IAWA Executive Director Sean McMahon reflects on a decade of progress and a decade of opportunity as we enter the next 10 years of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. This web post is a shortened version of Sean’s ‘Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy – the Defining Decade’ speech to the Iowa Smart Agriculture Forum. You can watch[…]
Watershed coordinators’ hands-on work improves NE Iowa streams By Dan Looker The Turkey River winds and ripples past limestone bluffs in Northeast Iowa and is a favorite of paddlers and anglers. But where the river starts, at a gently sloping corn field in Howard County, it looks more like an easily jumped ditch. Hunter Slifka,[…]
DES MOINES, Iowa (IDALS/IAWA) – Farmers and landowners can now get up to $38 per acre for water quality practices like cover crops and no-till. It’s through Iowa’s Water Quality Initiative (WQI). WQI funds help farmers adopt proven water quality practices, including planting cover crops, transitioning acres to no-till/strip-till or applying a nitrogen inhibitor. “Building on the record[…]
NE Iowa farmer optimistic about future of water quality, soil health after first decade of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy By Adam Sodders ARLINGTON, Iowa (IAWA) – Tim Recker’s family has a long history of crop farming in northeast Iowa’s Fayette County, and he’s adding to that legacy as a leader in on-farm soil and[…]
Partnerships lead to new water quality feature at DMACC Dallas County Farm By Adam Sodders ADEL, Iowa (IAWA) – A once-troublesome mud puddle in a Central Iowa farm field has been transformed into one of the state’s newest water quality wetlands. The new wetland was completed in January at the DMACC Dallas County Farm near Adel.[…]
ADEL, Iowa (IAWA) – You’re invited! Join us during Earth Week on April 19, 2023 at 1:30 p.m. to learn about the power of wetlands near Iowa farmland to improve water quality! RSVP here. This is part of a celebration hosted by the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance, DMACC, Ducks Unlimited, Dallas County, and Polk County[…]
Proven practices find success on Iowa farms, benefit downstream neighbors By Dan Looker, IAWA Writer Iowa (IAWA) – Seven years ago Jon Bakehouse of Hastings, Iowa, started planting cover crops where he grows corn and soybeans with his father. Switching to no-till farming in the 1990s improved water filtration in wet spots on their West[…]
DES MOINES, Iowa (IAWA) – Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance Executive Director Sean McMahon hit the airwaves this week to talk about the Iowa N Initiative – a program helping Iowa farmers dial in their fields’ fertilizer needs. McMahon was joined on The Big Show’s “Clean Water Wednesday” by Melissa Miller of The N Initiative. The[…]
By Dan Looker Two farmer-led organizations in Iowa have a long history of research-based work—the Iowa Soybean Association and Practical Farmers of Iowa. For 11 years, ISA has run its own water lab – the Research Center for Farming Innovation (RFCI) – testing thousands of samples from streams and drainage tiles each year. Nitrates and[…]
By Dan Looker Iowa (IAWA) – Iowans can track nutrient reduction progress using two sources: the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council (INREC) and Iowa State University’s online reporting dashboard. INREC conducts statistically reliable surveys of ag retailers each year, meeting with agronomists to pick 1,000 representative locations. Other sources rely on data from government[…]