The results from the two cases, which involved cover crops and
stover removal, tell us several important things: (1) from the
agronomic benefit analysis, in most cases cover crop alone offer
potential net benefits to farmers, (2) the net benefit of cover crop
with stover removal is sensitive to the value of stover (farm-gate
price), (3) cover crops with stover removal appear to have the ability
to substantially increase farm profit over cover crops alone, and
(4) adding a cover crop to stover removal can, in many cases, pay
the cost of the cover crop while allaying fears of increased erosion
and SOM loss from corn stover removal. These cases are fairly generalized
and contain a certain amount of risk.