Water quality

I have heard about wood chips stealing nitrogen from gardens, I just read an interesting article about running field tile runoff through wood chip beds for nitrate reduction. I do not know how many chips per acre are needed, but on concept sounds good. Nitrate runoff is a major problem in Iowa, although little is required to correct it.

Interesting idea. It should work IF you can find a practical way to run the water through the wood without washing them away. Let the wood ships collect N for a season, Pile them up to finish composting for a season, then spread them back into the field.

There is no tile around here. I have no idea if it is practical.

Des Moines water works takes it out and then dumps it back in the river for us downstream!

You are correct, they are taking nitrates out for the drinking water, but if using an RO, they are just dumping them back into river.

Who,e lot of research and trials on it.

It makes some sense in dry areas that tile a little bit.

In my back yard, we have big mains and thry run almost all year long, when it rains and the tile is full we don't need the back pressure. Thry
have bypass tile for such times; here in my backyard the bypass would be flowing most of the time.

Just seems like a method to slow down tile; not what I need!

Des Moines is trying to get by with shallow/ river wells. Rather than put in a proper water system they chose to try to sue farmers to put in a
new water system for them.

We had a shallow well next to the ditch, it was banned in the 1960s we had to build a proper well on our own dime. Duh.

Paul

Paul

The trouble with all of this is the volume of water needing filtered. Also much of the nitrogen is not leaching off of what is applied. It is created when the organic matter naturally decomposes. The large corn crops are generating huge amounts of organic matter per acre. We could quit applying nitrogen and still have nitrates running of for years to come. I have seen CRP ground still having nitrates leach that have not had fertilizer applied for close to 20 years now.

So I will strongly disagree with your statement about it being easy to control. It is a very complicated issue that does not lends itself to "simple" solutions. Also the ability to detect nitrates is increasing. So we really do not have historical data that is accurate to know what the base line was/is. This is one of my big issues with modern conservation movements/tree huggers. The data is from a very short window of time but we are expected to treat it like gospel.

Global warming is much the same. We have around 100-150 years of weather data. There are cycles that have taken centuries to cycle. The average temperature has been higher in the so distant past, mid 1300s but we are expected to worry about the world ending now because we were supposed to have higher temperatures. All wait the temperatures DID NOT raise like predicted so now we just have climate change. LOL I bet the dinosaurs thought the climate changed too.

So you think that N locked up in organic matter will leach out quicker than water soluble N in chemical fertilizer? That's about as big of a stretch as there is anywhere.
Either way the base problem is way too much N is being used.

Traditional Farmer; READ what I wrote. The organic mater is releasing Nitrites too. Not all of the nitrates come from applied nitrogen. We are split applying our nitrogen in the spring and early summer. We have ran tests and very little of our nitrogen is getting off target.

If you want to talk about fall applied Anhydrous then I will agree that too much of it is going off site. It is a poor way of applying nitrogen. To many BTOs think they can't get things done in the spring. So throw nitrogen and money away in the fall.

Trying to force 50 year old nitrogen levels will not work either. The corn we raise today requires a lot more fertilizer than they used years ago. It can be done responsibly, it just takes more work/planning. I also think fall cover crops and other practices help too.

The trouble is with fall tillage and manure application cover crops do not fit with those practices. We are seeing a 3-5% yield advantage with the fall deep tillage and manure application when compared to spring tillage and application.

I did not say it would be easy to control, this is just interesting.

I totally agree on early fall anhydrous application, you lose a large percentage.

The problem is corn being raised on the same ground year after year,sensible farming method would be crop rotation with corn every 3rd year or at least every other year.You fellows with
Nitrates and chemicals are creating a vast corn wasteland.

David,
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about wood chips and nitrogen. Yes short term, a month or two, wood chips and many other things need nitrogen to compost. The nitrogen isn't lost, it's just tied up in the chip. Later all that and more if put back in soil. So yes, chips are like a sponge.

I talked to a man from NC. He worked for a man who made mulch. He said the city sewer plant used sawdust. Not sure why, but they would use that sawdust in their mulch. Along with leafs that the city dumped off.

Neighbor has 3 horses. He too used sawdust for bedding. I haul 6 yards of road apples mixed with sawdust each month. About a 50/50 mix. The sawdust absorbs the horse pee which is high in all fertilizers, N, P, & K. I think the sawdust has more fertilizer than the road apples. I mix this in with stump grindings, dirt & wood, grass clippings, which are high in nitrogen, add leafs in fall. Then let it compost for 6 months and great compost for garden and flower beds.

So does chips improve water quality? Not really sure. If chips get wet for a long time it will release tannin. You can read up on tannin. I wouldn't want tannins in my well.
geo.
tannin

JD, the majority of N loss DOES come from applied sources- I've been a Wisconsin Discovery Farm Research site here since 2003, and had real time monitoring of drain tile and surface loss from 2003 through 2009. Google Koepke Farms UW Discovery Farms if you'd like more info on what we did. The vast majority of N loss occurs on crops fertilized with N fertilizer, and usually spikes after fertilization, especially when rain follows. Side dressing will of course help, and most anything is better than fall anhydrous. N loss on alfalfa and beans was usually half or less of corn. Corn "fertilized" by planting into alfalfa (crop rotation) was about half that of corn fertilized by commercial fertilizer.

As for the corn stalks giving off a lot of N, consider this: Pull a sample from one of your round bales- you will be hard pressed to get a feed value much over 4% crude protein. I've been sampling them for 25 years for feed, so have a good idea. If you got 5 dry matter ton of stover (a very high number) times .o4 = 400 lb of crude protein per acre. The formula for Crude Protein is N x 6.25. So divide that 400 by 6.25, and you have 64 lb N. Most of which is bound in organic form, and will slowly release over the next year or so. Some N there, but not a lot, and not totally available. As for it building up over the years, what do your soil tests show? Are you building soil organic matter? If not, you are likely not growing the soil N pool either.

You are doing the right thing splitting application... that is probably the best tool we have to minimize losses. But don't think you will have high losses for years even if you have no fertilizer additions.

This discussion is likely to get about as lively as those on what brands and weights of oil people should use in their tractors, trucks, or cars. I grew up on a farm. I worked on that farm. All I ever wanted to do was take over the farm and earn a living from that. Long story short, my parents for year essentially tried to chase me off the farm on account of their own reasons, as well as having the family farming operation involved in significant differences of opinions on how to manage that farm based upon two generations involved, with the second generation being divided into to very separate camps. I went on to college and obtained a 4 year degree in agricultural business administration and applied economics. I worked professionally in retail agriculture for 13 years and obtained my Certified Crop Advisor accreditation. I maintain that accreditation to this day. I did begin farming part time on the family farm about 10 years ago, when my father semi-retired. I no longer work in retail agriculture and have been on a different career path for over 15 years. This career path has given me tremendous opportunities for personal and professional growth. Anyway, I used to be a big proponent for late fall application of anhydrous ammonia, which is still allowed in our part of the country. As our weather patterns have changed, particularly our precipitation, I started the migration away from fall nitrogen application to spring nitrogen application, and in the past 3 years have split applied nitrogen in the spring. I feel with the high amount of rainfall we obtain in the mid-May to mid-June timeframe, we are losing more nitrogen now than ever before in my lifetime. Last year, I feel that split shot really paid off, and likewise the year before. Since it is too early in the year to offer much now, my second application of nitrogen and the results will be something I can offer comment on after harvest. An interesting read about nitrogen is the nitrogen cycle itself. Nitrogen is a difficult nutrient to have a firm handle on. I feel in the past, prior to our rainfall events being what they are today, we did not lose a great deal of nitrogen, as I felt we did not have the amount of rainfall to move nitrogen out of the root profile to the extent we have today. A corn crop needs nitrogen, in which I do not think anyone will disagree with me on this point. If one could "spoon feed" nitrogen throughout the growing season, that would be ideal. Early nitrogen, applied at or before planting gets into the roots and helps jump start the corn. I have seen the benefits of this over time, as it can act like a "starter fertilizer" treatment. Keeping the corn a healthy, green color will equate to better yields, as yellowing clearly demonstrates some stress. There is another graph out there that shows nitrogen uptake of corn during the growing season, with the highest uptake starting at around V4-V6 as rapid growth takes place and continues on past the flowering stage. Nitrogen placed out there for the crop converts to a nitrate form of nitrogen, which is mobile with the movement of water in the soil. As long as there is soil moisture migrating down and out of the root zone, along with that moves nitrate nitrogen. When our summer months arrive, the corn crop is taking soil moisture out of the soil profile and picking up the nitrogen out of that root zone.

Management of nitrogen has not become easier, particularly when we consider ground and surface water contamination/impairment. As I have noticed, our rainfall seems to be coming more in torrential downpours delivering multiple inches of measurable water in a matter of an hour or a few hours, rather than in showers and gentle soaking rains that lasted numerous hours and added up to less than one inch. When things dry up, they seem to really dry up. We have entered a difficult cycle that has perpetuated itself. I base this on my own experiences. We have more information available in terms of productivity and we are trying to improve that productivity down to something much smaller than an individual field. With the amount and intensity of rainfall, we have had to improve drainage in our crop production fields to get rid of excessive water. The production loss from intense rainfall events on my own farm today that could have been sustained and accepted (the production loss) on the frequency of once every 10 to 15 years, has necessitated the investment of tile drainage because these rainfall events are coming 6, 7, or 8 out of every 10 years. As a result, there has been an increase in the nitrate loading to tile drainage water going into our river, lakes, and streams. Wood chip bio-reactors are a management tool to lessen the nitrate loading coming from tile drainage water. So are wetlands. I am looking into creating a wetland in a lower lying area on our farm. This area had been a problem area to obtain a crop from once out of every 3 or 4 years, but about 10 years ago, it was getting more challenging to get a crop out of it every other year, and now it is a challenge 4 out of 5 years. I am looking to establish that wetland and running tile drainage water into that wetland for pre-treatment before the water ends up in the adjacent river.

There is a lot of pressure on the agricultural community regarding water impairments. I battle those pressures on my farm and in my professional workplace. I am not one to point fingers, and I am an avid supporter of agriculture. I do not consider myself to be a abundant tree-hugger. I am not sure if agriculture can continue to deflect the accusations and the pressures placed upon the industry by the environmental "hactivists." What I can suggest is that we, as agricultural producers, cannot win every battle, and that we must be open to trying new practices. I am not suggesting we have to try each and every one, but we should at least be observant and open to trying those we can employ on our own farms, which is something that I have done on ours.