Cover Crops and Cropping System Sustainability in a Changing Global Climate

Dr. Ritchey will help the project by educating producers and other interested groups in Kentucky and Tennessee on best management options for cover crop use in the Southeast. Further, he will gather information on current practices and challenges they face that hinder cover crop implementation. In years 2 and 3, he will extend the findings of this research in organized extension meetings and other appropriate venues in Kentucky and Tennessee. A drone with multispectral imagery and software will be used to collect additional information from this and existing cover crop studies that can be added to the results of the studies in Tennessee to advance the knowledge of cover crops. Specifically, normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) can be collected for the cover crop treatments and subsequent “cash crops” to determine if the biomass and nitrogen status differs with treatments. This will complement the data collected from the field and plant.