Cover crop use on Iowa acres raising seed corn has surged during the past three years, according to leaders of an initiative established to promote conservation practices among seed corn growers. Those gains, they said, could help spur seed corn growers, and their neighbors, to plant additional acres of cover crops on fields that grow conventional corn and soybeans, as well as seed corn.

“There are a lot of reasons that cover crops make sense on seed corn acres, and we’ve really seen planting take off,” said Shannon Moeller, project coordinator...