USDA - SARE - Cover Crop Economics
Ed : While not dealing specifically with tropical crops, some of the management situations discussed can be adapted for consideration in other contexts.
Farmers around the country (US) are planting cover crops on millions of acres to protect and improve the soil, and the more that farmers use cover crops, the more they value this conservation practice. Cover Crop Economics: Opportunities to Improve Your Bottom Line in Row Crops (download | read online) looks at the economics of cover crops in corn and soybean rotations to help farmers answer that big question, when do cover crops pay?
The key, says North Dakota farmer Justin Zahradka, who has been planting cover crops since 2011, is to “look at cover crops as an investment rather than a cost.”