Fighting drought and flood with soil health
“[O]ur model predicts that by shifting the most-erodible or least-profitable regions of Iowa to systems using perennial and cover crops, farmers could reduce rainfall runoff by up to 20 percent in flood events and make as much as 16 percent more water available to crops in droughts,” the study says.
A shift to more perennials could mean more land in grass for haying or grazing, or it could include use of a perennial grain like kernza that could be hayed, grazed or harvested for a cash crop, Basche says.