U of I soil scientist Ken Olson evaluated plots that were subjected to no-till, chisel plow and moldboard plow treatments with and without hairy vetch and cereal rye cover crops.
"By 2012, we found that the soil tillage plots that had cover-crop treatments had more soil organic carbon stock than those without cover crops for the same soil root zone and tillage treatment," Olson said.
In fact, Olson said that the no-till system, with cover crops, sequestered the most soil organic carbon when compared to the pre-treatment from the year 2000 no-till baseline soil organic carbon stock.