Soil Health Workshop at Carolyn Nelson’s Farm in Ionia, Iowa
This soil health workshop will go from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM at 1465 170th St. in Ionia, Iowa. The registration deadline is March 31, 2017. The workshop will be held on April 3, 2017.
Please contact Sarah Merrifield for questions. She’s available at (641) 394-2174 and merrifie@iastate.edu.
Registration and more information available.
Furthermore, Iowa is in the early years of implementing the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS), a science-based plan that will take decades to accomplish. Experience and research has shown that it can take more than one in-field or edge-of-field practice to reach nutrient reduction goals. In tile-drained landscapes, nitrate is a key focus. Therefore, the combination of practices needed to reduce nitrate loss may include cover crops, adaptive management of nutrient application rates and timing, along with practices like bioreactors or saturated buffers.
As a result, local watershed planning is essential to determine the right combination of practices for each field and each farm as an integrated system that best meets local watershed and priority resource needs.
Farmers, conservation experts and scientists are working together to perfect and scale up practices known to reduce nutrients in water. Depending on conditions on a particular farm, it’s possible for farmers to be using more than one practice. In general, producers make decisions within the context of their total operations’ profitability.
There are annual practices and longer-term practices. To learn more about soil health and water quality solutions at work, please visit here.
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