In 2016, a three-year grant was awarded from USDA-NIFA to conduct research and outreach regarding cover crops and their environmental, agronomic, and economic benefits.  This project is a multistate, multidisciplinary effort between the University of Kentucky and Mississippi State University.  In 2018-2019, the outreach portion of the grant launched which included an economic decision tool for determining the cost of establishing and terminating cover crops.  A graduate student at the University of Kentucky who was funded by the grant developed an Excel-based tool.  Through this project, we discovered that the economic costs of establishing and terminating cover crops could exceed $100/ac depending on the species of the cover crop planted.  

Furthermore, the short-term benefits did not exceed the costs of cover crops and even had a negative impact on yield for the following cash crop.  Therefore, extension efforts across Mississippi and Kentucky were focused on cost management, while still being agronomic and environmentally practical.   From 2018-2019, numerous extension meetings reached 640 producers across Mississippi and Kentucky.  In addition to this effort, a three-year project was funded by the Kentucky Commodity Boards to investigate using ryegrass as a cover crop to break down fragipan soils that are prevalent across the state.  If producers in Kentucky utilized ryegrass on fragipan soils and the expected yield benefits occur, ryegrass as a cover crop could have a Return on Investment (ROI) of 20% over ten years.  This ROI equates to an overall value of $225/acre over ten years.   Given that there are around 1.5 million cropland acres in Kentucky that have fragipan soils, the economic impact for Kentucky producers can be significant.