Summary
Abstract Cover crop (CC) impacts on soil ecosystem services including erosion control, C sequestration, soil productivity, and others have been reviewed. However, CC impacts on soil physical properties, which affect the soil's ability to perform a variety of soil ecosystem services, have not been synthesized. We reviewed 98 peer‐reviewed publications up to 10 June 2020 on CCs and soil physical properties. Our review indicates that, in most studies, CCs reduce soil penetration resistance or compaction by 0–29% (average, 5%). They improve wet aggregate stability by 0–95% (average, 16%) and cumulative infiltration by 0–190% (average, 43%) but have negligible impacts on bulk density, dry aggregate stability, saturated hydraulic conductivity ( K sat ), unsaturated hydraulic conductivity ( K uns
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