Do diverse cover crop mixtures perform better than monocultures? A systematic review

We conducted a systematic review that synthesizes a growing body of cover crop mixture research. The extracted data was analyzed to assess, for seven metric categories, whether cover crop mixtures can perform better than their constituent species when planted alone. Searching three databases, we identified 27 studies which compared cover crop mixtures (containing at least three species) to all their constituent species. The studies contained 119 sampled cover crop plantings that met our eligibility criteria. From these, we extracted 243 full comparisons of the best‐performing mixture and best‐performing monoculture for the selected metrics. Dataset S1 contains the best monoculture versus best mixture comparisons. Dataset S2 contains cover crop planting and sampling dates. Dataset S3 contains cover crop treatment coefficient of variation information. Dataset S4 contains cover crop treatment seeding rate information for studies where a non-substitutive design was used.Â