Cover cropping is an important tool for mitigating soil erosion, reducing reliance on synthetic inputs, and improving soil fertility, soil health, and on-farm biodiversity. Despite these advantages, adoption of cover crops has lagged in the inland Pacific Northwest (iPNW) relative to other regions of the United States. The slower adoption stems from the region’s climate in which most precipitation falls outside the growing season, necessitating careful management of soil moisture and constraining the timing of production operations and limiting the viability of cover crop species.

To address these challenges, the PaNDAS project, developed by a team of producers, University of Idaho students, and faculty, has conducted research to evaluate termination timing and cover-crop diversity for sustained productivity in northern Idaho and eastern Washington cereal systems. With funding from the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (WSARE) program we designed and implemented replicated on-farm experiments in which business as unusual was compared with incorporation of standard cover crop mixes based on producer experience and knowledge of producer and scientist co-investigators. One cover crop treatment on each farm was a producer’s-choice tailored to the specific needs of thier operation. Cover crops were terminated at different times. We measured soil water profiles, weed and crop biomass, insect communities, and follow-on wheat yields. The PaNDAS project has also investigated the economic and social barriers and incentives shaping cover crop adoption in our region.

All producer co-PIs brought experience with cover cropping and commitment to multiyear on-farm experiments to explore both the short term and long term benefits and challenges of cover cropping in the iPNW. Scientists on the PaNDAS team have worked for more than a decade on interdisciplinary research at the intersection of climate, agronomy, plant protection, social science, and economics of cereal production systems. These foundations make PaNDAS a novel confluence of producer insight and transdisciplinary expertise aimed at building resilient and sustainable agricultural systems.

Through our work, we aim to answer key questions and provide an ongoing resource for producers interested in diversifying their operations throughout the inland Pacific Northwest. This website shares information from our project and from other vetted sources as a continuously updated resource for the region’s agricultural community. We invite you to explore its content as our project continues to evolve.