Cover status / residue status
Pay on what came up, not on what was reported.
Cover Crop Check reads every enrolled field each season for cover-crop establishment and residue cover, so your payment run has a second source beside the grower's record.
Grower's record
With Cover Crop Check
- GSD
- Wide / 10-30 m
- Cadence
- Seasonal
- Platform
- Wide-swath satellite
- Spectral
- Multispectral
01 The job today
The payment run
A grower's record says cover went in after harvest: a seed receipt, a seeding date, a photo, a termination date. You read those field by field, pull a sample for a closer look and pay the rest on trust.
Then an outside verifier asks what backs a claim, and a receipt shows that seed was bought, not that anything came up. The gap between a purchase and an established stand is where the money goes out unchecked.
02 Ledger
The same payment run, two sources
01Reading the practice claim
Grower's recordA seed receipt, seeding and termination dates, and a photo the grower chose to send.
With Cover Crop CheckA seasonal status for the enrolled field, cover established or not established, read from the satellite pass over the field boundary you sent.
Still yoursThe claim itself. The record stays in the file, and the status sits beside it.
02Picking fields to spot-check
Grower's recordA sample drawn across the enrollment, or whichever fields drew a question.
With Cover Crop CheckFields where the record says cover and the status says not established, or the season is unconfirmed, are the ones you flag first from the CSV. You spend the visits there.
03Confirming residue after planting
Grower's recordTake the grower's word on tillage, or visit and look at the ground.
With Cover Crop CheckResidue present or absent per field for the season, tracked next to the cover status.
04Releasing payment
Grower's recordPay on the record, with the sample as the only independent check.
With Cover Crop CheckPay with a second source on every enrolled field. Where the two disagree, you hold that field for review.
Still yoursThe payment decision and the program rules behind it. A status is an input to that decision.
05A season with no clear pass
Grower's recordThe record gets read anyway, and nobody knows what the field looked like.
With Cover Crop CheckThe field comes back unconfirmed. You know the season wasn't checked, and you can treat it that way.
06Building the history for renewal
Grower's recordOne folder of receipts and photos per grower per year.
With Cover Crop CheckOne table per field across the program period, ready for the MRV record and the outside verifier.
03 Files
What lands each season
One set of results per enrolled field for every season in the program period, in files your MRV platform or spreadsheet already opens.
- CSV
Cover-crop status
Established or not established, one row per enrolled field per season. It sits next to the grower's claim in the payment-run spreadsheet, and replaces the reading of a receipt as your evidence of establishment.
Ledger row 01: Reading the practice claim - CSV
Residue-cover status
Residue present or absent on the same rows, so cover and residue read together for each field and season.
Ledger row 03: Confirming residue after planting - GeoJSON
Status board
Your enrolled field boundaries, each carrying its cover and residue status for the season. It opens in the GIS you already run and lets you map where the not-established fields cluster.
Ledger row 02: Picking fields to spot-check - CSV
Program-period history
Every season for every field in one table, built up as the program goes on. It feeds the MRV record and gives the outside verifier the same rows you used.
Ledger row 06: Building the history for renewal
04 Program period
Through the program period
You send the boundaries once. Results come back every season.
- Before the first season
Send your enrolled fields
A boundary file for the enrolled fields, with the field ID your MRV platform uses, so results join back to your records.
- Before each season
Agree the season
Tell us the program period and the seasons you want covered. That sets the passes we plan.
- Each season
Seasonal pass
Wide-swath multispectral imagery over every enrolled field. Cover and residue thresholds get applied, and a season without a clear pass returns unconfirmed.
- Each season
Results delivered
The CSVs and the status board, in time for the verification pass ahead of the payment run.
- Any time
Thresholds on request
Ask how established and residue present are defined. We describe the spectral thresholds behind them.
05 Limits
What the grower's record still does better
Read these before you pay off a status.
Cloud can leave a season unconfirmed
The imagery is optical. If cloud sits over a field on every pass in the season, that field returns unconfirmed and the page never fills it in with a guess. A grower's photo doesn't have that problem.
Whole fields, not rows
At 10-30 m a pixel covers a good piece of ground. The status is a call on the field, not on a row, a strip or a single plant. Small or narrow fields have few clean pixels, and a field edge can blur into the road or the neighbor.
Cover present, not which species
The result says whether cover came up. It doesn't name the seed mix, the seeding date or the termination method. Those stay in the grower's record.
Residue is a coarse call
Present or absent is all the residue result says. It doesn't give a percent cover, and it can't separate no-till from reduced-till.
Practice, not carbon
Cover Crop Check reports a practice signal. It is not soil sampling, not carbon accounting, and not a substitute for the program's own measurement.
Seasonal is the cadence
Results come once a season, not week by week. You can't use them to catch a field mid-season.
06 Fit
Who it's for
Switch if
- You verify practice claims for a soil-carbon or regenerative program and pay per enrolled field.
- You sit on the food-brand side and need evidence behind a Scope 3 practice claim, beyond the grower's word.
- You want a second source on every field, and a list of which ones to look at first.
Stay with the grower's record if
- You want a carbon credit, an offset or an emissions number. This isn't that.
- You need to know the seed mix, the seeding date or the termination method.
- You need row-level or plant-level detail.
07 Questions
Before you switch
Does this replace the grower's record?
No. The record stays in the file. You get a seasonal status per enrolled field to read against it.
Can it certify a carbon credit?
No. It reports a practice signal, cover and residue, and stops there. Emissions accounting and any credit stay with your program and its verifier.
What if a field is cloud-covered all season?
That season returns unconfirmed for the field. We don't guess, and the CSV shows which fields to chase.
How is "established" defined?
By a spectral cover threshold, not a visual call. We describe the threshold on request.
How do we check it against our own ground truth?
Run the first season against fields you already know: ones you've visited, or ones with photos and dates you trust. If a field looks wrong, send it back and we'll go through that season's imagery with you.
What resolution is this?
10-30 m per pixel. That fits a call on a whole field. It won't pick out rows or single plants.
Will it load into our MRV platform?
There's no direct integration. You get CSV and GeoJSON, keyed to the field IDs you send.
Who owns the results, and can we share them with our verifier?
Your boundaries stay yours. What you can do with the results, and the licence on the imagery behind them, gets written into the pilot agreement before the first season.
How is it priced?
It depends on the number of enrolled fields and the seasons covered, so we quote once we've seen the enrollment. There's no price list on this page.
08 Next season
Send your enrolled fields before the next season.
Send a boundary file and the program period. We'll scope a pilot from there.