Thinking of the people downstream

Last week, I attended a demonstration of a new conservation practice and learned a new word—bioreactor.

On the drive over to the event, watching the young corn rows flicker past in bright green, I thought once again how the productivity of these deep, rich Midwestern soils is based on the ability to drain them. And it’s this water leaving the land, often laden with nitrates, that is increasingly the focus of conservation programs in farm states like Iowa.

A tile line bioreactor consists of a trench filled with a carbon source, in this case wood chips. As tile line water flows through the bioreactor, microorganisms break down the nitrate and expel the substance as a gas.

The project sponsors, which included the Iowa Soybean Association, Sand County Foundation, and Agriculture’s Alliance for Clean Water, were enthusiastic about the early results for the technology. The first bioreactor in the state, installed in Greene County last August has cut nitrate concentrations by 60% to 70%, said Keegan Kult, an environmental specialist for the soybean growers group.

What’s the future for bioreactors? There are issues in designing and managing the structures. USDA is studying the funding eligibility for the practice.

The 12x100-foot bioreactor we watched being built will cost about $7,000 -- for the control structures, wood chips, fabric, and contracting work. It will treat water from a 40-acre tile pattern.

A bioreactor is a field-level practice, which can be relatively expensive compared to watershed-wide practice. A small wetlands restoration, for example, can receive drainage from a couple thousand acres, filter the water, and provide other conservation benefits.

The farmer hosting the demo project I saw is clearly conservation-minded. He’s been willing to pay for practices that are proven to benefit soil and water. His strip-till beans were covered in protective corn residue. The creek taking the water from the bioreactor demo was flanked by a 130-foot wide buffer strip.

Conservation practices can provide direct benefits, even if long term, to a farmer. But a bioreactor?

"This is a pretty progressive step for a farmer to take," Kult told me. “The bioreactor is helping the people downstream."

Driving home I followed the creek from the demo farm down to the Boone River, which shortly drains into the Des Moines River--the water supply for the city of Des Moines. Soon that demo farm’s 40 acres of drainage becomes just a drop in the bucket of an agriculturally intense watershed. There are about 9.5 million acres in the Des Moines River basin.

Bioreactors are just beginning to be put to the test, but you hope that farmers and the people downstream will find in them a new conservation tool.

Video: Bioreactor tour

Gone fishin'

Beautiful June days, with a full strawberry moon on the rise, makes me think that we should go fishing. I think of my brother-in-law, Art, this time of year. He died five years ago from brain cancer, on a night with a full moon rising, the same time of year we had always met somewhere to go fishing. My sister, Pam, and nieces, Cori and Lindsey, gathered this week in his memory and sent me some pictures from their trip to the ocean, including the funny sign here.

Think I'll post a little piece I wrote on the first anniversary of Art's passing, as a way to celebrate his life, and also as a little reminder that it's about time to pick up a pole and head to some water.... How about you? Are you going fishin' this summer?

A part of this tale Art and I came to call "The Last Cast." We never realized how it was truly the final chapter. This was two years ago, under the first full moon in June. We were canoeing the Flambeau River in northern Wisconsin on the last day of what would be our last fishing trip together.

We had two vehicles and had spaced them out for about a half day's trip from one to the other. It's a beautiful stretch of river, and the thought was to catch a few smallmouth bass. But mainly, as always, the idea was just to be on the water.

Art was always very focused in these deals--juggling gear and tackle, piloting the canoe, and figuring out how to catch a fish in a new stretch of water--all in a fast-moving channel. After a couple hours, Artie got the knack for how to catch a fish in these waters. Had to do with a certain lure lobbed almost on to the shore. The smallies were right up against the bank, and you had time for one quick cast in each promising pool. I think I was stubborn and stuck mostly to my own unsuccessful techniques, until a couple of football-sized bass of Art's won me over.

Now let me stop time and roll us back up the river. It was a place where we had stopped to have lunch. We had come to a section where the rapid flow widened into an area braided with sandbars and islands, and then divided in to two main channels. A long rocky sandbar above the fork presented itself as an easy spot to beach the boat. We stopped for lunch, to stretch, and cast a little.

I remember that after awhile we started picking up rocks and telling little stories about the life forms that were ensconced in that river. The narratives took us back a couple of ice ages ago. I don't remember the stories, and I'm not sure we brought home any of those rocks. (I'm going out to check my tackle box this evening.) But I know that for a few minutes we transcended time and felt in touch with something eternal.

Stories told, we pushed the boat back in the river and continued downstream, with the same pattern in place. Art catching fish. Me not. A couple hours later, we came around a bend and saw a few hundred yards away the towel that we'd tied around a tree to identify where we'd parked my truck. It would a matter of careful timing to get the canoe back across the river. We had to hurry. I still hadn't caught a fish, so I joked that I wanted to make one last cast. Art stuck an oar in the water and battled the current to give me time. Yes, indeed, I really did catch a beautiful football of a fish on The Last Cast. We laughed and laughed, high-fiving, then doggedly paddled across the river to shore.

Today, I think of that fork in the river, where we had lunch. How a year later, Art went one way and I went the other. I've learned that the water flows in both channels. It's just that I can't see him over there on the other side now. But I know that the river comes together again.

6,000 slices of farm life

Members of the Farmers for the Future social network have uploaded some 6,000 images through the Web site’s photo sharing tool, and it’s been a pleasant surprise to see how well this feature has resonated with people.

Surfing through the pictures gives you a good feel for what most interests the nation’s young and beginning farmers. If you look at a very large selection of the photos, you’ll see what subjects are most on their minds—primarily family and the animals and crops they tend. Machinery is also a popular subject—no wonder, inasmuch as they live so much of their lives in tractor, combine and pickup cabs.

Jennifer Dammann, who farms with her husband in southwest Iowa, is one of the photographers featured in a new slideshow highlighting a few of the latest images from the network.

What motivates her photography is that "it’s a way to capture what we do in ag,” Jennifer says.

“I feel that we need to show what we do. Many people do not know what a planter looks like, what a beef cow looks like, etc., so I feel that if I can take some pictures it will help educate the non-farm community," she says.

One of the things that strikes me about this big collection of pictures is how everyone has their own approach to photography--and how every farm is so very different. Jennifer brings her farm to life by including her husband and daughter in many of the images.

“For example, the "Heading to the planter" photo shows something that happens almost every night that we are planting. It is our farm life and we are proud to be farmers and we just want to share that with others," she says.

Sometimes the photographs bring revelations. Shane Newbrough, a Missouri farmer, reflects on a photo of his dad out in the field. "My father tells me stories about working ground with a team of horses," Shane writes. "And to see him standing next to a 185-hp tractor and a 31-row planter....just in his lifetime. It makes me wonder what I will be standing next to one day when my son takes a picture of me."

Take a quick tour to see just a few of these outstanding pictures of spring field work, family life, and farmstead action.

The 'lone ranger' of ridge tillage

Craig Fleishman

This week, I visited a couple farmers who are participating in Iowa Learning Farm, a conservation demonstration project sponsored by Iowa State University Extension and other agencies.

Craig Fleishman, one of the program's farmer-spokespersons, is a rare ridge tiller in central Iowa. The tillage system has long been known for its soil and water conservation benefits, so it was a pleasure to see Fleishman in the field with his 15-year-old, 12-row planter.

“I’m the lone ranger,” he said. "Ridge tillage has fallen out of favor."

You couldn't ask for a more enthusiastic representative for conservation, even if his tillage system appears to be disappearing from the landscape.

On Monday, Fleishman's planter was smoothly shaving off the top of corn ridges and planting soybeans into a perfect seedbed.

"With ridge till, I always wind up planting in a moist, mellow, firm seed bed," he said. "With the controlled traffic, you never plant in wheel tracks or anhydrous tracks. The seed bed is always the same. And you're always pushing the weed seed off the row."

And, all that crop residue left behind by the system is great for the soil and water.

Reduced chemical use is another well-known benefit of ridging, of course. This year, Fleishman sprayed corn herbicide on ten-inch bands at one third the broadcast rate. He’ll spot spray with glyphosate, then come with the cultivator, sidedressing nitrogen the first time, building ridges the second go-round.

Other conservation practices on the Fleishman farm include buffer strips, strip cropping, contouring, and grass waterways.

Clearly, Fleishman, a fifth-generation farmer, is trying to care of the land--a value you think would put him in the mainstream. So you wonder how he has become a "lone ranger" in the neighborhood when it comes to tillage.

"Sometimes we get caught up in the efficiency of our equipment, and we do more what's convenient for us, rather than what's good for the soil," he said. Modern machinery is moving faster, and is moving more soil, he says. Chisel plowing is nearly like moldboard plowing these days.

He fears that the trending interest in strip tillage will meet the same fate as ridging one day, relegated to minor status by big iron and ever-larger farms.

"With some of this big equipment, how can you take care of the waterways?" he asks.

Fleishman hopes that new programs like The Learning Farm eventually will help "create a new culture," and make conservation "the right thing to do," he said.

"Conservation should be the normal thing to do. We need to make it more mainstream."

Video: Fleishman's ridge-till planter & system

Getting stuck on "dry ground"

Kelley Kokemiller takes a break to talk planting progress

Sunday afternoon, as USDA would be wrapping up its weekly Crop Progress report, I took a windshield tour of my own backyard—about a 50-mile stretch of country roads north of Des Moines. I’ve always thought this area to be a good example of Iowa’s best cropland--mostly gently rolling, well-drained, black soils. Syngenta, Pioneer, and Monsanto produce seed in the area; the farmers here usually have a good jump on planting, it seems.

Last time I drove this route was early June ‘08, when farmers were still waiting to get back in the field and finish up planting after a long rain delay, just as the watershed was about ready to send the full force of its waters down river to flood Des Moines.

This year so far, a different story is emerging. While it’s been cool and wet, there's been enough of a window for farmers to plant corn in a timely fashion.

In half an hour of driving on Sunday, though, I didn't see a wheel turning, other than guys riding their lawnmowers.

Finally, I stopped at a farm to check in with a grower I’d visited before. The family was getting ready to spray beans in a river bottom area nearby.

I drove over to a field where Kelley Kokemiller was about to make his last round with the sprayer, ahead of the first soybeans to be planted. The bottomland field’s sandy soils had dried out enough to plant, but most ground in the area was still too wet to go, even though it looked dry on top

“This field is dry but everything else around here is too wet to plant. My brother was just in another field and said he nearly got the pickup stuck,” Kelley said.

“We had four inches of rain recently,” he said. “It looks good from the road, but when you get out in the field you’ll find a lot of wet spots out there.”

Kelley said the family has planted all its corn (“for the first time anyway.”) Most farmers in the area have most, if not all, of their corn planted, and a few beans are in the ground, too, he said.

But, as planting season continues, with rain in the forecast and wet soils below the surface, the “game is still on the table” in central Iowa.

Hope planting's progressing well in your part of the country.