March 30, 2016
A2
MARCH 30, 2016 IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN
Buena Vista County farmer’s commitment
to protecting soil and water spans decades
BY DARCY MAULSBY
C
all him the farmer who
embraced conservation when
conservation wasn’t cool.
Orlando “Olie” Leimer knew
there had to be a better
way when he saw dust
storms blacken the Iowa
sky decades ago.
“I remember some
huge dust storms that
occurred in my area in the
1960s,” said Leimer, 83,
who started farming in
the 1950s and continues LEIMER
to raise corn and soybeans
near Albert City. “That told me we had to
do something different to protect the soil.”
A local conservation specialist for Buena
Vista County encouraged Leimer to consider no-till. While Leimer had started
hearing about no-till in the early 1970s,
he didn’t pay much attention at first. The
more he learned about it, though, the more
he was willing to try it. He also sold his
plow. “When I first started no-tilling and
ridge-tilling in the 1970s, people thought
I’d had one too many,” joked Leimer, who
farms with his wife, Lois, and runs a Titan
Pro dealership. “I took some teasing from
the neighbors. One said no-till would never
work.”
Leimer himself wasn’t sure if conservation tillage would work, since this was a
new farming practice in his area. Others
saw merit in Leimer’s new venture, however, including Art Dierwechter, a local
farmer who became one of Leimer’s landlords. “Art was one of the original members
of the conservation board in Buena Vista
County,” Leimer said. “When I started
using conservation tillage, he thought that
was a good thing.”
Ridge-till hall of fame
Learning about conservation farming
wasn’t easy in those days. Conservation
tillage was a new concept, and educational meetings that focused on conservation
farming practices weren’t widely offered.
Leimer read as much as he could in the farm
press and was inspired by articles featuring
Ernie Behn, a ridge-till farmer from Boone.
“Ernie was one of the originators of
ridge till in Iowa, and I learned a lot from
him,” said Leimer, who attended farm meetings where Behn was a guest speaker.
Leimer’s early adoption and successful
use of ridge-till earned him a spot in the
Ridge-Till Hall of Fame. A plaque that was
presented to Leimer at the 1994 National
Ridge-Till Conference in Omaha honored
his efforts to educate other farmers and the
public about ridge-till, “a low-cost system,
with equal or better yields, that preserves soil and water, improves the
quality of the air, enhances sound
land stewardship and benefits the
total environment for present and
future generations of mankind.”
Learning from the land
Leimer continues to favor ridgetill, because seeds are planted on the
ridge that’s warmer and drier than
the surrounding soil. Side-dressing
the crop with nitrogen is also easy,
added Leimer, who noted that the
number of no-till and ridge-till farmers in his area started to grow by the
1980s.
While some farmers were reluctant to switch from traditional
farming practices followed by their
fathers and grandfathers, the transition to conservation farming was
easier for Leimer, a first-generation
farmer. Born in Texas, Leimer spent
part of his childhood in northern
Kansas. When his father accepted a
teaching job at a parochial school at
Zion Lutheran Church near Albert Buena Vista County farmer Olie Leimer describes how a 99-foot-wide buffer strip on his farm has helped
City, a 13-year-old Leimer enjoyed protect water quality in the Raccoon River for nearly 40 years. PHOTO/ DARCY MAULSBY
growing up with farm kids in the
area.
a hot-button topic in Iowa and beyond. have nearly 10 acres of filter strips on his
After graduating from Albert City High Leimer, who is keeping a close eye on the land, but 2016 marks his second year using
School in 1950, Leimer joined the U.S. Des Moines Water Works’ lawsuit and the cover crops. Last fall, he had cereal rye
Army and served in Korea, earning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s and radish seeds flown onto 132 acres. “If
rank of sergeant first class before being Waters of the U.S. proposed rule, knows I see an advantage to something, I’ll take a
honorably discharged. While Leimer’s par- his farming practices have implications look at it,” said Leimer. “When it comes to
ents had moved to Indiana by then, Leimer far beyond his fields.
conservation, I encourwanted to return to northwest Iowa. “My “I have children and “I have children and grandage other farmers to just
dad wanted me to become a school teacher grandchildren who live
it.”
children who live in central do There
like him, but agriculture interested me,” in central Iowa, and I
is no cooksaid Leimer, who had worked on farms in care about the water Iowa, and I care about the
ie-cutter approach to
the Albert City area as a teenager.
quality that’s coming water quality that’s coming effective conservation,
In 1956, Leimer married his wife, Lois, from our area and flow- from our area and flowing
however, Leimer said.
who had grown up on a Lincoln Township ing to that area,” said
Solutions need to be
farm southwest of Albert City. He worked Leimer, who believes to that area.”
tailored to each farm’s
as a hired man for local farmers before he conservation efforts
unique situation. “Also,
had the chance to rent some farmland. He should be voluntary, — Olie Leimer, Buena Vista County there are advantages and
farmed conventionally for about 10 years rather than mandated farmer
disadvantages to every
before he started considering more conser- by the government.
conservation system,”
vation practices in the late 1960s and early
While the benefits of conservation till- he said. “The main thing is to be willing
1970s.
age and other conservation practices don’t to try more conservation tillage and other
happen overnight, they do pay dividends conservation practices to make your soil
Protecting water quality
over time, from water quality enhance- better each year.”
This spirit of continuous improvement
One of his first improvements was a ments to improved soil health. “I can defigrass buffer strip that runs between his nitely see the benefits in my soil organic helped Leimer and his wife earn the Buena
Lincoln Township farm and the nearby matter,” said Leimer, who received an Iowa Vista Conservation Farmer of the Year
Raccoon River. He installed the 99-foot- Farm Environmental Leader award in 2015. award from the Buena Vista Soil & Water
wide buffer strip in the early 1970s. “This “When I started farming this land, the Conservation District earlier this year. A
is along low ground that tends to flood,” organic matter in the soil was 1 to 2 percent. focus on the future defines the Leimers,
who are young at heart. That’s just the way
Leimer said. “I added the buffer strip, Now it’s 3 to 5.5 percent.”
Olie likes it. “As long as the good Lord lets
because it makes sense for my farm and
us keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep
Continuous improvement
helps protect water quality.”
Conservation practices like this have
Leimer, who has been a Farm Bureau on going.”
Maulsby is a freelance writer from Lake
taken on added importance in recent years, member for more than 50 years, focuses on
especially as water quality has become continuous improvement. Not only does he City.
Public-private partnerships bolster five watershed projects
BY TOM BLOCK
M
ore than $47 million in
public and private investments will help farmers in
five key Iowa watersheds
quickly scale up conservation practices that
improve water quality beginning this year.
The funds will be used to help farmers
install new soil and water conservation
practices in the North Raccoon, South
Skunk, Lake Red Rock, Middle Cedar and
Upper Cedar watersheds.
“This money will go right to farmers
for things like cover crops, conservation
tillage, edge-of-field practices like bioreactors (and) saturated buffers that are really
important for reducing nitrate loss,” said
Sean McMahon, executive director of the
Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance, which
is overseeing the project along with the
Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land
Stewardship. “We’re also going to have
some resources for conservation planning,
and our private sector partners are doing
some really innovative things around precision ag and harnessing the latest innovations and technology.”
The project, led by the Midwest
Agriculture Water Quality Partnership, is
seen as a model for public and private entities working together to implement the Iowa
Nutrient Reduction Strategy, said McMahon.
“We really do think that this is going
to be transformational in terms of moving ahead progress to implement the Iowa
Nutrient Reduction Strategy,” he said. “This
grant and this project is really putting a lot
of new impetus and momentum behind
that.”
The Iowa-led project received a $9.5
million grant earlier this year from the
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Regional
Conservation Partnership Program, the
largest award in the country this year, and
is being matched by $4.75 million in state
funding and $33 million in private investments.
Building momentum
The project brings together 19 private
sector partners along with 26 non-governmental organizations, cities and government agencies working toward a common
goal of cleaner water and healthier soil
while maintaining farm productivity and
profitability.
“We are building on momentum at the
local level to address nutrient losses at
the watershed scale,” said Iowa Secretary
of Agriculture Bill Northey. “These funds
will allow us to continue to engage the
local agriculture community to deliver and
demonstrate the technologies needed to
improve water quality while protecting and
maintaining Iowa’s tremendous agricultural
productivity.”
A key part of the initiative will involve
local ag retailers and seed companies work-
ing with farmers to demonstrate practices
proven to have a significant impact on
reducing nitrogen and phosphorus losses.
Agronomists will also help farmers
integrate precision farming technologies
that can improve conservation outcomes,
said Todd Peterson, stewardship lead for
WinField.
“We believe that in addition to talking
about your crop plans and fertility plans, we
really ought to be talking about your conservation plans,” he said. “We have a big
job ahead of us, but we have an opportunity
to make a big difference.”
Project leaders believe working at the
watershed level will have the dual benefit
of implementing conservation practices at a
broad scale while at the same time targeting
specific practices where they can maximize
water quality benefits. “Our water quality
challenges are complex,” McMahon said.
“There is no one silver bullet, but taken
together, we do have silver buckshot.”
IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN MARCH 30, 2016
A3
Minton aims to leave land ‘better than we found it’
BY AMY KORT
N
atural resource conservation
continues to be a priority for
Iowa farmers. And year after
year, Iowa farmers like Tim
Minton are preventing soil erosion and
protecting water quality with conservation
practices.
Minton is the 2015 recipient of the
central Iowa district regional conservation
award, sponsored by the Iowa Farm Bureau
Federation and the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
“I’ve always said we should leave things
better than we found it,” Minton said. “Soil
is a valuable resource and one with a longterm objective.”
For the last 30 years, Minton’s Dallas
County family farm has used many conservation practices to protect the environment:
no-till, minimum till (only tilling when he
needs to depending on weather and soil
types and slope), buffer strips and dedicated
wetlands for nutrient mitigation.
One of his biggest projects was constructing a wetland on a farm that had a
severe flooding issue. Through the Iowa
De­­partment of Agriculture and Land Stew­­
ardship’s Conservation Reserve Enhance­­
ment Program (CREP), Minton was able
to construct a wetland that captures and
naturally filters water from 1,000 acres in
the Walnut Creek Watershed and ultimately
delivers better water downstream.
He also uses many conservation practices to reduce soil erosion, and is considering cover crops this season to create more
organic matter in the soil.
“Topsoil is a finite product, so we can’t
misuse or mistreat it,” he said.
Minton, who was born and raised on a
farm in northeast Iowa, farms about 700
acres, rotating corn and soybeans. He’s
married to Jane, and they have two grown
children, Ashlee and John.
2016 Iowa Conservation
Farmer of the Year award
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill
Northey encourages Iowans to nominate deserving farmers for the 2016 Iowa
Conservation Farmer of the Year award.
“The award recognizes a farmer who has
gone above and beyond in their conservation efforts,” Northey said. “It is important
that we recognize the continuous voluntary
improvements made by all Iowa farmers
and help raise awareness about the efforts
by farmers to conserve our valuable soil and
protect water quality.”
The statewide winner again this year
will have free use of a John Deere 6D series
utility tractor or its equivalent for up to 12
months or up to 200 hours. The Van Wall
Group and John Deere are providing the use
of the tractor to the state winner.
To nominate a deserving farmer, the
nominator needs to write a brief letter of
100 words or less, and submit it to their
Tim Minton loads his grain drill with oats for a conservation project on his farm near Dallas Center. Minton said he has spent nearly $200,000 on conservation measures during the last five
years. PHOTO/ GARY FANDEL
local Soil and Water Conservation District
(SWCD) office. Nominations must be submitted by June 5. Upon receipt of the nomination letter, the SWCD will help complete
the full application.
Farmers, farm managers, certified crop
advisors, agribusiness and financial professionals, agriculture organizations and other
interested Iowans are encouraged to nominate deserving farmers.
A SWCD directory is available on the
department’s website at www.iowaagriculture.gov under “hot topics.” The winner
will be honored Aug. 30 at the Conservation
Districts of Iowa annual meeting in Altoona.
Kort is a freelance writer in Ankeny.
Top 8 tips for managing cover crops this spring
BY DARCY MAULSBY
C
over crops offer an effective
way to protect against soil erosion in the winter and early
spring, but what needs to happen when it’s time to prepare the field for
corn or soybean planting?
“There are a number of factors to consider when timing the termination of your cover
crops,” said Steve Berger, a Washington
County farmer from Wellman who has used
cover crops on a continuous basis for 15
years on all of his farms.
Many of these management factors were
addressed during a recent Iowa Farm Bureau
Federation webinar on spring cover crop
management. Only winter-hardy cover crops
need to be killed with herbicide or tillage in
the spring, said Tom Kaspar, a plant physiologist at the USDA’s National Laboratory
for Agriculture and the Environment in
Ames. While oats and radishes winter kill,
Kaspar and Berger offered the following tips
for terminating winter-hardy cover crops:
1. Understand the nature of your cover
crop. Cereal rye terminates easily from any
stage of growth with 32 ounces per acre of
generic glyphosate, but annual rye grass is
a whole different species. Don’t let it get
more than 6 inches tall before terminating
it, Berger said. When terminating annual
ryegrass, add AMS first, increase generic
glyphosate rates to 50 to 60 ounces per acre,
use a spray solution of 10 gallons per acre,
and avoid tank mixes, Berger added.
2. Watch soil moisture, rainfall and cover
crop growth. If spring conditions are dry,
plan to kill the cover crop sooner than later
so it doesn’t deplete valuable soil moisture,
Kaspar said.
3. Pay attention to timing. Kaspar recommends terminating grass cover crops 10 to
14 days prior to corn planting, or before
the cover crop is 6 to 8 inches tall. “Before
soybeans, the biggest concern is dry conditions,” Kaspar added. “If conditions aren’t
dry, however, the cover crop can be sprayed
three days before planting.”
4. Be sure to comply with crop insurance
termination dates. Check with your crop
insurance provider for more details, Kaspar
said.
5. Know when to wait. Vigorous cover
crop growth is a good thing. That’s why
tiling projects and anhydrous applications
can make a difference in the timing of cover
crop termination. “Let’s say there’s an area
of the field where you’ve got a tile project,
and you go over the soil with a blade or
field cultivator,” Berger said. “Sometimes
when you disturb a cover crop like cereal
rye, it’s harder to terminate when you spray
it afterwards. From the time you work those
tile ditches down, maybe wait three or four
days to get that rye growing again. Then
terminate it, and you’ll have no problem.”
It’s the same with an anhydrous ammonia application. “The soil disturbance from
applying anhydrous will sometimes cause
a rye plant to harden off and not respond to
glyphosate,” Berger said. “Wait awhile to let
the rye re-establish before terminating the
cover crop, and you’ll be fine.”
6. Follow good glyphosate application
practices. Berger terminates 99 percent of
his cereal rye with glyphosate and encourages growers to respect good glyphosate
practices. “Whenever possible, try to spray
in the middle of the day when the weather is
sunny and warm, there’s little wind and the
cover crop is actively growing,” said Berger,
who watches for nighttime temperatures to
warm into the upper 40s.
7. Watch for weed and insect issues.
When terminating cover crops, be mindful
of controlling winter annual weeds and other
yield robbers. “This may mean increasing
your glyphosate rate or adding some 2, 4-D
or LV6,” Berger said. “You might also want
to add an insecticide to help control pests.”
8. Evaluate tank-mix strategies. Along
with glyphosate and an insecticide, Berger
sometimes adds residual herbicides to his
tank-mix. “There are some risks associated
with this, but it’s a risk worth taking,” said
Berger, who also adds UAN to the mix.
His 2015 program for acres going into
corn included 17 pounds of AMS per 100
gallons, glyphosate with rates increased to
48 ounces, Harness Xtra 6.0 herbicide at
2.3 quarts, atrazine at 0.65 quarts, bifen-
thrin insecticide at 4 ounces and UAN (25
pounds of nitrogen per acre) at 7 gallons per
acre. “We got along fine and had an excellent kill with this program,” Berger said.
His tank mix for acres to be planted to
soybeans included 17 pounds of AMS per
100 gallons, glyphosate (4 pounds) with
rates increased to 50 ounces, Anthem herbicide at 7.8 ounces, and LV6 herbicide
at 3 ounces. “This tank mix also worked
very well as a pre-emerge spray trip,” noted
Berger, who said that he only adds the LV6
in the early pre-plant situations when he’s
far enough away from planting.
In many cases, cover crops are terminated
within a week or less following these programs. “Maximizing your cover crop investment properly will help you reach your goals
of profitable crop production, erosion control
and improved soil health,” Berger said.
Maulsby is a freelance writer in Lake
City.
Cover crops gaining momentum with farmers
BY AMY KORT
I
owa farmers are continuing to implement new conservation practices on
thousands of acres to reduce the loss
of nutrients to surface waters under
the state’s nutrient reduction strategy, which
was adopted in 2013.
In 2015, farmers planted cover crops on
472,000 acres, a 35 percent increase from
the previous year, according to a new estimate from the Iowa Learning Farms.
The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy
indicates that cover crops are one of the
most effective practices available at reducing the loss of nutrients. They are also one
of the only practices proven to reduce both
nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, because
they take up nutrients during the fallow
time between harvest and planting and also
protect the soil surface from erosion.
Forty percent of respondents to a survey
by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and
Land Stewardship (IDALS) said they used
cover crops for the first time last year, while
52 percent said they’ve been using cover
crops for fewer than five years. In addition,
77 percent of the more than 800 respondents
said they’re planning on using cover crops
again.
“Even though they are early in the pro-
cess, farmers are showing a commitment
to trying the practice and expanding acres
as they get the hang of it,” said Matt
Lechtenberg, water quality initiative coordinator at IDALS. “There is a large effort,
in partnership with many organizations, to
advance cover crop adoption in Iowa. These
groups are hosting field days, often led by
farmers, to provide local information on the
best ways to manage cover crops.”
The survey indicated farmers on average
planted about 40 more acres of cover crops
than for which they received cost-share. On
average, farmers seeded 148 total acres to
cover crops while receiving cost-share for
an average of 107 acres. Motivation to use
cover crops included preventing soil erosion (90 percent), building organic matter
(69 percent), improve soil health (68 percent) and improve yields/profitability (47
percent).
The most popular types of cover used
include winter-hardy grass (77 percent), brassica (turnip, radish, rapeseed) at 18 percent,
and non-winter hardy grass (oats, spring
wheat) at 11 percent. As far as their approach
to cover crops, 34 percent of respondents
said they’d start on small amount of acres
and add more acres every year, 58 percent
said they use cover crops for erosive potential and 26 percent said they use cover crops
to supplement livestock feed.
Sixty-one percent of survey respondents
said they seed the cover crop post-harvest.
Fifty-five percent said they use the drill
method, followed by aerial application prior
to harvest at 37 percent.
Kort is a freelance writer in Ankeny.
A4
MARCH 30, 2016 IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN
Meier innovates with cutting-edge conservation efforts
BY STEVE MEYER
N
ick Meier’s lifelong passion
for conservation and water
quality has led to his use of
a range of conservation practices on his farm near La Porte City, including some that are still on the cutting edge.
“I’m very conscious about conservation.
After I started farming, as time went on and
I saw field erosion, it really bothered me,”
says Meier. He said that farmers should be
proactive about water quality or else they
may be forced by regulations.
Meier, 61, started farming in 1983 when
he took over his uncle Ed Meier’s farm five
miles west of La Porte City when Ed retired
from farming. He inherited his conservation
ethic from his uncle and father, Othmar,
who was one of the first farmers in the area
to chisel plow.
Nick started no-till farming 26 years
ago. Twenty-two years ago he started striptilling, which he says really helped with
corn, but he still no-tills his beans.
“I had some bumps with no-till and had
to change some things,” recalls Meier, who
farms 935 acres plus 400 acres of custom
farming. The “bumps” he refers to were
poor emergence, uneven emergence, getting
the chaff from the combine to spread evenly
to avoid uneven emergence and learning not
to set the planter’s trash wheel too deep.
Meier attributes his ability to overcome
these challenges to his father and his crop
scout, Shannon Gomes of Cedar Basin Crop
Consulting in Decorah, who has been consulting with him for nearly his entire farming career. “Between the two of them, we
would talk things out and figured out what
we needed to change,” said Meier.
Other conservation practices Meier uses
are filter strips along creeks and waterways,
contour planting and nutrient management
with the Adapt-N program. The program
was developed by Cornell University and
helps prevent over applying nitrogen by
Nick Meier supervises installation of a bioreactor on his farm last summer. The bioreactor will
filter drainage tile water from about 40 acres of land in the Miller Creek Watershed. FILE PHOTO
taking into consideration the amount of
rainfall, previous crop, soil organic matter
and soil tests.
Meier also started planting cover crops
two years ago. “The first year did not go so
well, but I’ve learned a lot,” he says. Last
year, he seeded 600 acres, some of which
was flown on and planted before harvest,
and it worked well.
His main goals with cover crops are con-
trolling erosion, weed control and maintaining good soil health and nutrient levels. He
would like to have the cover crop pay for
itself someday, but he feels that is four to
five years down the road.
In the last year, Meier implemented two
new water quality and conservation practices: a saturated buffer strip and a bioreactor
to filter tile drainage runoff.
He pattern tiled an 80-acre field, with
one-half of it draining in one direction and
the other half draining the opposite direction. Half of the field’s drainage filters
through the saturated buffer strip, while the
other half goes through the bioreactor.
The saturated buffer strip is a research
project in conjunction with Iowa State,
so it was no cost to Meier. He received
cost-share from the Environmental Quality
Incentives Program (EQIP) for the bioreactor, which paid for 75 percent of the project.
“Nick was selected because he has
been very active working with the Black
Hawk NRCS,” said Shane Wulf, who is
the Black Hawk County Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS) watershed
coordinator where the saturated buffer strip
and bioreactor are located. “He’s always
willing to try new things.”
Wulf is monitoring the nitrogen content
of water coming out of the saturated buffer
strip and bioreactor, but says it is too early
to discuss any results.
Meier serves on the advisory board for
Black Hawk County Conservation and
the Miller Creek Watershed, and he is a
past soil commissioner for Black Hawk
County. He is involved in the Conservation
Stewardship Program (CSP), a program
that provides financial incentives to do
conservation practices. In 2104, he received
the Iowa Environmental Leadership Award
presented at the Iowa State Fair. Meier and
his wife, Nancy, have three sons and one
daughter.
Steve Meyer is a freelance writer from
Garrison.
Farmers adapting to heavier springtime rainfall patterns
BY TOM BLOCK
I
t’s not just your imagination. It really is raining more in the springtime than it used to, according to
Christopher Anderson, assistant
director of the Climate Science Program at
Iowa State University.
Since 1981, Iowa has received more than
11 inches of rain during May and June nearly 1 out of every 3 years, Anderson reports.
That only happened 1 in 10 years, on average, during the previous 88 years, he notes.
“This is a level of risk previous generations of farmers didn’t have to deal with,”
he says. “It’s not just something that has
happened in Iowa. It’s part of a broader shift
in rainfall (across the Midwest).”
Records show that Iowa’s May-June rainfall has averaged 9.5 to 10.5 inches since the
year 2000, compared to 7 to 8 inches in the
20 years before that, Anderson said.
Unusual spring and summer precipitation patterns have also occurred much more
frequently since 1980, Anderson says. For
example, he explains, exceedingly wet or
dry springs are followed by excessively wet
or dry summers with much greater regularity
than before.
Targeting conservation
The increased rainfall has prompted
farmers to target conservation practices to
erosion-prone areas, expand conservation
coverage on more acres and adapt agronomic practices to prevent excessive soil erosion
and downstream sedimentation.
Cover crops and no-till slow the velocity of rainfall before it contacts the soil.
Grassed waterways, buffer strips and terraces slow the movement of water from
farm fields. Tile drainage increases the water
holding capacity of the soil, reducing surface erosion. Fertilizer applications have
also evolved, with more farmers utilizing
nitrogen stabilizers and splitting applica-
tions into smaller doses applied later in the
season so fertilizer remains present in the
soil when crops need it.
Researchers are also examining strategies to reduce costs on lower-producing
soils, such as conservation plantings or
alternative crops.
“Either moving that highly-erodible land
out of production, or at the very least, having
a cover on it,” Anderson says. “We definitely
see the environmental value of putting in an
extended rotation, but the business value, we
have yet to see a rotation that works.”
Ocean factors
So why is Iowa receiving so much more
rain during the spring months? Like many
weather trends, it all starts with the ocean,
Anderson explains. Warmer-than-normal
Atlantic Ocean temperatures mean excessive spring rainfall in Iowa, he says. The
trend, which generally occurs in roughly
60-year cycles, went from cold to warm in
the mid-1990s.
“We’re close to the peak,” Anderson
says. “If we haven’t hit it yet, we’re going
to in the next 10 to 15 years.”
Warming air temperatures are also a trigger for increased rainfall, he adds. If temperatures rise by one degree Celsius from
2020 to 2045, as predicted, Iowa can expect
an additional inch of rain during May and
June, Anderson says. That means fewer
days suitable for field work, among other
consequences.
“We have about 5 to 20 years to get
ready,” he says.
Along with conservation practices, farmers could also cope by utilizing water
management practices, Anderson says. For
example, while irrigation is sparsely used
in Iowa, there are opportunities to capture
some of the abundant spring rainfall and
hold it in a storage basin for irrigation usage
later in the year if the weather turns dry,
Anderson says. Studies suggest managing
water to have dry soils at planting time and
wet soils during the summer months could
increase corn and soybean yields by as
much as 13 percent compared to trendline
yields, Anderson says.
Watershed plan aims to reduce nitrate, phosphorus
BY BETHANY BARATTA
A
watershed project in northern
Iowa is helping farmers work
toward meeting the goals of
the Iowa Nutrient Reduction
Strategy.
The Iowa Soybean Association (ISA),
with support from the Walton Family
Foundation, began watershed planning three
years ago in the Rock Creek Watershed in
Mitchell County, which includes 44,787
acres that drain to the confluence of Rock
Creek and the Cedar River southwest of
Osage.
The ISA worked with local farmers and
a technical advisory committee to develop
goals and create a plan. It identified seven
main goals:
1. Reduce in-stream nitrogen by 41 percent from 2009-2011 average levels.
2. Reduce in-stream phosphorous by 29
percent from 2009-2011 levels.
3. Increase soil organic matter by 1 percent.
4. Maintain or increase agricultural productivity and revenues.
5. Reduce flood risk.
6. Maintain or increase upland wildlife
habitat.
7. Maintain or improve aquatic life.
ROCK CREEK PAGE A5
IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN MARCH 30, 2016
A5
Measuring Iowa’s march to reaching water quality goals
BY DIRCK STEIMEL
A
s more farmers adopt practices outlined in the Iowa
Nutrient Reduction Strategy,
farmers, agricultural leaders,
ag retailers and others are increasingly
focused on measuring the effectiveness of
the pioneering plan to improve the state’s
waters and reduce nitrogen and phosphorus
delivery to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Measurement is a big challenge that
we face with the (Iowa) Nutrient Reduction
Strategy, especially in
convincing the public that
we are on track,” said
John Lawrence, an Iowa
State University (ISU)
economist and associate
dean of the ISU College
of Agriculture and Life
Sciences. “Farmers basically get one chance a LAWRENCE
year to change their cropping systems to reduce
nutrient loss, but we all live in a 365-day,
24/7 news cycle and the public wants to
know what’s happening right now.”
All Iowans are beginning to understand
that attaining the goals of the water quality
plan will take time and will require significant investment, Lawrence noted in recent
presentations to leaders of the Iowa Farm
Bureau Federation and to an Iowa Soybean
Association research conference. Still, it
will be important for Iowa agriculture to
show progress over time at improving water
quality to maintain public support for the
strategy, he said.
Measurement has always been a part
of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy,
which was launched in mid-2013 and was
developed by the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the
Iowa Department of Natural Resources,
with technical support from ISU.
Collecting the data
The measurement of progress on the
strategy’s goals goes beyond simply testing
rivers and streams for nitrate and phosphorus levels, Lawrence said. It can take
many years to show a decline in nutri-
ent levels, especially in the larger rivers,
such as the Des Moines or the Cedar, said
Lawrence who led ISU’s work to build the
science and technical foundation for the
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. Nutrient
levels in streams and river water can also
be affected by weather, development and a
range of other factors, he said.
In addition, Iowa’s famous deep, black
soils are naturally very high in nitrogen
and farmers’ practices are only a piece
of what causes nitrogen to end up in the
streams and rivers. That’s especially true in
the area known as the Des Moines lobe in
north-central Iowa. Average Iowa soil contains 10,000 pounds of nitrogen per acre in
organic matter that converts to nitrate, far
more than the 150 to 200 pounds per acre
that farmers typically apply to raise corn.
So, instead of only measuring the water,
it’s also important to measure farmers’
adoption of conservation practices, such
as changes in cropping systems, the number of acres planted to cover crops or the
number of edge-of-field practices installed,
Lawrence and others say. It will also be
important to measure farmers’ awareness
of the issue and enthusiasm about adopting practices to improve water quality, they
said.
“Ultimately we all want to see changes
in the water. But we’ll need to see changes
on the land before we see changes in the
water,” Lawrence said.
The key, he said, is obtaining the information on what farmers are doing on the
land that will lead to improvements in water
quality.
One information source is public money
that is invested in technical assistance and
cost-share by federal and state governments.
Cost-share programs for conservation and
water quality have been extremely popular
in Iowa and are an indication that farmers are buying into the strategy, Lawrence
said. In addition, federal and state agencies,
such as the Natural Resources Conservation
Service and Farm Service Agency, gather
information as they work with farmers on
conservation and other farm programs.
Getting non-public data is tougher, but
just as important, Lawrence said. “We
might know that a farmer got cost-share
Conservation and water quality links:
• Go to http://bit.ly/1Rxwnne to view an Iowa Minute video on how
farmers are using precision agriculture to
protect water quality.
• Go to conservationcountsiowa.com
for the Iowa Farm Bureau Conservation
Counts website, where you’ll find additional conservation and water quality success stories, statistics and
more resources.
ROCK CREEK
FROM PAGE A4
The Mitchell County Soil and Water
Conservation District was awarded a multiyear grant in 2014 for nearly $1 million to
focus on in-field practices. In 2015, the ISA
received funding from the Iowa Department
of Agriculture and Land Stewardship for a
Water Quality Initiative project to further
advance nutrient reduction in the watershed.
The ISA decided to focus on edge-offield practices, and is in the process of
selecting 25 sites to install a combination
of bioreactors and saturated buffers at no
cost to the landowners. However, the ISA
is being selective about where it installs
the bioreactors and saturated buffers, says
Keegan Kult, an environmental scientist
with the ISA.
“We want the bioreactors and buffers to
be where they will be cost effective,” Kult
said. Site selection for the installation of the
bioreactors and saturated buffers is prioritized based on the expected potential nitrate
load treated as well as the cost effectiveness
based on site characteristics, according to
Kult. Farmers with potential projects in the
watershed are encouraged to call Kult at
(515) 334-1036.
Once complete, the Rock Creek Watershed
will have the largest concentration of these
practices in the state, says Adam Kiel, state
water resources manager with the ISA.
However, Kiel says the Rock Creek
Watershed project shows how collaboration
can work toward a common water quality
plan and goal.
“One grant or one in-field project is not
going to be the single solution,” Kiel said.
“Rock Creek shows that many efforts and
many contributions from an array of partners
can work to make things happen.”
on 80 acres of cover crops, but we need to
know if he planted his entire field to cover
crops, not just the 80 he got cost-share on.”
Ag retailers join effort
A new organization program called the
Iowa Nutrient Research and Education
Council (INREC) is designed, in part, to
do just that.
INREC, launched in late 2015 by Farm
Bureau and other groups, will work with
co-ops and other agricultural retailers across
the state to develop, document and analyze
conservation practices. It is designed to
measure and validate the environmental
progress that farmers are making statewide,
as well as foster additional improvements
and enhance the role of certified crop advisors and ag retailers as “change agents” to
encourage farmers to adopt conservation
practices.
The new organization, Lawrence said,
will help collect data on farmers’ conservation and water quality practices that are done
without federal or state cost-share funding.
“It will help fill in a critical piece that is not
available from public sources,” he said,
A third way to measure what’s happening on the land is by asking farmers about
their practices and attitudes about conservation and water quality, said J. Gordon
Arbuckle Jr., an ISU Extension sociologist
who conducts the annual Iowa Farm and
Rural Life poll. Results of recent polls have
been positive.
The poll taken in 2014, with the strategy
in place only about a year, showed that more
than half of farmers were somewhat to very
knowledgeable about it and supported the
strategy’s goals.
The 2015 ISU poll, released in March,
showed that Iowa farmers have substantially
changed their tillage and other farming
practices in the past decade to conserve
topsoil, reduce nutrient losses and improve
water quality. Soil testing, in-season fertilizer applications and other practices designed
to reduce nutrient loss were also on the rise,
the poll showed. In addition, the ISU poll
showed that farmers have invested as much
as $2.2 billion to make those conservation
improvements.
In the 2015 poll, farmers cited “stewardship ethics” as the biggest reason they were
adopting these environmentally-friendly
practices. The decisions to adopt conservation practices were also influenced by
concerns about water quality, concern about
leaving the land better for future generations, as well as economics.
In addition, the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and Land Stewardship has contracted with ISU to survey farmers in the
key watersheds about their conservation and
water quality activities.
“It’s clear that farmers are aware of the
conservation and water quality issues and
want to do more,” Arbuckle said.
The public and private data on conservation and water quality practices, along with
polls of farmers, combine to provide a deep
reservoir of information that can augment
water monitoring in Iowa, Lawrence said.
“We have a lot of sources and tangible data
that we can measure,” he said. “That will
help us assure the public that (we) are making progress.”
ISU using data from many sources
to track conservation progress
BY DIRCK STEIMEL
W
ith measurement coming into sharper focus on
Iowa’s nutrient reduction
strategy, Laurie Wissler is
ready to take on the challenge of getting a
better handle on farmers’ progress in water
quality improvement and soil conservation.
“This is a big state and there are a lot of
different types of data out there on farmers’
conservation practices,”
said Wissler, who was
hired last fall as measurement coordinator for Iowa
State University’s (ISU)
Nutrient Research Center.
“We want to be able to
document the conservation and water quality
practices that are on the WISSLER
ground now as well as partnership efforts that influence their adoption.”
The project, Wissler said, is gathering
the information on what farmers are doing
on the land that will ultimately lead to
improvements in the state’s water quality.
To do that, she is working with a wide
range of data sources.
First, there is public data that can be
obtained from government programs,
including federal and state cost-share,
Wissler said. This program data includes
information from federal and state agencies,
such as the Natural Resources Conservation
Service and Farm Service Agency.
A second source is private data which is
gathered through a new organization called
the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education
Council (INREC), Wissler said. The INREC
program is designed, in part, to work with
co-ops and other agricultural retailers across
the state to develop, document and analyze
nutrient management and conservation practices that farmers implement outside of government cost-share programs. The INREC
data will be aggregated so individual farms
won’t be identified.
“We are excited for this project to get
started because private data provides additional insight to track the strategy’s progress,” Wissler said.
Farmer surveys
A third source are surveys of farmers to
better understand conservation implementation, Wissler said. ISU’s long-standing
Farm and Rural Life surveyed farmers on
their conservation practices and is finding that most farmers are aware of the
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy and have
begun implementing conservation practices, such as cover crops, buffer strips or
conservation tillage on their acres.
Under a grant from the Iowa Department
of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, ISU
researchers have also begun conducting
targeted surveys of farmers in certain watersheds around the state that have been designated as priority areas for water quality.
“These surveys are very helpful in
obtaining information on the adoption of
conservation and water quality practices,”
Wissler said.
Finally, Wissler will access information
on point-source nutrient reduction efforts
of communities, businesses and others from
the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
and other agencies.
It will be quite a task to gather and
work through all of that data to establish
an overall picture of water quality and soil
conservation efforts, Wissler admits. But
she’s excited by the challenge and the collaboration she’s had with state agencies,
Farm Bureau and other ag organizations
and other parts of ISU working on the Iowa
Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
“It will be great to be able to deliver a
clearer picture of the conservation work that
has been done, highlight the momentum in
collaboration and track future progress.”
6A MARCH 30, 2016 IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN
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8A MARCH 30, 2016 IOWA FARM BUREAU SPOKESMAN
Advertorial
Conservation at work:
Farmer uses cover crops
to improve soil health
CRP
MIXES
I
control soil erosion, we’re also
n central Iowa, Gordon
using them to ultimately improve
Wassenaar is in the thick
water quality.”
of harvest. Beans have
been picked and corn fields
Preserving soil and
are quickly emptying. But, the
water quality with
majority of his acres won’t be
proactive efforts
sitting bare over the winter,
Cover crops protect the soil
because right behind his
and recycle nutrients like
combine he’s seeding
nitrogen that would otherwise
winter cereal rye.
The 2015
harvest season
“ While cover crops have
marks the fifth year
helped us better control
that Wassenaar
has incorporated
soil erosion, we’re also
cover crops as a
using them to ultimately
means to protect
improve water quality.”
and improve soil
health. An initiative
that started with
be lost to leaching during the
one field five years ago now
winter and spring. Improving
includes nearly 1,500 acres.
soil health has its economic
“I had been farming some
benefits also.
sloped ground, an area that had
“The combination of no-till
more soil erosion, so that’s why I
and establishing a cover crop
originally turned to cover crops,”
each year has significantly
said Wassenaar. “While cover
cut down soil erosion,” said
crops have helped us better
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yields and we’re improving how
we manage nutrients in the soil.”
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Determining the right cover crop
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Become an Iowa Corn Stewardship Advocate
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answer fits all” situation. For
Wassenaar, winter cereal rye
has been the go-to crop, but
he’s still testing other varieties
as well.
“We have a cover crop test plot
on my farm that was put in with
the help of the Jasper County
Soil and Water Conservation
District,” said Wassenaar. “We’re
testing some other cover crops
and looking at different methods
of seeding, such as drilling and
aerial planting. It’s a learning
process, but we’re starting to
understand what we can do.”
Rye is particularly popular
in Iowa because of its winter
hardiness. Planted in the fall,
rye will overwinter, grow again
in spring and need to be
terminated.
Farmer-to-farmer education
Several resources exist for
farmers who want to learn more
about cover crops and practical
ways for implementation.
Wassenaar recommends
conferences focused on no-till
practices, talking to other farmers
and understanding the need for
trial and error to figure out what
works on individual operations.
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www.muenchagrisolutions.com
OXFORD
TIM ROGERS REPAIR LLC
319-351-8817
Cell 319-331-6887
REINBECK
ADVANCED TILLAGE SYSTEMS
800-345-6419
Call Your Salford Dealer today,
or visit salfordgroup.com
Osceola, IA
1-866-442-1293
Great Plains Turbo-Max® provides unmatched seedbeds through aggressive
ground leveling and weed removal, enhanced residue sizing, and unsurpassed
residue coverage. This True Vertical Tillage machine is available in 7 models with
working widths from 12' to 40'.
VISIT YOUR LOCAL GREAT PLAINS DEALER OR GET MORE INFORMATION AT:
www.GreatPlainsAg.com
ALBIA
BELZER EQUIPMENT INC.
888-717-2966
www.belzerequip.com
OSAGE
MARK’S TRACTOR & IMPL. INC.
641-732-5044
www.markstractor.com
KESLEY
A.L. BUSEMAN INDUSTRIES
319-347-6282
www.albusemanind.com
SIGOURNEY
KEOKUK CO. IMP. CO.
641-622-3440
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