Adoption Rates of Conservation Practices

The USDA-NRCS defines soil health (also referred to as soil quality) “as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.” It is well known and accepted that conservation practices such as reduced tillage and cover crops applied to agricultural land reduce soil erosion and water and nutrient runoff, and thus contribute to improved soil health.

A Dec. 2015 publication entitled “Conservation-Practice Adoption Rates Vary Widely by Crop and Region” by Wade, Claassen, and Wallander of the USDA-ERS presents results from a 2010-2011 survey of US farmers. The survey reports results from farm- and field-level Agricultural Resource Management Surveys that are used to analyze national and regional adoption of no-till/strip-till (NT/ST) planting systems and cover crops. (Click here for an article on this website that cites results which indicate that NT and ST will provide similar benefits.)

Results shown in the report provide an estimate of the level of adoption of NT/ST and cover crops in the lower Mississippi River Valley or Midsouth (defined in the report as the Mississippi Portal) compared to the entire US.


  • 39% of the combined acreage of corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton was grown in NT/ST systems in the US. Over 44% of survey respondents used NT/ST on at least one of these crops.

  • 56% of all land in the US used for corn, soybean, wheat, and cotton in the survey was on farms that used NT/ST on at least part of the acreage.

  • 33% of the total acres of the four crops in the Midsouth are farmed with NT/ST compared to 39% nationally. In the Midsouth, 32% of the soybean acres are farmed with these tillage methods compared to 46% nationally.

  • In the Midsouth, 18% of the NT/ST acres were on farms using its adoption on all acres (full adopters) of the four crops, while 14% used NT/ST on a portion of the acres (partial adopters) of these crops. In the entire US, full adopters accounted for 23% of the NT/ST acres, while partial adopters accounted for 33% of the acreage.

  • Soybean producers in the US who use NT/ST on all their acres accounted for 37% of the soybean acreage. The Midsouth percentage was not reported.

  • In the entire US, only 1.7% of acres of the four crops had cover crops grown on them. In the Midsouth, about 3.5% of these cropland acres had cover crops. Nationally, about 4% of surveyed farmers used cover crops on some of their acreage.


The results in this report indicate that Midsouth crop producers fall below the national average in their use of NT/ST for soybean and the other crops.

Midsouth producers exceed the national average in their use of cover crops, but the percentage of acres with cover crops grown on them is very low both nationally (1.7%) and in the Midsouth (3.5%). Thus, the perceived benefits derived from cover crops is realized on few acres.

Click here and here for articles on this website that present in-depth information about using different tillage systems for soybean production.

Click here for an article on this website that provides in-depth information about using cover crops in crop production systems.

Composed by Larry G. Heatherly, Jan. 2016, larryheatherly@bellsouth.net