“With respect to public awareness...there has been a steady decline in interest in soil conservation. There is a pervasive belief amongst all of these stakeholders that…we need to move on. A sense of fatigue has set in.” Dr. David Lobb In the 1980’s, there was a deliberate decision by conservation agencies to change the narrative from soil erosion to water quality. Working for one of these conservation agencies, I remember voicing my frustration to management. We are not even close to solving the problem of soil erosion, I argued. So why …
Big challenges to cut nitrate loading
Efforts are needed beyond the 4R's, including no-till or strip till, controlled drainage, cover crops, wetlands, buffers and landowner help. Reprinted with permission of Corn+Soybean Digest. In a blog post this spring, Tom Buman laid out the huge challenge facing Iowa farmers to voluntarily meet nitrogen loading reduction goals (https://precisionconservation.com/nitrogen-problem-numbers/). Noting that models demonstrate agriculture is responsible for 70 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus load delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, Buman, took a …
Structural Practices vs. Management Practices
Throughout my career I have vacillated in my support of structural practices versus management practices. You could say that I was fickle, or that I didn’t have a good grasp of the material. But in hindsight, I see my support, or non-support, depended on where I was working at the time. Early in my career, I worked in Eastern Iowa, where shallow to bedrock soils prompted us to focus more on management practices such as no-till and contour strip-cropping. From Eastern Iowa, I moved across the state to a western Iowa county where terraces and …
Soil Conditioning Index…a better way to determine soil health
Wouldn’t it be great if we could accurately predict the change in soil quality based on our past, present, and future farming practices? Farmers could then understand the effects their management changes would have on their soil health. Yeah, that would be nice…but it doesn’t exist. NRCS’s Soil Conditioning Index (SCI) does however, provide farmers with soil health trend analysis. Recently, NRCS’s Mike Kucera (National Soil Quality & Ecosystems Branch) told me that he believes the SCI is still the best available predictive tool for …
What a guy…
The Theodore Roosevelt National Park is not a place you just accidently stumble upon. Located in west central North Dakota, the park is a place you have to “go find.” Compared to the 4,000,000 annual visitors to Yosemite National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park receives about 600,000 visitors each year. This fall, Peggy and I decided to visit this region because of our interest in the park’s namesake. Theodore Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 and fell in love with the austere landscape. At one time, he even …
A Farm Kid’s Perspective
There is not a farm scene more beautiful than fields of uniformly tall, tasseled corn, butting up to waist high, weed-free soybeans waving in the breeze, set against carpets of well-manicured road ditches and close-clipped waterways. From the perspective of this Iowa farm kid, southern Tazewell County, Illinois is simply beautiful to behold; a vision straight out of a children’s storybook. Tazewell County is neither flat, nor steep. The area is dominated by row crop in an almost level landscape with gently sloping rises. There are no visible …