IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i8p3192-d1373652.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Fall and Winter Cover Crops on Weed Suppression in the United States: A Meta-Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Fengxia Dong

    (Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC 20250, USA)

  • Wendy Zeng

    (Economic Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC 20250, USA)

Abstract

Cover cropping recently emerged as a promising alternative to conventional tillage and herbicide use for weed suppression in agricultural systems. We investigated their effectiveness in weed control and the varying effects of different management strategies using a meta-analysis. Our analysis studied two categories: weed biomass control and weed density control. We employed a random-effect model to analyze weed biomass to address between-study heterogeneity and found that cover crop treatments led to a significant 62.6% reduction in weed biomass. These results are robust to outliers and publication bias. Furthermore, subgroup analysis found that planting a mixture of cover crop types was more effective than planting a single type. Additionally, planting a mixture of cover crop species, which are subcategories of cover crop types, was found to be more effective than planting a single species. Our analysis also unveiled a persistent, albeit diminishing, reduction in weed biomass even after the termination of cover crops. For weed density analysis, we used a fixed-effect model due to the absence of between-study heterogeneity and found a statistically significant reduction (45.4%) in weed density. Subgroup analysis revealed no significant difference in weed density control between legume and grass cover crop types.

Suggested Citation

  • Fengxia Dong & Wendy Zeng, 2024. "Effects of Fall and Winter Cover Crops on Weed Suppression in the United States: A Meta-Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-16, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:8:p:3192-:d:1373652
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/8/3192/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/8/3192/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paraskevas Parlakidis & Maria Soledad Rodriguez & Georgios D. Gikas & Christos Alexoudis & Greivin Perez-Rojas & Marta Perez-Villanueva & Alejo Perez Carrera & Alicia Fernández-Cirelli & Zisis Vryzas, 2022. "Occurrence of Banned and Currently Used Herbicides, in Groundwater of Northern Greece: A Human Health Risk Assessment Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-16, July.
    2. Colin B. Begg & Jesse A. Berlin, 1988. "Publication Bias: A Problem in Interpreting Medical Data," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 151(3), pages 419-445, May.
    3. Kurex Sidik & Jeffrey N. Jonkman, 2005. "Simple heterogeneity variance estimation for meta‐analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 54(2), pages 367-384, April.
    4. Ch. Kunz & D.J. Sturm & D. Varnholt & F. Walker & R. Gerhards, 2016. "Allelopathic effects and weed suppressive ability of cover crops," Plant, Soil and Environment, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 62(2), pages 60-66.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stanley, T.D. & Doucouliagos, Chris & Jarrell, Stephen B., 2008. "Meta-regression analysis as the socio-economics of economics research," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 276-292, February.
    2. Stanley, T. D. & Doucouliagos, Chris, 2019. "Practical Significance, Meta-Analysis and the Credibility of Economics," IZA Discussion Papers 12458, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Mathur, Maya B & VanderWeele, Tyler, 2017. "Sensitivity analysis for unmeasured confounding in meta-analyses," OSF Preprints jkhfg, Center for Open Science.
    4. Chatfield, Chris, 1995. "Positive or negative?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 501-502, December.
    5. Christopher Snyder & Ran Zhuo, 2018. "Sniff Tests as a Screen in the Publication Process: Throwing out the Wheat with the Chaff," NBER Working Papers 25058, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Weber, Frank & Knapp, Guido & Ickstadt, Katja & Kundt, Günther & Glass, Anne, 2020. "Zero-cell corrections in random-effects meta-analyses," OSF Preprints qjh5f, Center for Open Science.
    7. Mattia Filomena & Matteo Picchio, 2023. "Retirement and health outcomes in a meta‐analytical framework," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1120-1155, September.
    8. Auspurg Katrin & Hinz Thomas, 2011. "What Fuels Publication Bias?: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses of Risk Factors Using the Caliper Test," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(5-6), pages 636-660, October.
    9. Rosenberger, Randall S. & Stanley, Tom D., 2006. "Measurement, generalization, and publication: Sources of error in benefit transfers and their management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 372-378, December.
    10. Johannes Hönekopp & Audrey Helen Linden, 2022. "Heterogeneity estimates in a biased world," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-21, February.
    11. Kilpatrick, Henry E., Jr., 1998. "Some useful methods for measuring the benefits of social science research," Impact assessments 5, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Sidik, Kurex & Jonkman, Jeffrey N., 2006. "Robust variance estimation for random effects meta-analysis," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(12), pages 3681-3701, August.
    13. Nino Fonseca & Marcelino Sánchez-Rivero, 2020. "Significance bias in the tourism-led growth literature," Tourism Economics, , vol. 26(1), pages 137-154, February.
    14. Tomas Kucera, 2020. "Are Employment Effects of Minimum Wage the Same Across the EU? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers IES 2020/2, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jan 2020.
    15. Jamal BOUOIYOUR & Refk SELMI & Ilhan OZTURK, 2014. "The Nexus between Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth: New Insights from Meta-Analysis," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 4(4), pages 621-635.
    16. Kuen‐Hung Tsai & Jiann‐Chyuan Wang, 2004. "R&D Productivity and the Spillover Effects of High‐tech Industry on the Traditional Manufacturing Sector: The Case of Taiwan," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(10), pages 1555-1570, November.
    17. Mora Rodríguez, Jhon James & Muro, Juan, 2015. "On the size of sheepskin effects: A meta-analysis," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-18.
    18. Dominic J. STURM & Christoph KUNZ & Gerassimos PETEINATOS & Roland GERHARDS, 2017. "Do cover crop sowing date and fertilization affect field weed suppression?," Plant, Soil and Environment, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 63(2), pages 82-88.
    19. Stanley, T. D. & Doucouliagos, Hristos, 2011. "Meta-regression approximations to reduce publication selection bias," Working Papers eco_2011_4, Deakin University, Department of Economics.
    20. Winston Moore & Chrystol Thomas, 2010. "A meta‐analysis of the relationship between debt and growth," International Journal of Development Issues, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(3), pages 214-225, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:8:p:3192-:d:1373652. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.