What began as a doctoral project at the University of Michigan is now spreading like red clover across the Great Lakes region to help farmers improve their soil and prevent fertilizer from washing into waterways.
Although it took root at a research university, the program’s growth has been supported by hundreds of fields owned by farmers like David Halsey of Adrian. Halsey and his peers have enlisted their fields as living labs and partnered with experts from U-M and other institutions to study a powerful but underused practice: cover cropping.
The Great Lakes Cover Crops Project officially launched about five years ago. Between then and fall 2025, more than 225 farmers from six states have enrolled nearly 600 fields in the project. Of those fields, 158 are in Michigan, the most of any state, where you can find hairy vetch, crimson clover, cereal rye and other plants growing after farmers have harvested their cash crops. The project’s goal is to make cover cropping easier for growers to adopt, not only to benefit their farms, but also lessen the burden agriculture puts on neighboring ecosystems.
“I’m involved in lots of different programs, not just this one, because I want to learn as much as I can about the environment, about regenerative farming,” Halsey said. “What intrigued me about this program is that the researchers are willing to come out and do studies on the field, then share that data back with farmers.”
Source : umich.edu