AgEvidence US: Agro-environmental responses of conservation agricultural practices published from 1980 to 2020

AgEvidence US is a database of the multiple benefits and trade-offs associated with conservation agricultural practices in the United States Midwest. The purpose of these data are to provide organizations, policy makers, scientists, and other interested parties with all the available evidence related to the diversity and magnitude of agro-environmental impacts that occur following the implementation of conservation practices. The conservation practices we focused on include winter cover crops, conservation tillage, strategic nutrient management, early season pest management, and crop rotation in corn and soybean systems. Data were extracted from peer-reviewed literature published between 1980 and 2020 with experimental field sites located in at least one of the following states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Our dataset includes all response variables reported in each paper where there are isolated comparisons of a conservation practice (e.g. soil nitrate content following winter fallow and following winter cover crop). With this approach, we were able to capture the state-of-knowledge for a wide diversity of response variables and identify where we lack knowledge.