Engineering Your Farm
Engineering Your Farm
The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy Explained
In this episode, Tony Mensing sits down with Dr. Matt Helmers to explore the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (INRS)—an initiative launched in 2013 to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico by 45%. Dr. Helmers breaks down the science and policy behind the strategy, highlighting the roles of both agricultural (non-point) and municipal/industrial (point) sources.
Tune in to hear how Iowa is measuring success against historical baselines (1980–1996), and what’s next in scaling up implementation to meet ambitious water quality goals.
Hello, and welcome to The Engineering your farm podcast. This podcast is produced by the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field agricultural engineering team. Welcome back to another episode of the Engineering Your Farm Podcast. I'm Tony Mensing, agricultural engineer with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in southwest Iowa, and today I'm honored to have Dr. Matt Helmers, Professor in the ag and biosystems engineering department at Iowa State University and director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center as my guest. I'm looking forward to hearing about the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy from the expert himself. Thanks for being on the podcast with me today. Dr. Helmers, if you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience, I'll I'll let you do that, and then we'll get started. You can teach me about the Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
Matt Helmers:All right, I don't know about expert, but I guess I've been involved with it a long time. Thanks Tony for for having me today. So, Matt Helmers, I've been at Iowa State 21 years. So I started in August of of 2003 at Iowa State. Native Iowan from the northwest part of the state, grew up about five miles from Minnesota and 40 from South Dakota, so way up there. Did my undergraduate degree at Iowa State University. So alumni of Iowa State, not the ag engineering department, though civil engineering, and got a civil engineering Master's at Virginia Tech, and worked a little bit and then got a PhD at the University of Nebraska Lincoln in their agricultural engineering or their biological systems engineering program and and was able to start in an extension research position in August of '03. And feel fortunate that I've been able to work with Iowans since that point in time.
Tony Mensing:Yeah, I appreciate your background there. And August of '03 has been a day or two ago, maybe. Actually, I was here when you were here in August of, '03, but they didn't let me stay. I guess I'm back now. And, yeah, expert for sure in the field. And we'll just maybe start if you want to give me maybe a overview of what the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is and who developed it? Yeah, start there. How about that?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, that's a it's a great place to start. And and I kind of joke that if I had known then what I know now, you know, it's kind of consumed my life since, since 2010. So in the fall of 2010 then Secretary of Agriculture, Bill Northey, was the co-chair of the hypoxia task force, and as part of the task force action plan, one of the items was for states to develop state nutrient reduction strategies. And Secretary Northey really wanted to be a leader in that. And so he worked with then dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dr Wendy Wintersteen, now our president, and said, one of the first things we need is a science assessment on, you know, what what practices could we use to reduce nutrient loading to the Mississippi River and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico? You know, what practices could we use? What might be the performance? Can we reach some of the goals that are out there? So the Gulf of Mexico Task Force, their goals were, and are, a 45% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus down the Mississippi River.
Tony Mensing:Okay,
Matt Helmers:And those were really set based on an EPA science advisory board that if we could reduce N and P loading by that much, we could shrink the size of of the dead zone in the Gulf. And so, you know, in some years, it might be the size of New Jersey, and we'd like to shrink it about to the size of Rhode Island is, is the goal. And so Science Advisory Board, which there are members from Iowa State University that were on that Science Advisory Board, Dr. Bill Crumpton and then ISU faculty member Dr. Kathy Kling, were on that science advisory board, and in the science assessment was a 45% reduction could help help us reach that that goal. So in October of 2010, Dean Wintersteen and Associate Dean Dr. John Lawrence convened a science team of Iowa State University, some from USDA-ARS, the National Lab for Ag and the Environment. We had a couple from University of Iowa, the Iowa Geological Survey and DNR and IDALS. And we went through a process about two years. So it takes a while, but we met about every two weeks, both on the nitrogen side and the phosphorus side, on reviewing you know, where are we at right now? What practices might we be able to use and could we, you know, with a combination of practices, reach that 45% reduction goal. In November of 2012, that draft Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy was released, and May of 2013 is when the official kind of rollout of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy was. So the principles that were really involved with developing that were the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and then Iowa State University. And it does encompass both looking at nutrient load reductions from the non-point source, which is primarily agriculture in Iowa, because we have so much in, you know, agricultural land, but then also the point sources, recognizing that they have a role to play in this as well in reducing nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater treatment plants, you know, permitted industrial facilities. So there's been a lot of work around that as well since that 2013 timeframe. So that kind of gives a background on it. As I said, you know, I probably have thought something about the Nutrient Reduction Strategy every day since, since that point in time, at least during the during the work week, and, you know, sometimes wake up at night thinking about it, but, you know, it's been a good 10 years, interesting 10 years. And I think that, you know, we're still, you know, still so much work to do, but it's kind of exciting to think about what's, what's happened over the last, you know, about 11 years now.
Tony Mensing:Right? Yeah, like you said, I look at it, and I see 10 years there, but there's a lot of background time and effort that went in prior to the rollout of the strategy itself. So yeah, there's from some aspects. Maybe it seems like it's been around a while, but I think there's probably still some newness about it. It's a long ways from a mature solutions and system in place, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, that you're exactly right. And, you know, we're kind of learning, I would say, learning new things all the time, how to better implement practices, kind of new technology development. So, yes, there, there are some things that have happened, and we kind of, you know, we have enough information to really pursue active implementation of conservation practices, but we want to continue to do research and kind of development work to understand, you know, are there new practices out there we can use, and how can we best get those practices on the land, deliver that make it efficient to get those practices out, you know, for farmers to implement.
Tony Mensing:Right. We need to be, yeah, efficient. That's a good value of return on on the investment, essentially, right? So you mentioned other states actually also asked to implement a plan or put a plan together. Give me a little bit of a rundown of where Iowa fits into the other states, and if they're doing things similar to us, or we're, I'm sure, with the brain trust that you listed off there, we're leading the way on lots of great things.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I don't want to be too biased and say we're leading the way, but the hypoxia task force is made up of the states along the main stem and the Mississippi River, as well as Indiana and Ohio. And so all those states have really been implementing their nutrient reduction strategies, or their nutrient loss reduction strategies, all of them a little bit different. So, you know, each state's a little different, and kind of how they're pursuing that is, is a little bit different. But you know, specifically, I would say, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, are three states that you know did a science assessment and are actively implementing practices on the landscape and tracking, tracking what's happened. And, you know, as we think about it, those are pretty are three big contributors of nutrients to the, you know, to the Mississippi River, because they're, you know, pretty big states with a lot of agricultural production where we see that nitrogen and phosphorus loss. But, you know, I was still actively engaged in all of this. Now, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, is the co chair of the hypoxia task force. And so I think really, since that 2010, timeframe, somebody from Iowa has been a co-chair of that hypoxia task force. And so really on a leadership side there, and we have good representation on the on the task force coordinating committee, kind of those people that are, you know, really doing the doing the work on a daily basis or a real frequent basis.
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah. And to your point, there just the sheer land mass drainage area that that those states represent, it's a big chunk of the water that ends up in the Gulf from the river.
Matt Helmers:Yeah. And if we look at, you know, not only, you know, pretty large states, but so much of the land in those states is used for agricultural production, as working land that we see, you know, a lot of that nutrient loss from.
Tony Mensing:Sure, maybe, would you mind touching on that a little bit? So you mentioned non-point source, and we're thinking production ag systems typically in that scenario, and point source a little bit. Give me just a little bit of a rundown on the proportion of nutrient loading from both of those and how the strategy kind of addresses them in proportion then.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, yeah, kind of in Iowa the estimate, you know, is, I think a little over 90% of the nitrogen that we see in our streams is coming from non-point sources, and those primarily agricultural. But then they're, you know, about 9% from point source, a little bit less from from the non-point on, the phosphorus, you know, a little bit more, least proportionally for the point sources. And sure, so we're, you know, like, relatively, yeah, relative to the nitrogen. And as we look at that, you know, different states are going to be different. So, right? Like Illinois, little bit more populated, they're going to have a little higher percentage, and do have a higher percentage from their their point sources, you know, if you think, sure, you know, the number of people in Chicago is more than than the number of people in Iowa.
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:So, you know, so there is a portion that comes from those point sources, and that's why, you know, the DNR has been actively working with those, those permitted facilities to look at, you know, feasibility of upgrading their facilities to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loading and then implementing that in in certain situations where they can as as new systems are are being built. And so I think that's a a real example of Iowa working Iowans working together on this. This is not just agriculture, you know, working
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:but it's also, you know, our municipalities and our point sources working on this as well.
Tony Mensing:We're all Iowans, and we're in this together. Essentially, is, is kind of how it shakes out in my mind. So, yeah, yeah, fraction of the nutrients are coming from those point sources. If we eliminated all of those, we would not meet the goal, right? You just said 20% ish on the phosphorus and 9% on on nitrogen. So those, neither one of those, get to 45% alone, right? And same thing on the on the non-point source. There are going to be some places where some of your practices, we can get better value from a treatment or reduction in maybe we don't even have to get to a treatment scenario if, if we just aren't losing those right? But it's, it's going to take, going to take a big variety of things to make that all happen, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, you're exactly right. Sometimes, I've, you know, gotten the question, What's one thing we can do? And and it's like, no, it's not one thing. It's the whole and we'll talk a little about the different practices.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:We need a lot of, a lot of different practices because, you know, things are, are different for agriculture in different parts of Iowa, and different practices are are going to work in different areas.
Tony Mensing:No one size fits all.
Matt Helmers:No one size fits all. That's exactly right. You know what may what may be very, a very good practice to implement, like wetlands, which we'll talk about, but wetlands in north central Iowa, you know that may not work very well in in southern Iowa.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:Because we don't have the locations to to implement them. Or, you know, maybe nitrate is not big, as big of an issue there as it is in in north central Iowa.
Tony Mensing:The landscape and the systems aren't the same across the state, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, exactly.
Tony Mensing:One thing I would maybe like to touch on a little bit is, so we are working towards a reduction in this nutrient loading in the river with the ultimate goal, or what kind of started this is the hypoxia zone in the Gulf, right? So tell me why you care about that, and why we, as Iowans all should care about that.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I think that's a great, great question, because we can think globally, but maybe act locally and and so what would be the impacts on local and so if we can reduce nitrogen and phosphorus going down the Mississippi River, we're reducing it in the waters in our state.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:And so, you know, if we think about our streams and our lakes in the state of Iowa, they're also going to benefit greatly from reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus, you know, maybe reductions in algae growth in those bodies of water.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:You know, maybe better water quality for the aquatic community, for recreating in that water and so forth. For some of our, you know, smaller Well, really, for any municipality, but for areas where we're, you know, drinking water, there's concerns about nitrate and some of our drinking water sources. So if we can reduce the delivery of that nitrate to our surface water bodies or to shallow groundwater, we're helping with drinking water supplies as well. So I think there's, you know, all that may ultimately benefit what's going down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, but first, it's going to benefit Iowans, right? You know, whether that be, you know, not having to have nitrate removal facilities, not have to, having to have concerns about about nitrate levels in some of our our water bodies, for drinking water, or whether that be for, you know, reduction in nutrients that that might stimulate algae growth. So I think it, you know, really does, there's a local benefit, and maybe that's one of the things I, you know, I haven't talked about enough, is that these things, you know, we're doing in response to the hypoxia task force, but really, these are things that that we should be doing to protect our our local assets, our local water quality assets,
Tony Mensing:Right.Yeah, that makes great sense to me. We're a yeah, if we can get two benefits, the in my backyard is important to me, right? But also we, as Iowans and Americans and just global citizens, should care about what's going downstream also, right? We take water even down to the field scale level. We take water from neighbors and we take water from other states at that level, everybody is kind of in the chain, so to speak, right? So, yeah, if we can, if we can improve our water quality and management of those nutrients here in the state, we're getting some benefit to you. So it gets a lot of, seems like it gets a lot of traction at the Gulf level, but it's not just there that the benefit is to be had.
Matt Helmers:That's yeah, exactly yeah.
Tony Mensing:That's that's something that I think is is important maybe, to keep in mind. And I think once in a while, maybe I even lose track of that a little bit. yeah. So yeah, lots of benefits, right? How about are there? Are there any drawbacks, other than it takes time and effort? Yeah, give me a little bit of the other side, I guess.
Matt Helmers:Yeah. So, I mean, so some of these practices that we're implementing, you know, if we think about about reducing nutrients from, you know, field to stream delivery of nutrients, I kind of say it starts with, you know, doing the best job we can with infield nutrient management, thinking about things like cover crops, and then maybe implementing some practices where we intercept that water before it gets into the stream. You know, maybe that be terrace water and sediment control base in a pond, maybe for phosphorus, sure on the nitrogen. We're thinking about wetlands bioreactors and saturated buffers, you know, as we think about things like cover crops and then some of these edge of field practices, like wetlands, saturated buffers, bioreactors, they may cost money, you know. So in field nutrient management that may have a direct positive impact to the farmer, if they do a better job and improve their nutrient management while maintaining their crop yields, you know, they might be able to reduce some of their fertilizer inputs while maintaining crop yields. That might be a direct, you know, economic benefit. But some of these other practices, certainly, there's a cost to somebody, whether that's to society and paying for, you know, some of the cost share programs, or, you know, where farmers are, have some some dollars in it as well. That's, that's some an economic outlay for for them as well. So that would be, you know, one of the things that, unfortunately, we don't necessarily within our, you know, kind of our system as it is now, we don't have that practice that we know it's going to have a great nutrient reduction benefit, and it's going to have a big economic benefit of the farmer. That would be like the Yeah, that would, that would be the best case scenario. Now we're looking at at some of those where I might be getting ahead of myself, but we're looking at a practice of drainage water recycling.
Tony Mensing:okay.
Matt Helmers:Where we're capturing drainage water that would have otherwise been, you know, exported downstream with with nitrate primarily, but some phosphorus. And we're looking at storing
Tony Mensing:Disposed of, essentially, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, and we're looking at storing that on the farm and using that for supplemental irrigation. While that water's in storage, we probably get some denitrification and nitrate removal, and then, rather than having that water and nutrients go downstream, we're putting it back onto the crop to try to enhance crop production. So, you know, that's one of those practices that we're looking at that we might get a water quality benefit. We might get a
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:Questions are, you know, there are a lot of crop yield benefit as well. questions around that, but you know, what's the return on investment from an engineering standpoint? We can design this, right? We can design pumps, we can design irrigation systems, but does the return for the farmer? Is that greater than what it what it might cost? And so that's some of the things that we're looking at from a research perspective right now.
Tony Mensing:You can probably tell me exactly what that answer is. If somebody could tell you exactly what the weather was going to be like what.
Matt Helmers:the Yeah, that'd be one of the things, you know, what's the weather going to be like? You know, how much water are we going to need? How much land do we need for that storage feature? Is that land that was cropped, or is it land that was, you know, kind of at the edge of a field that wasn't being cropped, that we
Tony Mensing:Not productive, necessarily.
Matt Helmers:Yeah. So there's a lot of different. You know, we were looking at three of those types of systems right now that we're monitoring two of the three, that water storage feature was in an area of land that really wasn't being used for crop production. So, you know, the opportunity cost of that system is a lot less than our third one, where we took 3 to 4% of the land area at the corner of a field out of production. Now, it wasn't your most highly productive area of the field, but it was some land that was taken out of production. So sure, you know, so kind of it depends on that. I didn't mean to get sidetracked with thinking about drainage, water recycling, but that's one that, you know, a practice that that could have benefits. I would also say, in certain areas of the state you know you're from, I won't say southern Iowa, but, you know, south of I-80, right?
Tony Mensing:Yes.
Matt Helmers:And so, you know, some of these areas cover crops could be a practice where there might be some return, if we're using that in a livestock operation,
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:If we're grazing that for livestock, there might be some some feed value if we're maybe getting enough biomass that we can chop and use it for feed, or people are looking at growing biomass and using it in anaerobic digestion, so there might be some economic value to that cover crop.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:In that case, you know that economic value might be enough or greater to offset the cost of that practice. So that would be one that. But you know, that's not going to work everywhere, because, you know, some parts of Iowa there may not be a livestock need for that cover crop, where other places there might be.
Tony Mensing:There's even we could get down the rabbit hole of soil health benefits and weed pressure reduction. And there are things and it gets a little bit hard to pinpoint truly what the cost is and whether the return on that is tomorrow return or a long-term return. So some of those things are, yeah, it's hard to dial in exactly, but we definitely have some tools available to help us with the nutrient management and meeting the goals of the reduction there the have potential and have some benefit. It just isn't, maybe always necessarily easy to pinpoint exactly where that is, to scale it out of true cost benefit analysis on a year basis, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And I do think that's one of the things that if we can start thinking a little bit longer term with some of these practices, like no-till or cover crop, you know, the short term, you know, payback, you know, may be challenging, but if we look at that, we're having a more resilient agricultural system, you know, to be able to respond in wet or dry conditions, right? We're protecting our long term asset of the soil. So, you know, we do something like no-till cover crops that may help us reduce soil erosion. So we're, you know, we're concerned about phosphorus and nitrogen loss and and cover crops can help us with with nitrate loss, and it may help us with phosphorus loss that's with with runoff. But if we can reduce that soil erosion, then we're protecting that soil and keeping that soil in the field so that we maintain productivity. Now, you know, in Iowa, we've been able to maintain productivity and increase productivity, but at some point in time, if we lose soil greater at greater rates than it's regenerated, you know, at some point in time, we may have more challenges with maintaining or increasing production. So if we take that long term view of it, of keeping that soil in place, protecting our long term asset, then it may pay, pay out over the long run, but it's tough to you know I understand the economic timetable of some of these things may not fit in as well with farmers, decision making process, right?
Tony Mensing:And I don't think neither you nor I are naive enough to not realize that there are some challenges to those long term things also. But the other side of that coin is there are some long-term challenges and costs associated with not doing a better job than we have been that it's hard to put your thumb on truly what that cost is, too. You're exactly right. You know, you think about that area of the field, that maybe we get an ephemeral Gully, and all the time we could put that into a grassed waterway and probably reduce that ephemeral gully erosion, but we're taking a little land out of production. But if you start factoring in, you know, the time it takes for you to fill that back in every year or two. You know, all of a sudden, maybe that economic trade office is not as much as you initially, as one initially thinks, but recognizing that that's, you know, it's easy for me to say from sitting on the Ames campus, but maybe just something for folks to think about is, you know, trying to think a little bit more long term as much as I can with some of these practices. And it's, it's a balancing act, right? So if we go all the way back to, I don't want to necessarily dive off the deep end, but pre-crop production in Iowa, what that looked like? Somebody might say, well, that's the answer, right? Well, we wouldn't be producing the crops we produce here if there wasn't a demand and a need. And so that's why it's a balancing act again, of the what can we do to meet both of those needs, right?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, and I think that's where it gets us to the nutrient reduction strategy, is that we can meet some of our goals in the state, it's going to take a lot of effort, a lot of dedicated effort. People really getting practices implemented, but I think, I think we can do that while still maintaining agricultural vitality and understanding that we're need to, we're need to, we are going to need to grow some type of crops in aerated soils. Who's to say, 100 years from now it's just corn and soybeans. I don't, I don't know that. I did have somebody tell me once, well, we've always grown corn and soybeans. We're always going to grow corn and soybeans. And I said, Well, now let's look at that. Less than 100 years ago, there were really no soybeans grown in the state of Iowa. So one of the things that you know, kind of, everything that we've we've grown, in a way, has in common is it needs aerated soils, and this is still one of the best places in the world to grow crops. We have some of the best soils in the world. Most years we get enough rain to grow some some type of crop. So it's still a great place to grow. But we can, I think we can still produce at a high level, while while reducing the nutrients that are getting to our stream,
Tony Mensing:Right. And that's, in my mind, kind of truly back to, like you said, that's the basis of what the strategy is, right? We're trying to marry those two things up and do better from a nutrient management standpoint, and still maintain our, yeah, we, we truly are living in the garden of the world as far as being able to produce what we can produce here.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, yeah.
Tony Mensing:So it's a, it's a balancing act, like so many things seem to be, right, we're balancing the trade offs there. We talked through a little bit, I guess, about kind of where we're trying to go. So we've been, we've been 10 years into this. How about some progress? And those are things that maybe are not necessarily always easy to measure. 10 year sounds like a long term, but tell me a little bit about where we're setting our baseline up, and then what kind of progress we have made, or do we know yet and where we go?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I think that's a great question Tony, and I certainly get that a lot. Okay, so the nutrient reduction strategy and the hypoxia task force laid out that the baseline for which we'd be measured against from was from the 80 to 1996 period. So the loading for that period
Tony Mensing:To base our 45% reduction off of.
Matt Helmers:Okay, yep, yep, that's exactly right. So you know, that's kind of what we're compared to. Now, when we did the nutrient reduction strategy, we more looked at what were the conditions in '06 to 2010, subsequent to that, we've tried to look back at what it was to'80 to '96 Okay, okay, so if we look at some of the changes that we've seen from '80 to '96 and you know, maybe there's some listeners that there might be some listeners that weren't even born in in those years. Sure, I was, you know, we have seen, you know, '80 to '96 if we look at the early '80s, we had a lot of tillage out there,
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:And you know, a lot of soil loss, more than we see now, and with that soil loss, more phosphorus loss. So if we look at our estimates, we we have estimated that we have made progress compared to '80 to'96 in reducing field to stream transport of phosphorus. Primarily because we've reduced the tillage intensity out there. We're protecting that soil with
Tony Mensing:Okay. greater conservation or no- till systems, Sure. Mostly driven by keeping the soil wher it is, not losing it down the stream. So that's exactly right, yep. So that you know, in that case, if we look at it, compared back to that period, we've made some progress in at least reducing the field to stream transport of phosphorus. We'll get to, you know, some of the challenges with measuring that in the in the river, and Sure.
Matt Helmers:on the nitrogen side, we've not seen that same type of progress, because a lot of it's driven by how much corn and soybean land we have, and what are the nutrient application, nitrogen applications, to that corn and soybean land. And as we compare to the '80 to '96 period, we've seen some incremental increase in row crop land,
Tony Mensing:Okay.
Matt Helmers:Not an exponential increase. I like to tell people that for the last 100 years in Iowa, we've grown greater than 10 million acres of corn every year. So you know, and we're about 12, 13, 14 million in any given year. You know, what's changed since 100 years ago is we've, you know, we've reduced the amount of small grains, pasture or hay ground and replaced it with with soybeans. But a lot, a lot of that happened before that the '80 to'96 period.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:But we've seen some increases in nitrogen application rate to to corn. So as we look at that, we've seen some, you know, maybe 5% you know, our estimate are like about a 5 to 10% increase in nitrate delivery to our stream because of the changes in some of those, some land use changes, and more so because of the the nitrogen application.
Tony Mensing:It's hard to pick out what progress we've made with the with practices from the reduction strategy, because the rest of the system hasn't stayed static compared to our baseline.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, and that. And so that's exactly right. And so a lot of this is reported now on the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy data dashboard.
Tony Mensing:Okay.
Matt Helmers:We've specifically looked at things like, you know, what's our kind of, our estimated load changes compared to that baseline period? And we should estimate, estimate a reduction in field to stream transport of phosphorus and about steady on the nitrate side, you know. And that some of the practices that we've implemented since 2013 have helped offset any increases we might have seen with with increased land use or row crop or with increase in in nitrogen application. So, you know, some of the estimates are, we have two to 4 million acres of cover crops every year. That's a benefit, you know, on each of those acres we, you know, from the nutrient reduction strategy, we estimate about a 30% reduction in nitrate that's lost out of the plant root zone and lost to downstream water bodies. But we have to remember that still, only you know anywhere from 10 to 20%, 25% 10 to 20% of the overall row crop acres that we have in the state. So we have about 24 million acres, where anywhere from, you know, maybe two to 4 million acres of cover crops. So still, still more that we can do. You know, that's still pretty small fraction. If you multiply that 30% by however greater percent of the land is treated by that so.
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:You know, I kind of say, yes, we've reduced field to stream transport of phosphorus. We probably held steady to the baseline with with nitrate, but now we're starting to see more of those practices go out on the landscape that can help us with with nitrate. And so I think, you know, the next 10 year period is what I'm excited about. Can we measure in certain watersheds where we see a high level of implementation? Can we see that that benefit in the water quality, and that's some of the work that we have going on with the Iowa Nutrient Research Center other efforts in the state is, you know, can we document that if we get, if we scale up that implementation and in some of our smaller watershed areas?
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah. And they those pieces have to be kind of taken in context to truly make sense of what the numbers are telling you, right? And, yeah, yeah, the next 10 years look bright to me, as we are kind of thinking about we've done a lot to get to here, but there's a lot left to do, but we got the wheels spinning the right way to make that happen,
Matt Helmers:Yeah, that's exactly right. Because, you right? know, sometimes I get well, we haven't made progress. Well, we we have. So if we think back to all the things that have to happen. And so, you know, we're in extension. So we hear a lot about a logic model, right? And so our ultimate goal is to see the water quality in the state and leaving the state to improve.
Tony Mensing:Yes.
Matt Helmers:But for us to get to that ultimate goal, we need to see a change in in practice, implementation, land use, you know, nutrient management on the landscape. For us to get that to happen, we need for, you know, people to have better knowledge of this, for better systems to be implemented to deliver these practices. And for us to do that, we need some financial resources. Well, we've been really fortunate because in the state, you know, there's a lot of state and federal dollars, you know, Senate File 512 passed by the Iowa legislature dedicated a lot more dollars to conservation practice implementation. We've seen over the last 10 years, so more resource, financial resources. We've seen infrastructure develop in human resources to deliver these programs to work with farmers on this, you know. And so now we're seeing, you know, we're kind of, we've laid the foundation for us to start scaling this up. You know, some exciting things are, if we think about some of these edge of field practices, if you design each one individually, bid that each one in individually for a con, you know, for contractor, every one of those takes quite a bit of time, there's a lot of paperwork. So there's some work that started really led out of Polk County with John Swanson on a batch and build effort. So can can we combine, you know, multiple, kind of one entity work with the landowners to say, you know, can we get these practices on your land? So then there's, they're batching them all together. Sure, might have, you know, 10 to 15 of these all in one batch that you get designed by one engineer, you bid it out to one contractor to do all of them that may improve the efficiency, and so we can get a lot more of those out there on the landscape in that shorter amount of time. We've laid that foundation over the last 10 years to think about, how do we better deliver these programs to try to scale it up, rather than a runoff scenario? So yeah.
Tony Mensing:And it's a continuous learning process, right? So yeah, if we can economies of scale that a little bit to get better value for the time and effort, like you said, instead of individual pieces, we can do kind of a grouping or for those things. I don't know. Maybe that's something that people thought about 10 years ago, but I'm guessing that's been learned through the process.
Matt Helmers:That's exactly, yeah, that's where that's, you know, kind of been a constant evolution in a way, of, how do, you know, we see this barrier? How do we overcome that? How do we do things more efficiently, you know? So if we need, you know, hundreds of 1,000s of bioreactors, or 100,000 you. You know, everyone individually may not make sense, but we start trying to put that together, you know, and we can think about that. They've been looking at some wetland efforts like that with in Polk County and and I think there could be other opportunities for that. So if we think look back at that, and look back at the things that have happened over the last 10 years, there's been a lot of progress. We've laid the groundwork for the next 10 years. But we also don't want to rest on our laurels and say, Oh, look at what we've done. You know, we'll just, let's just keep doing that. No, we want to keep, you know, thinking about how we do it better, you know, how we do it more efficiently, and how do we get more people involved? And kind of, you know, create that sense of urgency, that that this is important. Like we kind of going back to I talked about creating that sense of urgency, that there is a benefit to us as Iowans, while there's a benefit downstream. And sure, so that, and this isn't about one person making a change. It's kind of about everybody thinking about what they can do on their land to reduce their the nutrient loss, leaving their individual piece of property, right? Kind of me on the urban sector where I live, or if you farm a lot of land.
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah, it's, it's a process, no doubt, right? It, it's gonna take some time. But to your point, exactly, we need to not use that as an excuse to not be progressive and kind of continue building the momentum that 10 years of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy has got us to here, keep the ball rolling and keep that progress coming. And that's where your your 10 year look into the future, and being excited about that is is fun to think about. We're the the snowballs building on the way down the hill. Right?
Matt Helmers:And we can, you know, we can think about it from we both work for Iowa State University and educational institution, you know, how can we help drive that new innovation? But also, how can we train students to be the engineers of the future, or, you know, the agronomist of the future, or natural, you know, conservation managers of the future, think there's going to be more need for that. You know, as we think about scaling up implementation of some of these practices, there's going to need to be more people with expertise for designing them and managing them. And so, you know, nobody, nobody listens to me, necessarily, but I see that as potential rural economic development,
Tony Mensing:Right.
Matt Helmers:You know, I once worked for a large engineering firm ended up being one of the largest. There is a civil engineering firm. They're probably not going to come and design bio reactor saturated buffers and wetlands in Iowa, but our smaller engineering firms that know this landscape know drainage systems are going to be the ones to do it. I think our ag and agricultural engineering grads are well positioned to really lead that effort going forward. So I try to tell the young people that we work with this, there are great opportunities here, and there are great opportunities for, I think, many small businesses to be involved with this as we move forward as well.
Tony Mensing:Sure, yeah, that totally makes sense to me, that part of that process, if we're going to make those changes, you have the tools in place to be able to do that. So yeah, as we kind of look through that, I feel like I could spend several podcasts with you talking about I would love to cover some more about the practices and those kind of things. Maybe I could get you back for another episode and dive a little deeper into that. If we think the 10 year plan, and looking at that and the potential additional progress and keeping that momentum going, that leads me into wondering, is there an end game in the strategy? Is there, it's continual? I mean, we haven't met our goal, right?
Matt Helmers:We've not met our goal. And so I would say it's continual, and it's continually evaluated. And that's where I think that, you know, some of the strength of Iowa is kind of, it's an adaptive management what's worked, what hasn't worked, and let's continue to to kind of reevaluate that as we go along. That's where kind of, some of the new, new delivery mechanisms have been developed. So I think that that's right. And you know, there are new there may be new research. You know, as we think about 10 years ago, and we look at the practice list for the Nutrient Reduction Strategy, saturated buffers were not included because they were not, you know, the first saturated buffer in the world had been implemented about that time, but it hadn't been evaluated.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:Multi-purpose oxbows are another one that have been added since then. So there's been new technology development, and hopefully that will be the case with something like we talked about with drainage water recycling. But there may be other practices. There's some work going on on saturated grass waterways. That might be something else that's implemented. Then I would also, I'm going to put a little plug in for the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, or research that's going on in general. And maybe, again, I'm a little bit biased, but as we look at the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy practice list and the tools that we have, the practices that we have, many of those were developed by researchers at Iowa State University. You know, Dr. Bill Crumpton in the nitrate removal wetlands has been a world leader there. Tom Eisenhart on the saturated buffers, and Dan Janes, that's retired from the USDA-ARS. Tom is is here at Iowa State in Natural Resource Ecology and Management. Then we have Dr. Michelle Sapir, that's one of the leaders on on bioreactors and new research on corn cob bioreactors. And a lot of that research has been funded by what I would say is farmers in the State of Iowa.
Tony Mensing:Sure.
Matt Helmers:They pay a fertilizer tax. A lot of that has been reinvested in research to look at, you know, kind of why do we have some of these problems, and then developing solutions and working to try to implement those So,
Tony Mensing:Science based answers.
Matt Helmers:Science based.
Tony Mensing:So that's why we we didn't have all the answers 10 years ago, but we continue to grow and evolve. And from a producer production standpoint, I love to hear that we're not just taking a swing and hoping for the best, right? We're truly evaluating and looking at things and making a science based evaluation to decide what we should or shouldn't be doing and and we may, as time progresses, kind of have to change course a little bit on that. But that's we're not just going about it without looking at the science.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I think that's a good point, you know. So that, yes, you know, there may be things that we we change, we learn about new performances of practices. That doesn't mean that, you know, five years ago, my gosh, we didn't know anything. But, you know, it's kind of evolving as we go, but trying to base all of our decisions on the best science we at that we have at that point in time, and then, you know, building on it in the future. And if that can help us better design practices, better implement practices, that's great. That doesn't mean what we did before was wrong. But, you know, we all we shouldn't believe, well, this is how it's always been done. Let's continue to do that and and, you know, we need to continue to to look for kind of that next, that next thing, not not forgetting about other things. But how can we evolve, evolve it, and make sure that it's it's that we're using as much science as we can in informing our decision making, process.
Tony Mensing:Production ag is not the same as it was 20, 30, 40, even last year, we're evolving and progressing on that side. It makes sense that we should be doing the same thing here.
Matt Helmers:Yep, on the conservation side. And that's where you know. Another thing is that, can we start evaluating, what are some of the what we what we might term co benefits. So what are some of the other benefits of these practices? Whether that be, you know, esthetic value, wildlife habitat, waterfowl habitat, for some of these things, we should also start looking, I think, at that as well, because that's, you know, that's another piece in this. And May,
Tony Mensing:absolutely,
Matt Helmers:You know, may help inform you know, what practices you know are most effective for certain co-benefits that you know certain, certain watershed projects might prioritize over over others.
Tony Mensing:Right? And from a from a different part of the state than you are from, it's nice to kind of think through that with the with the mindset of there isn't a one size fits all again, and if there's a better value from some of those other things in one area, and that may be across the fence, even one place to another place, of what we really are getting the best value for that, there are lots of tools and lots of ways that we can make improvements and not necessarily have to fit into a mold of everybody needs to do X, Y, or Z to solve the problem,
Matt Helmers:Yeah. And I would, you know, I think that brings, makes me think of one other thing. There's been a development of a tool, the agricultural conservation planning framework, where it takes information about soils and topography and land use and that and can identify, you know, maybe where in a watershed, certain practices might fit best, best. So that kind of helps with that conservation planning. So it kind of gets at that
Tony Mensing:Get a starting point.
Matt Helmers:Gets a starting point and recognize, well, you know, I'm in this area bioreactors, there's really no sites here, so let's not spend a lot of time trying to sell bioreactors, for example, because we don't have much tile drainage. So bioreactors are not a good fit, but we can focus on things like cover crops, terraces, water and sediment control basis. So maybe helps us do our job a little bit better on, on focusing on those practices best best suited for that locale.
Tony Mensing:Sure, and maybe from a producer standpoint, would that help me, if I'm if I'm thinking about like, it's a little overwhelming to look at a list of practices. Maybe half of those don't apply to my situation. And then that leaves you with half that you can whittle down to see what really is the best for here.
Matt Helmers:That you're exactly right. Because you know that, yeah, you look at that whole menu of practices, and it's like, almost information overload. Like, where do I start? You know, but, oh, you know, yeah, can I? Can I hone into, you know, three or four, rather than 20 practices.
Tony Mensing:And as we have done some of those practices, we continue to see where they may work better and what, yeah, other things that you don't know without experience sometimes. So, yeah. Evolution on that front is, is a good thing too. So do you want to share with the listeners some additional resources? And yeah, I would be happy to have you back for more podcast on this. There's tons of information there, but people want to do a little digging on their own. Where do they go?
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I got a couple couple places. One is, if you're interested in kind of that, that menu of practices, you can go to our special publication 435, within the ISU Extension and Outreach Store, and that gives kind of our the practice performance for, you know, this kind of menu of practices on nitrogen and phosphorus. So if you kind of want to one, if you wonder, you know, how well do some of these different practices perform?
Tony Mensing:And people can go to the extension online store and down that.
Matt Helmers:Download it free of charge, yeah, PDF, get it on computer. Yep. Okay. And then the other one, other two, first off, Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. We have a website, and if you just Google Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, you'll find that site or whatever search engine you use. I
Tony Mensing:Yes,
Matt Helmers:shouldn't, shouldn't have said the name, but use a search engine and search for Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, and you'll kind of find all the strategy documents. But then you can also go to the Data Dashboard. So if you wonder about, you know, what's been, you know, the increase in acres treated by terraces over the last 10 years. You can find that how many dollars have been spent by different entities on this or how many events have been held in my location last year or in my county, you can find all that data,
Tony Mensing:Tons of data.
Matt Helmers:Tons of data. So go to the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy data dashboard. And then the other is, if you're interested on some of the current research and current topics. You could go to Iowa Nutrient Research Center. So INRC, the Iowa Nutrient Research Center website, and we have all of the projects we funded are listed there. There's going to be some seminar videos that you can watch. And then one of the last ones, if you're interested in some of these practices, be on the lookout for a field day, virtual field day, or we hold weekly webinars as well with Iowa Learning Farms. So that's another kind of resource out there as well.
Tony Mensing:Fantastic.
Matt Helmers:Yeah, I, well, I'm biased. I get to help moderate them, so I enjoy them, but I learned something every week I get to moderate them. So, you know, I think it's and those are all archived too. So if you know, if you can't sleep some night and just need to go to YouTube and watch people talking about conservation practices, go to the Iowa Learning Farms Conservation Webinars videos.
Tony Mensing:Lots of variety. Yeah, there too.
Matt Helmers:Yeah,
Tony Mensing:yeah, that. That sounds great. Like you said, tons of information available. And the data that's collected there is, is huge and assorted, and is interesting to be able to look back and see kind of where we were and what has happened, and we'll keep building on that in the years to come. Truly appreciate you being a guest on the podcast today. And yeah, expert, no doubt. It's fun to hear from you about something that I can tell you're passionate about.
Matt Helmers:Well, thanks a lot for the opportunity, Tony. And
Tony Mensing:Yeah, thanks a lot certainly is appreciated. So and I'd also say, if you know, people have more interest, my information is pretty easy to find, too. And I'm, I am always happy to talk about this. to the listeners, I thank you for joining us for another episode of Engineering Your Farm podcast, and hope to have you join us back again for another podcast in the future. If you have questions or comments about this or one of the other episodes, feel free to reach out to me, Tony Mensing, at the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, one of the field ag engineers in southwest Iowa, or anyone else on the extension outreach AG, engineering team. So thanks again. Dr Helmers,
Matt Helmers:Yeah, thanks Tony.