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Cover cropping (CC) can be applied worldwide, but there is not a cover crop that fits every farming situation and potential benefits vary with climate, soil type and plant species. In detail, CCs can better fit in humid and subhumid regions than in semiarid regions where precipitation is limited (Unger and Vigil, 1998). The possible competition of CCs for available soil water in semiarid regions can limit the adoption of the practice (Unger and Vigil, 1998;Nielsen et al., 2015). A different approach to agricultural management is required for arable and woody crops. Impact on soil organic carbon stocksThe C storage potential of CCs is quite variable at regional level and with land use, ranging from 0.27 to 1.03 tC/ha/yr in the examined meta-analyses (Table 1). A higher potential was found in woody crops in warm temperate dry climates (about 1.00 tC/ha/yr), and lower values in arable crops most for temperate and tropical climates (0.32-0.56 tC/ha/yr). C storage potential in arable systems was 0.71, 0.51 and 0.46 tC/ha/yr in tropical, temperate and arid climates respectively (Jian et al., 2020). Data from a literature review (Blanco-Canqui et al.

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Table 2.1Soil mineral N (kg N-NO3 + N-NO2 + N-NH4 ha -1 ). Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between cover crop treatments for each sample date (n = 5; * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001). Radish (R), vetch (V), oat (O), their 2-and 3-species mixtures and a fallow (Fal).