BACKGROUND: Cultivation of winter cover crops is strongly recommended to increase land utilization efficiency, animal feeding material self-production, and to improve soil and environmental quality. METHODS AND RESULTS: Four major winter crops (barley, Chinese milk vetch, hairy vetch, and rye) having different C/N ratio were seeded in silt loam paddy soil in the November 2007 and the aboveground biomass was harvested on the late May 2008 to evaluate its effectiveness as green manure, and root biomass distribution was characterized at the different depth (0-60 cm) to study its effect on physical properties and carbon sequestration in soil. During this experiment, the naturally growing weed in the rice paddy soil in Korea, short awn foxtail (Alopecurus aequalis Sobol), was considered as control treatment. Above-ground biomass of all cover crops selected was significantly higher than that of the control treatment (2.8 Mg/ha). Comparatively higher above-ground biomass productivity of rye and barley (15.8 and 13.5 Mg/ha, respectively) suggested that these cover crops possibly had the highest potential as a green manure and animal feeding material. Root biomass production of different cover crops followed the same trend as that for their above ground biomass. Rye (Secale cereal) might have the highest potential for soil C accumulation (7893 C kg/ha) by root biomass development, and then followed by barley (6985 C kg/ha), hairy vetch (6467 C kg/ha), Chinese milk vetch (6671 C kg/ha), and control (5791 C kg/ha). CONCLUSION(s): Cover crops like rye and barley having high biomass productivity might be the most effective winter cover crops to increase organic carbon distribution in different soil aggregates which might be beneficial to improve soil structure, aeration etc. and C sequestration.