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The Center for Agricultural Partnerships (CAP) has successfully completed
the Midwestern Water Quality Project (MWQP) to implement
an information intensive nitrogen management system on
commercial acreage in the Mississippi River Basin.
This project was supported by the Environmental
Protection Agency, The McKnight Foundation, National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Minnesota Corn Growers,
and the Minnesota
Soybean Growers Association, and the National Alliance
of Independent Crop Consultants.
The
water quality problems in the Mississippi River Basin
and with hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico have generated
significant interest in changing farming practices. At
the same time, finding effective ways for helping
farmers change their farming practices has been somewhat
elusive. Even
though nitrogen management practices are relatively
simple to implement, wide scale adoption has not been
rapid. The Midwestern Water Quality Project was initiated to
demonstrate the value of effective methods for designing
and organizing watershed level efforts.
Those methods can then be used in other
watersheds to assist other farmers and be used at the
agency level to guide programmatic efforts.
CAP
used a methodology for designing and organizing the
project that integrated three steps: 1) understanding
farmers needs and the conditions in which changes in
nitrogen management would take place; 2) designing and
implementing the project to meet those needs and
conditions in order to facilitate farmer adoption; and
3) documenting results for farmers, the farming
community and policy makers. |
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Field
Results
It
was fortuitous that weather was cooperative and yields were
outstanding in 2002. It
is not uncommon for extra nitrogen to be applied every
year in case it turns into a good year with high
yields. The
perception is that high yields require high nitrogen rates and
thus it is important to have
adequate nitrogen available, in case maximum potentials are
reached. However,
growers had high yields in 2002 even with very low nitrogen
rates. The
average yield from Minnesota farms was 175 bushels per acre,
and on the 10 Iowa farms, yields were well over 200 bushels
per acre. Yields even averaged 137 bushels in the plots with NO
nitrogen application.
The
Economic Optimum Nitrogen Rates were calculated using a value
of $2.25 for a bushel of corn, and 17 cents per pound of
nitrogen. After
calculating the EONR on every farm, and then averaging those
results, Dr. David Mulla, University of Minnesota researcher,
determined that the average EONR in Minnesota for the 2002
season was 100 lb/acre of nitrogen, and 114 lb/acre N in Iowa.
On average the maximum profit occurred with a nitrogen
application of 105 lb/acre of N.
Adding more than 120 lb/acre N fertilizer did not
typically increase yields or profit.
Communications
On
March 11, 2003 a wrap-up, was held in Mankato, MN in
cooperation with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association and
the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.
In attendance were farmers, crop consultants,
Cooperative Extension staff and representatives from state
government. Paul Johnson, Iowa farmer and former Chief of the
Natural Resources Conservation Service, spoke to the group
emphasizing the need for having good soil in order to have
good water quality. Presentations of project results were made by Maggie Jones,
John Rodecap, a grower panel and Dr. Dave Mulla.
(Dr. Mulla’s presentation is available at: http://www.precision.agri.umn.edu/Projects/CAP/index.html).
Grower
Comments: “To
be able to touch it, feel it, and try it on our farm was a
great thing and a step in the right direction”.
 “By
participating in the project I feel more comfortable about
lowering rates and that at those rates I can still produce a
good yield. In
previous years, our nitrogen management decisions were made on
what we’ve applied in the past or what my Dad did, but I
wanted to find out for myself what the best rate is because I
was looking at lowering my cost of production and this gave me
the opportunity to do just that.”
Conclusions
Several
factors were instrumental to the success of the project.
Taking the time and effort to understand the needs and
constraints on farmers, the influences on their
decision-making and the nature of nitrogen management provided
particularly valuable information for designing the project. Looking at nitrogen management as an innovation, the adoption
of which is dependent on certain conditions, made it possible
to structure project activities to facilitate use of the
reduced nitrogen rates. In
particular, conducting the project as an implementation
project that relied on substantive documentation rather than
using an experimentally designed effort, allowed growers to
directly experience the commercial impacts in their own fields
For
more information on the project, please contact
Maggie Jones
Project Manager
mjones@agcenter.org
Please
view University of MN's website at:
http://www.precision.agri.umn.edu/Projects/CAP/index.html
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