Sentinel-2 for Assessing Winter Cover Crop Growth and Its Influential Factors in Maize Cropping System in the Netherlands

Abstract

An effective establishment of a winter cover crop is important for reducing ni-trogen leaching to groundwater in the maize-based cropping system of the Netherlands. Cover crop establishment after maize cultivation is obliged by law for sandy soils and consequently imple-mented in nearly all maize fi elds, but the vegetative ground cover in winter varies signifi cantly between fi elds. This study’s objective is to evaluate to what extent dif-ferences in winter vegetative cover can be explained by the timing of cover crop es-tablishment and weather conditions in two growing seasons (2017-18). We focussed on the Province of Overijssel.