Cover cropping consists in sowing non-cash crops to improve regulating and supporting services without seeking provisioning services. Cover cropping has the potential for spatio-temporal diversification of cropping systems to help address food security while also improving environmental sustainability. However, cover crops are still poorly adopted by farmers worldwide. One of the key reasons behind this poor adoption is the difficulties in ensuring cover crop establishment that is further exacerbated by the current knowledge gaps. On the other hand, no study has yet summarized key published and unpublished information on cover crop emergence and field establishment that may help fill these knowledge gaps. In light of this, for the first time, we comprehensively review the literature to summarize and quantify information related to cover crop emergence and propose strategies for improving their field establishment. The major findings are as follows. (1) Detailed statistics on the share of arable land sown to cover crops are lacking, but the available information suggests that this share is increasing over the years ranging from 4% in the USA to 9% in the EU. (2) Four key factors—regulations and public policy incentives, economic factors, knowledge factors, and environmental factors—influence the adoption or non-adoption of cover crops by farmers. (3) Poor emergence and field establishment, due to unfavorable environmental conditions, is one of the most important obstacles to cover crop adoption across temperate regions worldwide. (4) Five forms of cover crop sowing are practiced by farmers that can be grouped into two major sowing strategies—sowing before and after harvesting cash crops—each of them presenting several strengths and limits. (5) A wide range of sowing equipment is available for farmers but their choice depends on several factors including work output and costs. Finally, we emphasize the role of a decision support system and modeling, for an optimal cover crop sowing and field establishment, which are key for enhanced quantity of biomass production and ecosystem service provisioning.

覆盖作物包括播种非经济作物以改善监管和支持服务，而不寻求供应服务。覆盖作物有可能使种植系统的时空多样化，以帮助解决粮食安全问题，同时提高环境可持续性。然而，覆盖作物在全世界农民中的采用率仍然很低。这种采用率低下的关键原因之一是难以确保覆盖作物的建立，而当前的知识差距进一步加剧了这一困难。另一方面，目前还没有研究总结了可能有助于填补这些知识空白的覆盖作物出现和田间建立的关键已发表和未发表的信息。有鉴于此，我们首次全面回顾了文献，以总结和量化与覆盖作物出苗相关的信息，并提出了改善其田间建立的策略。主要发现如下。（1） 缺乏关于播种用于覆盖作物的耕地份额的详细统计数据，但现有信息表明，这一份额多年来一直在增加，从美国的 4% 到欧盟的 9% 不等。（2） 四个关键因素——法规和公共政策激励、经济因素、知识因素和环境因素——影响农民采用或不采用覆盖作物。（3） 由于不利的环境条件，出苗和田间建立不良是全球温带地区作物采用的最重要障碍之一。（4） 农民采用五种形式的覆盖作物播种，可分为两种主要的播种策略——在收获经济作物之前和之后播种——每一种都呈现出不同的优势和局限性。 （5） 农民可以使用多种播种设备，但他们的选择取决于几个因素，包括工作产出和成本。最后，我们强调了决策支持系统和建模的作用，以实现最佳的覆盖作物播种和田间建设，这是提高生物量生产和生态系统服务提供的关键。