Dr. Hongli Feng was interviewed by KAAL-TV ABC 6 about a recent cover crop study she co-authored with Zhushan Du and J. Arbuckle. The study, "Not ready for a long-term commitment? Analyzing temporal variability in cover crop adoption," uses farmer responses to surveys from 2014, 2016, and 2018 categorize farmers into those who continuously adopt cover crops (6.6%), intermittent adopters (28.9%), and continuous nonadopters (64.5%).
Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig told KAAL-TV “We’ve got roughly 4 million acres of cover crops in the state. What we need to be doing is doubling that and getting to 8 million to 10 million acres.” However, Feng said that farmers often do not adopt cover crops because the process can be complex. "They have to decide which type of crops to use. When we say cover crops, it’s not just a single seed. Farmers have to choose among different species and determine the best time to plant them,” Feng said.