Cover plants as contaminant removers in agriculture

Climate change and human contamination activities play a dual role in agricultural production, which leads to food shortages. 

Aside from improving soil health, cover plants have the potential also to reduce contaminant levels in agricultural soils and products.

Cover plants and their associated rhizobiomes are still largely underexplored for their contribution to contamination management in current agricultural practices.

Several contaminants can potentially be remediated with cover plants, such as metals, organic pollutants, nitrates, antimicrobial resistance genes, plastics, and salts.

Cover plants may reduce the contaminant load of cash crops via phytoextraction, phytostabilization, phytodegrad, and phytovolatilization processes.

https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-science/fulltext/S1360-1385(25)00030-5

https://sciencemission.com/cover-plants-as-contaminant-removers