New post on water quality

We can argue regulations all day, how about some ideas what we can do as farmers to help the water quality?

No one is bound, just ideas.

I started it, so will post.

One thing that interests me is the organic material (wood chips) filters that can be placed on tile outlets.

Minnesota has put in place (and is implementing governance toward compliance with) buffer strip requirements on riparian (creeks streams and rivers) that provide a filter and absorption zone between agricultural fields and lots. This is a critical step in reducing nitrate and phosphorus nutrients from washing into our watershed. There are dramatic consequences for our failure to address the issues related to this problem as seen in the eutrophication (nutrients causing algae blooms and Poisson water).
Other nasty problems that are not being addressed are salt on roads and, as of yesterday) mercury standards being relaxed for political gain. Jim teaching in the Environmental and Technological Studies Department at SCSU.

That is water Quality, that's the longest river in North America they are dumping into, direct shot.

I live 2 blocks west of the Mississippi in St. Cloud MN. I eat fish out of it. (not every day). Jim

Not thinking that will be well received by this audience.

Apparently there is good evidence that filter strips (areas of untilled vegetation) are effective. The Iowa farms of 40 years ago had fences and hedge apple trees and lots of grass waterways. I would bet that most of the big sloughs where I spent many wonderful days hunting Pheasants, are now tiled and row cropped. When you crop right up to the edge of a stream you get runoff. When land is $10,000 an acre and tractors are $400K, every inch of land must produce to pay the bills. The only solution (I see ) is buffer requirements and perhaps some form of tax abaitment incentive to take that percent of land out of production.


I think the hostility toward city people that I read on this site will eventually result in actions by the city citizens that the country folks won't like. I hope the farmers get ahead of the curve with a realistic solution before restrictions become necessary.

I drive around Iowa a lot, I see very few streams left.

I do see some farmers that have a very good waterway system with barrier strips.

It is amazing, it seems like the areas with the worst erosion do the least to help it.

David I find that many do not understand the "how" of how nitrates get into the water shed. The wood chip filters are and example. They do act as filter but they also give off nitrates as they decompose. This is not just the nitrates that they filter either.

An example is a 120 acre field/farm next to me. It has been in CRP for 30 years now. I have the data from water samples pulled from the tile lines coming off that farm. These were part of the first water/nutrient plans we started in 2000. At that time they shows a slow decline for the first few years. I assume this was just the residual fertilizer from when that ground was farmed. Then the nitrate levels have shown a slow but stead increase. Not like you would see of a field fertilized but still they are increasing. The owner and I know nothing has been applied to the farm and that there is no water/nitrate coming from other farm ground onto his ground. His is the Highest ground around. We think that it is the ground reverting back to the plains ecosystem from years ago. That the "natural" decomposing of the grasses releases nitrates. There is some research on this but it has not been going long enough to get some real answers.

Detections technology has out paced the understanding of what all causes issues. The trouble is that in today's PC culture any research that does not support the current agenda never gets funding. So if it does not show industry or farms as being the cause/evil ones it never see the light of day.

An example of this is that no till does not help water quality as much as originally thought when you look at it from a nutrient retention stand point. Yes no till does wonders in erosion control. Chemical and nutrient retention not so much. The soils internal pore structure moves water down to tile lines very fast. In no till ecosystems these pores are much more active then in tilled systems. So surfaces applied chemicals and fertilizers can hit the tile lines faster than in a conventional system. There was/is a study of this done at the Iowa university ten years ago. I know about it because some of my land was tested in the study. It was used as the conventional test area. Part of being involved with this got me a final copy of the study results. It got a little bit of publicity and then nothing. You can not find much about it now. It attacked the HOLY grail of conservation" NO TILL". So any additional study along these lines has zero support in the college academic community. The results did not support the PC narrative.

It is not rocket science. We farm some seriously steep ground. Farming practices can easily control erosion and nutrient usage/retention. We are beat up on both sides. The Farm fence row to fence row guys scream that our grass waters ways, filter strips, contour dams and etc. are all unnecessary. Then the tree huggers scream that since we do not use total no till we are evil. So a lot of common sense stuff does not get studied or taught.

I trust nothing that any one publishes anymore. The Lefts has became so entrenched at the colleges/universities that you get bias studies and agendas. Then big corporate like Bayer/Monsanto spout so much BS and hide things just for financial reason that much of what they say is suspect too. Then Government is just as skewed by the abundant PC culture on one side and BIG money corporations on the other. So your left with not much truthful, scientific verified information.

Gov goofy shoved that down our throats, by some estimates taking 180,000 acres out of production, without any compensation for loss of production. Some years ago I read a report by the American Fertilizer Institute, which said that urban use of fertilizer was more than ag use...not just in pounds per acre, but also total pounds used. Where does urban lawn and corporate campus runoff go? Right into the storm sewer, untreated, and down the river.

With the drastic reduction in soybean exports we need to take land out of production!

(quoted from post at 19:12:25 12/31/18) Gov goofy shoved that down our throats, by some estimates taking 180,000 acres out of production, without any compensation for loss of production. Some years ago I read a report by the American Fertilizer Institute, which said that urban use of fertilizer was more than ag use...not just in pounds per acre, but also total pounds used. Where does urban lawn and corporate campus runoff go? Right into the storm sewer, untreated, and down the river.

Click to expand...

I was going to mention the same idea. Look at any city, village, town or any parking lot, sports fields, any paved parking lot, golf course, area with extensive laws, any airport or large paved area. What do they do with the water? They dump it into the storm drains, into a creek or river. No buffer strips there, no way to slow the water to slowly absorb into the ground. They look at farmers because they are an easy target, but the millions of acres that channel untreated water filed with nitrates, oil, plastics, chemicals from multiple sources...no one touches them. Why is that? Does anyone ever look at the massive amounts of salt that leeches into our ground water and streams in the rust belt? Nope. There huge stockpiles of uncovered salt stored on the shores of the St Lawrence River where barges and ships off load it. What happens when heavy rains and snow hit it? Into the river it goes! No one cares. But a farmer spreads manure next to a creek and all heck breaks loose.

We need some fair treatment in this game.

J.D.-you hit the nail perfectly square on the head. Since we cannot rely on any "scientific" studies we need to use good old logic and common sense. Be a good steward to your land. You and only you know what that is. Every parcel of land is different. Part of being a keeper of the land (farmer) is having the instinct to know when you are doing something wrong. That skill cannot be taught. It is something you are born with. Not unlike an Olympic runner. Yes, we all are born with the instinct to run but few can win a medal at the Olympics.

Seller ..... after a great reply, you have to go and ruin it by climbing on a political soap box at the very end. Too bad, but I shoulda known that a topic like this couldn't escape the wrath of the tree hugger haters. Every problem that the world faces is their fault, just ask any right-winger.

That?s a real sore spot for us in MN, Hay.

Our drainage ditches were dug from 1920 to 1960to help drain out this wet ground and make it productive. The land owners were taxed to fund it, and continue to be taxed to maintain the drainage systems.

Nearly all of the ditches around here were dug through flat ground, with the spoils piled up on the banks. So the lip of the ditches is higher than the field surrounding it.

You need to run tile along the ditch to get surface water to go down and into the ditch, it does not run over the surface I tot he ditches.

And yet, we keep hearing how important buffer strips are to stop runoff?

It doesn?t make sense ?here.?

But no matter. Our governor passed a rule that takes 125-250,000 acres of land out of use for farmers, with his hunting strips along all the ditches. With zero compensation. We are still on the hook to pay taxes on that confiscated land.

And it makes no dam sense. The ditches are lipped up, there is no runoff directly into the ditches.

There is no science to any of this crap.

Those not farming don?t care, poo poo. It?s just so wonderful how this will save the planet. Then they go complain about how much their food costs.

Yea, we farmers get a little bitter.

Apply a buffer where it does some good, and shows some benefit. I?m -all- for that. I have grass buffer around all my tile intakes, I?ve pattern tiled of late so I need less tile intakes, I even have grass field roads along the ditch that spilts my farm in half. So tell me what a bad farmer I am and I should just do something.... that?s all fine.

What you are getting from govt and people who ?want something done now? is not actually helping. It?s typical govt one size fits all.
Meanwhile, any heavy rain, and the village 5 miles upstream of me on my ditch can leaf ally ?bypass? their waste treatment plant and discharge raw sewage into that ditch because, well, it?s been rubber stamped for them to do that because anything else is too difficult for the town folk to afford. All their streets and parking lots are already directed straight into the waterways which get into my ditch. The salt, the excess lawn fertilizer and herbicides, the parking lot oil spills, the....

And so it goes.

Paul

There are lots of problems in the world that need solving.

The past couple decades, the far left does not seem interested in solving anything, just rally around for more taxes and one size fits all quick fixes that don?t really fix anything.

I?m just dumbfounded by it.

I realize the far left is going to be more artsy, feelings type of people and not understand science, but still and all shouldn?t the solutions we enact actually have some basis in helping the problems we face?

Placing buffer strips on ditches that have higher edges than the fields around them have negligible effect on the environment.

Wood chip pits gather nutrients in the short term if there are any nutrients to begin with, but over the long term they break down and release and create more solvable nutrients. I don?t see much value in that. Since many of us have moved on from open intakes to pattern tiling, less direct runoff is going in the ditches.

And so on.

It?s an ?I feel good because I told other people to do sometying?? Movement, and yet not very much is getting done. Mostly just raise taxes.

It makes me sad.

Yes there are plenty of things to complain about on any political side, but here we are talking about environmental regulations, and so here we need to look at those specifically. Minnesota for one is being regulated very poorly by down town Minneapolis politicians that don?t have a clue what is actually out in rural Minnesota, and it really hurts. And often is counter productive. But yet the city people cheer it one, oblivious to reality.

Apply some thought to it to fit what is being done? Would anyone dare?

Paul

Guys the thing here is that you, the farmer are going to lose this fight. It's you, the 2% fighting the 98%. Facts won't matter. Another thing that isn't going you help your cause is denial. Farmers have lost the trust of of the general population.

Kinda funny to be in a convenience store at 7AM on a work day. Young workers looking for snacks to take to the job site. These kids are reading labels. Ain't like when we were young, grab a package of Twinkies and a pop.These kids today are buying water or juice and what's considered healthy snacks. Any hint that there may be any GMO stuff and they are passing it up. Thee guys are not your abundant hipsters. These are young men living in a rural area of MN.

You have to start doing things to convince the buying public that you care about the things you produce. Right now what the general public see? Something on the news either blaming farmers for a problem or something about prices. The general public sees some farmer whining about prices while the news camera pans over a 400,000 dollar tractor or 80,000 dollar pickup. And that's what the general public sees. THe high dollar equipment. Never see em out on some farm operating 40 year old rusty tractors with a beat to death pickup there. The see some talking head on the news telling em about federally subsidized crop insurance. That talking head never mentions that flood insurance is also subsidize.

Rick

Well Adapt-N or other such technology would be a start.

We hear about this every summer in south La with the gulf dead zone.
And it is always farm runoff that is the cause.
Never any mention of city sewerage or lawn fertilizer.

But to really fix the problem you would have to change the mentality of the entire population.

A lawn will grow with zero fertilizer or weed control.
It may not be a garden of the month but it will grow.

The use of farm tile allowing the use of land that should be natural spillage zone rather than putting levees on a river and channeling water away quickly.

Farming to the fence line and trying to get 300 bu per acre out of a corn plant.
Hey if 1 pound of fertilizer is good just think of the production I can get with 2 pounds.

In short we dump treated sewerage in the river and use commercial fertilizer because it is easier and cheaper.
Then we complain when the river is full of sewerage and fertilizer runoff.

Crazy Horse Have you been on any college campus in the last 10-15 years??? There is no middle of the road people left. Hard left majority with a few more conservative people hiding. I am did not get very political in this as it is the truth. This country is polarized. There is no middle ground any more. Both sides are lying to the average American. If the average American knew the full truth Washington would be burning as we speak.

To the topic, around here we do more pattern tiling, less open intakes.

We do more rough tillage leaving some trash on top, not burying it black.

We grid sample and variable rate apply fertilizer to bring up the low spots, and not overapply the high spots to make a good even soil that grows a good even crop.

We stopped row crop cultivating because of herbicides, so there is way way less soil erosion. In our hills and fine textured soils, that was the very big contributor to soil erosion.

A lot of beginning work is being done with cover crops, up here in the cold it is difficult but even here I see acres of covers now, I think I was the only one doing anything for several decades.

Ditches were better banked with lips to limit water flowing over the top into them in the 1980s already, those that weren?t already so.

Manure is again seen as a valuable asset with the higher fertilizer prices and is much better managed to feed crops, not wasted.

A lot of work is being started to apply fertilizer multiple times as spoon fed, when needed, instead of applying a lot once and just make it extra to allow for any losses.

Making our fields good with the tile, variable rate fertilizer, and all to get better yields and higher yields on the land we do farm let?s us not farm more acres, or bust up poorer land in an effort to get the bushels we need. In short, farm what we farm better, so we don?t always need to farm more.

Paul

Paul, 2 wrongs don't make a right. Farmers that are doing the right thing should not be penalized, and if you noticed I mentioned that land taken out of production should be compensated in some way. If the towns do not control their storm overflows that is not right either. We are all in this together. Pointing fingers (which seems to be the only national strategy we have) will not fix it. Lets be the real America carry our share of the blame, fix our problems, and not turn America into a toxic waste dump.

We have 20 million acres of cropland in conservation reserve in the US. It is seeded to grasses and out of crop production. Possibly need more land than this out of production with new trade rules.

Everyone of the comments give good points. Many areas and each area different. Here in KY run off products leaking into rivers ect are different than in MN IL IN and so forth. So what works in one area will not work in others. As one person said Common sense works best, but common sense is not so common anymore. If you have been to any college lately don't go there looking for common sense. Most there are there for one reason to get a piece of paper that says they know something, which most times they don't.

Oldtanker is right about us being in the minority. In NC the loss of farmland is one of the highest in the nation. The state for 30 years has piggybacked off federal regulations and
relied upon farmland to be a sponge to control pollution from urban and suburban areas. This has been achieved mostly by taking more land out of production.

With our record rainfall and flooding this year one only has to see creek and river basins and shorelines littered with all sorts of trash washed out of developments, cities, and towns. Farms have become trash dumps. This has also hurt a lot of homeowners.

I live within the badly polluted Jordan Lake watershed. About A dozen years ago the General Assembly approved Jordan Lake rules which meant stricter regulations for my area. Immediately municipalities within the basin lobbied, pitched fits, and rules for them and developers have never been enforced. At a local city council meeting with legislators present, a big local developer told them that if the rules were enforced he would move his business elsewhere.

Farmers were immediately required to participate in classes so they could be told their responsibilities. We all got certificates and were told spot checks would be made.

Some snake oil fixes involving solar-powered aerators were tried in the lake. Water quality is no better, building and land clearing is wide open, and the stream banks on farms tell the truth, if only the right people would open their eyes. It will only get worse.

Why? The momentary drop in exports will not last. There are no surplus stock of soybeans for the world to gobble up. If China buys all the beans South America has to offer, where will Europe turn to for beans?
Some one pointed out that December was a record month for Bean exports. The petulant child China can only hold it's breath for so long.

Cities are installing UV lighting systems on the effluent going into the rivers. The regs have gotten tighter over time for them as well. Why kill the bugs? Those bacteria that treated the sewage in the plant would continue to consume sewage in the streams whether it be fish poop or from a farm.
Given the opportunity and with a little education, most farmers will do the right thing. No farmer want to pay for fertilizer that is going down river instead of into his crops and no farmer want to see his best soil in that river either, and if he knows that his son or daughter will be taking over the operation, I would expect him to be more concerned with doing it right for the long haul.
When the EPA was created, they had a monumental job to do. It is done and now they are searching for easy targets to justify their continued parasitic feeding from our nation's abundance. After what happened in Colorado with the mine run off being released by them, the agency should cease to exist.

Our neighbor plants some winter cover on his fields when the crops have been harvested. This is a Dec 17 , picture after the radishes had been growing for about 90 days. Three to five pounds per acre does the seeding after crop harvest and a seed cost of 2.50 per lb. This is taken in south IN and the plants are still growing,some white leaves are frost killed, but green leaves still living, may not work in north Cornbelt. This also interferes with a rotation that has fall tillage in it.The herbicide program has to be adjusted to favor the radishes also. These root tubers have stored about 100 lbs nitrogen / acre in them by now and perhaps that much P also. The plant leaves have stopped soil erosion in its tracks from the heavy rainfalls we have been having. Is it better to have the N and P nutrients in our soils stored on our farms for 10 dollars over winter or have have them wash down the river to the dead zone at New Orleans. Imagine if winter covers were applied to all of the lower Midwest cropland where radish would grow.

Some cities have restricted the sale of lawn fertilizers with high phosphorous numbers to reduce phosphorous runoff into waterways. They also mail out reduced lawn fertilizing guild lines to each home and business.

Over the last twenty years I've seen a lot of fields fully tiled across the entire field, hills and all rather than just tiled through the low spots. At first though, that seems like a fast track to drain extra nutrients into the waterways, but any nutrients that have made their way below the root zone are already headed for the ground water anyway. A person who finds a way for crops to use more or nearly all of the fertilizers applied each year could help farmers, get rich himself, and do a lot to save our waterways.

Any areas that have standing water for more than a couple of days suffer high nitrogen losses, most of the loss is leached into the water ground water or runs off into the waterways. Planting crops that require high amounts of nitrogen fertilizer in flood prone areas every year seems like a waste of nitrogen fertilizer and a hazard to our waterways. Would alfalfa, small grains, grass hay, wetland grasses or some other crop be better suited to flood prone areas? Some states already require buffer strips along all waterways. That's not ideal, but is there a better way to control runoff?

Last week I read an interesting comment: if 40 percent of the corn crop is just being burned off as ethanol and corn prices are still declining, why are we still trying to increase corn production? If ethanol use was eliminated, the total corn acreage could be reduced by 40 percent and there would still be an oversupply of corn. Another alternative would be that yields could be allowed to drop 40 percent, i.e. from 200 bushel per acre to 120 bushels per acre. Fertilizer and chemical applications could be reduced to match the lower yield requirements with higher fertilizer efficiency, reducing the amount of nitrates and maybe other chemicals going into the water. Dumb question: if corn stover and switch grass can be used to make ethanol, can green chopped alfalfa or green reeds-canary grass be used to make ethanol too?

Our ground water now has stored up 70 years of leached nitrates, 50 years of Atrizine, 40 years of Roundup and decades of the newer chemicals. Is reverse osmosis the best way to filter those out of the drinking water?

David how about the guy that puts in an illegal septic tank, drain field is a crack in the limestone! County turns a blind eye! The watershed feeds a state park where I see kids swimming in this same water. Counties attitude is Well now he's been doing that for sometime and we didn't have an inspector back then, and his family....well their real nice people..

Ch....Why does it offend you when facts that are opposite of your sentiments are stated? I can only surmise that JD has no right to free speech in your view . It is a fact that academia is majority left. (Re; Analyze the voting records of local areas where college teachers lived). My son with a PhD in Finance has experienced it first hand. He has been pushed out twice because he would not conform to the PC/Left agenda and policies.
BTW your reply to JD was nothing but mud-sling.

Here in the Northeast I see what appears to me to be plenty going on to protect water quality. Most corn grown here is for dairy cows. Dairy cows also need high protein hay and forage and a lot of it is grown in strips along rivers and streams which of course helps to prevent run off. All dairy farms have sludge interceptors to keep the drain water from the milk parlors clean. These are usually paid for by the federal gov't. I know of areas where there are drain swales between crop strips. Most of these are cultivated and the pitch is kept correct with land planes. On the other side of it, parking lots and roads being built have to have detention ponds for the run-off to run to where it gets filtered by the vegetation. A current construction project that I have been involved with has a huge 3,000 sq. ft. UNDERGROUND detention pond. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean that it is not there. My church would like to get our driveway paved but we would have to give up too much parking space for the detention pond. And talk about leaking septic systems, nobody can get away with one for any length of time. If the building inspector doesn't notice it a neighbor will turn the owner in. From what I see driving around the biggest problem is landscapers making lawns too green.

Farming is so different now than it was 50, 25, 10 years ago.

So many of the issues have been addressed. Not settled, but addressed, things are changing.

The media/ town folk/ twitter peoples all want a change in 24 hours and that doesn?t happen. We need to turn the ship some and that takes time.

I think we have been bending over backwards trying to turn the ship some out here in the country.

And it doesn?t seem to matter, it doesn?t make a difference.

We still get run over by the crazy folk.

So, what am I supposed to do? More more more more at every changing whim?

What have they done? Do they care what I have done? Do they even know what it is I do? Do they understand what it is they even want?

I?m exhausted watching them make demands that take 7 years to show up/ get paid for; and then changing entirely the list of demands in 2 years in a totally different direction.

And so you see the push back from farmers. As small a voice as we are, we are tired of the nonsensical demands and see saw demands of these folk.

We are doing stuff, heck farming is changing so fast who can keep up? My list above is a tip of the iceberg. There is almost nothing I did in the 1970s that I still do today the same way, everything is more efficient, less fuel, less slop, more metered out to the teaspoon ful.

It?s not perfect and we can keep learning and changing and we will.

But enough with the nonsense we get shoved at us?

Eh?

That?s were the ?unreasonable? farmers are at.

Dad put buffers along our ditch in 1960s because we can use the hay and the field road. But does anyone care, do I get any credit? Nope I?m just another dumb farmer that needs to be regulated more and taxed more.

So why the hell try? You tell me I should try harder. Why? Why bother? It won?t ever be good enough for the Governor Dayton?s of the world, they have the power from the city folk and just make crap up and take away from me.

And I?m tired of it.

So you hit a bad note with me.

Paul

Ill put my .02 in. My farm is dissected by a 1 1/2 mile drainage ditch. For 25 years I have had a buffer strip along both sides all the way from end to end. Like what was mentioned before I have my doubts about how much filtering it really does because the banks are raised. Water is allowed to drain off the fields and into the drainage ditch only through a few surface drains. When we have a decent rain on a dry year these drains remain dry because the water is absorbed through the soil before it reaches the surface drains. On a wet year with saturated soil or during a downpour the water going through these surface drains is flowing deep through the filter strip on the way to the drains. I doubt if much of the water is being filtered by the grass in the filter strip in this case.

On the land I farm I have established a 60 foot square brome grass patch around every stand pipe or tile surface drain on the farm. Yes these patches are a pain to plant and harvest around but I do have confidence this brome grass is filtering out a few soil nutrients before they go into the tile. It bothers me to no end to see farmers pull their planter up to the stand pipe, get out of the cab, pull the stand pipe and plant on through allowing dirt and trash to fall into the tile. Sometimes the farmer takes the time to put the standpipe back into the hole. In a farm magazine ad the other day I saw an ad for a tile intake cover that is claimed to be able to be farmed over. Grrrrrr. I do not fall apply N. In the spring after the ground thaws and it’s too wet to plant some of that fall applied N is leaching down into the tile lines. I also have a couple of long waterways on a side hill though most of my land is flat enough to not require waterways. Waterways slow down farming in that part of the field but I hope the waterways are keeping soil out of the drainage ditch and along with the soil P and K take a ride to the river too.

There are a few simple practices like this we farmers can do to slow the flow of soil nutrients in the water that runs into our rivers. Some of these practices do slow us down for sure but we are going to have do something to clean up our act before a public who knows nothing about farming but listens to so called environmentalists with a wild look in their eyes forces us into it. New technology in our planting equipment can help speed this up though. My planter is equipped with GPS controlled planting rates. If I figure out how to do it I can program the planter monitor to automatically shut off the planter while I am crossing a waterway. This way I can leave the planter down and just pull the throttle back a bit while crossing the waterway instead of stopping to raise and lower the planter every time. Many planters in my neighborhood have this technology.

If we wait until the government gets any farther into it, well, we all know how badly the government can screw things up with complication.