One of the most effective ways of producing crops year after year is to provide irrigation to make sure the plants have enough moisture to germinate, grow and yield good crops. Sometimes it only takes a few inches of rain a year, applied at the right time, to get your crop through a dry spell. But irrigation can be expensive and sometimes water is difficult to get access to. Here is an article from IFAS from last week which describes how using cover crops can act like a low-cost source of soil moisture that can also help improve crop outcomes. You can read it at https://nwdistrict.ifas.ufl.edu/phag/2019/12/13/cover-crops-a-low-cost-alternative-to-irrigation/.

Source: USDA ARS