Replacement of bare fallow in rotations by cover crops is a promising tool to reduce crusting, although the interactions with the soil moisture and the effect of the cover crop species are still not well understood. The objective of this work was to determine how cover crops modify the soil surface response to penetration and their relation with the soil water content. Two winter cover crops, barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) and vetch (Vicia sp. L.), were compared with a bare fallow treatment in a 10-year field experiment in central Spain. Soil resistance to penetration and soil water content were intensively measured (76 sampling dates) at two surface depths, using two types of surface penetrometers. Under the barley cover crop, the number of very dry events was reduced by around 20%, compared to the bare fallow. The soil resistance to penetration was closely related to the surface soil water content (R² = 0.65) and cover crops affected it through soil moisture modification. In this line, the greater mulch provided by barley cover crop respect to vetch, increased the soil water content prior to main crop seeding, resulting in less resistance to penetration during this critical period. The good performance of barley resulted in a reduction of more than 60% of the soil resistance to penetration between the 3rd and 8th year of the experiment (7.2–2.9 kg cm⁻², respectively). Even under bare fallow, soil strength was decreased after ten years with reduced tillage. Therefore, the maintenance of cover crop residues over surface soil together with reduced tillage enhanced the soil surface conditions and steadily reduced the risk of crust formation. Expected enhancement of main-crop germination, water infiltration, soil aeration and erosion mitigation may be attained by cover-cropping in degraded soils.

用覆盖作物代替轮作的裸休是减少结皮的有前途的工具，尽管与土壤水分的相互作用和覆盖作物种类的影响仍未得到很好的理解。这项工作的目的是确定覆盖作物如何改变土壤表面对渗透的响应及其与土壤水分的关系。两种冬季农作物，大麦（大麦）和紫etch（野豌豆）。L.），在西班牙中部进行了为期10年的田间试验，并与裸照休养疗法进行了比较。使用两种类型的表面渗透计，在两个表面深度上对土壤的渗透力和土壤水分进行了严格的测量（76个采样日期）。与裸露休耕相比，在大麦遮盖作物下，非常干旱的事件数量减少了约20％。土壤的抗渗透性与表层土壤含水量（R ² = 0.65），并且覆盖作物通过土壤水分改良而受到影响。在这条线中，大麦覆盖作物提供的覆盖率更高，在主要作物播种之前增加了土壤水分，导致在此关键时期的抗渗透性降低。大麦的良好表现导致在试验的第3年和第8年之间，土壤抗渗透性降低了60％以上（7.2–2.9 kg cm ^-2， 分别）。即使在裸露的休耕条件下，十年耕作后土壤强度也会降低。因此，维持表层土壤上的农作物残留物和减少耕作可改善土壤表面状况，并稳定降低结皮的风险。通过在退化的土壤中进行覆盖种植，可以实现预期的主要农作物发芽，水分渗透，土壤通气和减缓侵蚀的作用。