Keeping nitrogen fertilizer on farm fields, to support optimum crop growth, and out of streams and rivers is no simple formula. It’s complex.
“Think ‘writing a novel’ versus ‘writing a recipe,’ ” said Matthew Helmers, an associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Iowa State University, where he is working with teams of scientists who are field-testing promising strategies, using a systems approach.
Whether present naturally in the soil or added during chemical fertilizer application, nitrogen not taken up by crops can move with water flowing through soil during rains and snow melt, and into streams and rivers where excess nitrogen can cause adverse health and ecological effects. To address the issue of nitrogen and other farm nutrients leaving farm fields, ISU scientists, including Helmers, worked with scientists from the USDA-ARS, USDA-NRCS, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources on the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy Science Assessment, which was finalized in May.
The Science Assessment highlighted that the state’s nonpoint source nitrate reduction goal of 41 percent becomes attainable only when the problem and the solutions are seen through a wide lens of interconnected ecological and social systems, which present a multitude of opportunities to minimize loss, said Helmers.
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