Monitoring Soil N and Water Dynamics under Cover Crops through Sentinel-2 Time Series

The evaluation of cover crops (CCs) effects on soil N dynamics and water content (SWC) in a cropping system requires knowledge of their growth pattern. The present study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of utilizing time series vegetation indices (VIs) acquired from the Sentinel-2 satellite to monitor CC growth, while estimating the CCs residues N release and measuring cash crop production and soil water content.Satellite imagery revealed different winter growth patterns of CCs: rye and triticale exhibited quicker growth than clover, while mustard displayed the fastest growth but suffered frost-winterkill. These findings suggest the potential utility of remote sensing tools to optimize CC utilization and improve crop management efficiency. Despite different biomass production and estimated N release among CCs species, none of them affected SWC or yield and N uptake of the cash crop.