside annual crops such as corn and soybean.
By providing year-round groundcover, perennial groundcover can deliver multiple ecosystem services, including conserving soil resources, reducing nutrient export, enhancing carbon sequestration, and suppressing weeds, thereby reducing herbicide requirements.
Compared to conventional cover cropping, a PGC approach has lower management requirements which could facilitate widespread adoption of cover cropping systems critical to achieving measurable differences in large-scale environmental issues.
Stay up to date on our project with our News Page.
The long-term goal of our USDA-NIFA CAP project is to develop and increase the reliability of PGC systems. Our vision is to create well-adapted PGC systems for a range of farm operations that require low labor inputs, provide significant ecosystem benefits, increase row crop resiliency, and have similar economic profiles as conventional row crop practices.
Register for our 5-week lunch-and-learn webinar series starting exploring the innovative use of perennial groundcovers in corn and corn/soybean production systems as a cover crop. Learn more.
We use a transdisciplinary approach and organize our work around four cross-cutting themes and five objectives. This allows our team to apply the power of collaboration towards realizing widespread adoption of our perennial ground cover vision.
Creating and continuously improving modes of communication and collaboration among RegenPGC themes, objectives, and individual participants.
Leveraging the expertise from all RegenPGC objectives to provide educational opportunities impacting students and educators.
Sharing science-based knowledge, existing and potential commercial opportunities, and policy recommendations with stakeholders.
Fostering engagement between the agricultural commercial sector and RegenPGC research activities and goals.
January 14, 2025 - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
January 21, 2025 - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
January 28, 2025 - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
