On day three we visited the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) in Ankney and found out the importance of data for farmers in the US. ISA staff shed light on different aspects of soybean farming, here's what two of them had to say...
In practice there are a number of innovative management practices and technologies in the US, often employed together, reducing both sediment and nutrient escape (phosphate and nitrates) to reduce impact on sensitive waters inland and offshore. In a nutshell, these are no-till, catch and cover crops, timing and precision application technology for nitrogen and capital works. Importantly, there is a different emphasis in regulatory framework – in the US it appears regulation is the least favoured option for all significant parties and partnerships and voluntary efforts are given more encouragement than in the EU where it seems regulation is the first reaction to any emerging issue.
Production, profitability and impacts on natural resources and environment
Iowa is in the middle of the third largest watershed on the planet. ISA is investing in environmental resources, soil water and wildlife with action oriented programmes to continuously improve. Additional resource is applied with investment from charities and US Department of Agriculture conservation service including whole catchment studies. A large amount of water quality monitoring is conducted by ISA, helps farmers know where they are, to make decisions and to validate decisions and practices. ISA does more monitoring than the state of Iowa itself. The aim is to aggregate data, prioritise sampling and use it to tell the story. The data is owned by farmers, agreements made and trust not to abuse the data. Farmers see value in communicating learnings from data.
ISA is Farmer owned organisation, farmers own data, only aggregated data is published, for universities (FOI-able – (freedom of information)) data not kept by university, they never know which farmer, most data is aggregated and retrieved by ISA and only aggregate given to university. Pesticides do not make it far from the field, conservation tillage, terraces and biotech all help reduce impact. Now developing cover crops. Working with Unilever, WalMart and others to explore how retailer needs are met by US Soy Sustainability. Degradation products of glyphosate do appear in water in US. Pesticides detectable, monitored, actions in train to reduce issues through research and practice, for example Atrazine used to be an issue in the past. Pesticides in water – focus on priority problems, and drinking water, individual product maximum contaminant levels by use of water body and individual catchment. Own the problem, manage the solution. Changed farming system from late 1980s has delivered significant results, this is in the data.
OnFarm network: Production research and development, began with nitrogen research in 2001. Field-scale research plots, e.g. row spacing for corn or maybe narrower rows for soy, using GPS and simply double planting at half rate to get 15” rows. Identifying why yield results are different is being stepped up. LCA, with data built up over time, may show the areas of a field simply not worth row-cropping, may be better turned to environmental use. Slow release nitrogen (Environmentally Smart Nitrogen – coated urea) and anhydrous ammonia on corn –ISA lead research on entire farm system, but funding for corn research also comes from elsewhere.
Liquid UAN is often applied to maize in a side dressing, but less effective if it does not rain. Technology developed to apply nitrogen with a solid drop-leg, using trailing rubber hoses that drop UAN precisely at stem of crop on surface, right on top of the roots. On the same leg, fungicide nozzles to spray upward into crop from underneath. The ISA website/replicated strip trial database is a publically available research database - the results are uploaded at harvest.
Cover crops are showing benefit in reducing nutrient escape into water. Possible to get it wrong, for example when not terminated at the right time.
Dr. Chris Jones - ISA Environmental Programs and Services Environmental Scientist
Long standing water monitoring - can't make farm, advice or policy decisions without data. ISA monitor and map sites each two weeks, mouth of tributary draining around 25k ha. Individual watershed areas contribution to whole river, target effort upstream. Aim to reduce nitrate nitrogen (and hypoxic zone in Gulf of Mexico). In the Des Moines Lobe, glaciation led to prairie potholes, drained by settlers with tile drains, moisture retentive but as it is drained, discharged through tile network into streams. High organic matter soils, 4t of N in topsoil per ha and adding N inputs is only a small part of the N cycle. Just managing N inputs will not give the lower nitrate levels in water wanted. Iowa’s climate ha been getting wetter over past 100 years, 100 years ago 32", this year already 42". Dilemma managing landscape to reduce nitrogen escape. Also drinking water has local nitrate removal issues.
GM cropping and no-till in Iowa along with higher seed density, terracing and other measures has led to a great reduction on sediment. Corn does not need irrigation, impounding of high nitrate tile water could be used to irrigate soy in July August. Also potential ideas to engineer further: raise tile drains and change spacing of tiles so less distance to pick up nitrates, leave soil below wet, no-till so no disturbance of tiles, maybe greater use of tracked farm machinery? Controlled drainage with gates on drains (flat fields) internal drainage boards to manage both drainage and release?
Capital works: Bioreactor wood chip trenches to trap water, trap nitrates and convert to N gas instead of nitrates, can treat 20 ha of water drainage. Managed to reduce nitrous oxide and other undesirable processes. Aim to replicate wetlands, with no land-take, and working with NGOs like the Nature Conservancy.
Read the full USSEC trip learnings from Guy Gagen and Mike Hambly...