The Risk and Benefits of Improving Your Management

Iowa Learning Farms farmer partner Mike Paustian has to remind himself to “trust in the process” when he goes to plant green in the spring. Mike is a sixth generation farmer and a scientist from Walcott, Iowa. He spent his early career obtaining a PhD and then working at the National Animal Disease Center before moving back to his family farm to operate the farm with his parents, wife, and kids. The farm consists of corn, soybeans, and farrow-to-finish hogs.

“I really enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out how things work and how we can do better—that’s what drives me,” says Mike Paustian, ILF farmer partner.

Mike enjoys the challenge of farming. He likes to see what adjustments the farm can make to maintain current productivity and increase that long-term. Most of the farm’s conservation practices started as trials and then grew. For the last seven years, Mike has used cover crops and no-till on every acre. He trusts in the process, though he still admittedly gets nervous every spring planting green. Planting green means planting corn and soybeans in the field while the cover crop is still alive and green. The cover crop is terminated after planting using herbicide. This year Mike tried a roller out in front of the planter on 50 acres to terminate the cover crop to reduce the amount of times herbicide is being applied. With any new practice or management approach, he likes to start small to give time to adjust to the learning curve.

Cover crop residue in-between corn rows in August 2022.

Mike stated they are not just doing conservation practices for the sake of doing them. They are constantly asking, “Is this better than what we did before?” He is routinely experimenting and making changes based on results to maintain or increase productivity. Currently, their seedbed is the best they’ve ever had and the yields are better now than before cover crops. “We don’t mind making an investment for the future, but it’s nice if we can make it pay on a year-to-year basis, too,” said Mike.

It makes Mike proud to be an Iowa farmer, and to be a part of a globally recognized group of great producers. According to Mike, “People in Iowa have been working hard for many years and have a commitment to an excellence of row crop production. He added, “The job is also stressful. Farmers have to navigate the volatility, weather, and prices to figure out how to survive another year. That makes it hard to try new ideas or practices because they could affect the survival of the family farm.”

Mike emphasized the need of a support network when trying new ideas. Because of that, he is willing to connect with other farmers to help shorten their learning curve and benefit from his mistakes. Producers in Iowa and across the Midwest have options to choose what will work best with their conservation goals and landscapes. He emphasized, “Not everyone needs to learn lessons the hard way. I hope producers have enough foresight to take advantage of the time we have now to start trying to figure things out. We all need to have a sense of urgency.”

Mike is doing his part. He plans to continue to try new things on his farm to increase sustainable productivity as well as help guide other farmers to do likewise and above all else “trust the process.”

View of Paustian’s hog buildings and the solar panels that power them.

–Alena Whitaker

Going the Whole Hog to Manage Swine Manure

Here are some numbers that might not surprise you, especially if you spend any time around pigs. Iowa is the #1 pork producer in the US, with a 2020 output of about $40.8 billion. There are some 24 million pigs in Iowa, and every pig produces about 1.2 gallons of manure every day. This abundant manure can be used as an inexpensive crop fertilizer, with high N, P, and K values. Currently, 30–40% of crops’ N and P are supplied by manure, and 75% and 60% of Iowa’s available N and P, respectively, come from swine manure.

That said, there are serious challenges when working with manure. It releases odorous NH₃ and H₂S gases; it has a very low C:N ratio; and it raises problems for water quality as accumulations of N and P are lost into drainage, causing severe environmental damage both in Iowa and downriver in the Gulf of Mexico. Which chances can we seize to improve the situation? ISU environmental research scientists Dr. Chumki Banik and Dr. Santanu Bakshi discuss a promising possibility in this week’s webinar, “Using Biochar and Zeolite to Recycle Phosphorus and Nitrogen from Swine Manure: An Integrative Approach.”

Slide from the webinar, mapping the new approach

Drs. Banik and Bakshi begin by reviewing Iowa’s manure situation and defining biochar and zeolite. Biochar is a recalcitrant carbonaceous solid from pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass; it’s a porous material that can act as a nutrient sponge, improving physical and chemical qualities of soil. Its surface charge is mostly negative; it’s a poor absorber of oxyanions. However, it can be modified for high P sorption and used to develop slow-release N fertilizer. Recent work by Drs. Banik and Bakshi, alongside colleagues, have demonstrated and described these processes. Further, they have demonstrated that a mixture of biochar and swine manure has positive impacts on both soil quality and plant nutrient availability. Engineered biochar can even reduce odor from swine manure, reducing NH₃ by about 40% and H₂S by about 20%, among other improvements.

Zeolite, meanwhile, is a microporous aluminosilicate material—an absorbent. It contains both Si (charge 4+) and Al (Charge 3+) ions, but mineral weathering causes the substitution of one Si ion with one Al ion, resulting in an extra negative charge that can trap positively charged NH₄⁺ ions from manure.

Thus, Drs. Banik and Bakshi are working to combine engineered biochar and zeolite to recycle swine manure nutrients and slow-release them into the soil. The current innovation exploration is an integrated bioreactor system using a pyrolysis-biochar-bioenergy platform. Increasing nutrient use efficiency and improving air quality promises an array of economic and environmental benefits: the system is designed to reduce nutrient loss, avoid synthetic fertilizer use, improve water quality, and build up soil quality, with the ultimate greater goal of helping mitigate climate change.

Lab experiments carried out so far, described in detail by Dr. Banik in this webinar, show useful and promising findings, including evidence indicating that while electrostatic sorption of NH₄⁺ is highly pH-dependent, the biochar-zeolite combination does increase its removal from manure. Further efficiency tests, and eventual on-site application, are planned for the future.

For the full discussion and findings in detail, as well as a Q&A session, you can watch the recording of Drs. Banik and Bakshi’s webinar here. You can also catch up with all our previous webinars at the ILF website.

Zeolite and Biochar: Not Pokémon, but a Powerful Solution for Manure Nutrient Recycling

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms (ILF) webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, May 25, featuring environmental research scientists Dr. Chumki Banik and Dr. Santanu Bakshi from Iowa State University.

Banik and Bakshi collaborate on research regarding the management and utilization of manure as organic fertilizer in ways that can improve soil health while limiting nutrient loss to waterways. They are currently focused on the use of zeolite, a highly absorbent mineral, and biochar in capturing and concentrating nutrients from swine manure for efficient recycling to cropland while reducing nutrient leakage and improving air quality within the swine production system. Their work also includes an assessment of the impacts of biochar-manure mixtures on the physical and chemical structure of agricultural soils.

In the webinar, “Using Biochar and Zeolite to Recycle Phosphorus and Nitrogen from Swine Manure: An Integrative Approach,” Banik and Bakshi will discuss the efficacy of utilizing biochar and biochar-zeolite mixtures to help recover nitrogen and phosphorus from swine manure. They will also highlight the potential environmental and economic benefits and impacts of agroecosystems which employ organic fertilizer processes such as those currently being investigated.

“We anticipate this study will provide significant data and outcomes to help identify potential positive impacts on climate change mitigation strategies, reduction of pollutants in natural water bodies and long-term sustainability of a broad range of farm systems,” said Banik. “This study should also help to inform and encourage farmers regarding the positive economic and environmental benefits of using sustainable organic fertilizer methods.”

Participants in Iowa Learning Farms Conservation Webinars are encouraged to ask questions of the presenters. People from all backgrounds and areas of interest are encouraged to join.

Webinar Access Instructions

To participate in the live webinar, shortly before noon CDT May 25:

Click this URL, or type this web address into your internet browser: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/364284172

Or go to https://iastate.zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID: 364 284 172

Or join from a dial-in phone line:

Dial: +1 312 626 6799 or +1 646 876 9923

Meeting ID: 364 284 172

The webinar will also be recorded and archived on the ILF website, so that it can be watched at any time. Archived webinars are available at https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/page/webinars. For a list of upcoming webinars visit https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/page/events.

A Certified Crop Adviser board-approved continuing education unit (CEU) has been applied for. Those who participate in the live webinar are eligible. Information about how to apply to receive the credit will be provided at the end of the live webinar.

I’m Still Here

To farmer partner Doug Nolte, conservation has always been a matter of survival.

I visited Doug at his farm in Muscatine County on a day that the last winter storm swept across Iowa. As wind from the front whipped outside his dining room, Doug began the conversation with some stories, and he has quite a few. The house he currently lives in was rebuilt on the century farm’s original homestead, where his German ancestors used to hold traditional dances. He has no idea how dozens of neighbors fit into the small house. It is the same house where he was raised and where he would eventually start a family of his own.

Doug and his brother—who operates the family’s other century farm down the road— bought a no-till planter in 2004. At the time, they were discerning the future of their operations following the death of their father. Like all our conversation, Doug expressed the “why” behind this switch with refreshing honesty. He simply recognized the necessity of something new, when farmers all around him “were tilling the crap out of the soil” and the ditches were black.

There was uncertainty with the new practice, but the need to preserve the natural systems was clear. Conservation became a matter of survival. Describing this time, Doug said, “You have to understand that in those first four years we were just exploring what directions would work for us long-term. We were willing to experiment and didn’t have a strong influence from my father to say, ‘That’ll never work.’”

As one of Iowa Learning Farms’ earliest farmer partners—joining in 2006—Doug received significant guidance from ILF’s network in the early years of his operations and generously offered his expertise by hosting a field day in 2009. By that time, with just a handful of growing seasons under his belt, Doug and his brother believed in no-till and knew the practice well enough to guide other farmers who were interested in quitting tillage.

Now, after 17 years, Doug takes pride in his conservation successes, but retains a sense of humor and humility. When I asked what he was most proud of as a farmer, he took a long pause and then said with a laugh, “I’m still here; I’ve survived and made my operation work long enough to earn some respect.” Doug is also honest about the difficulties he’s had with cover crops, and he’s far from being alone.

But he has tried them and continues to work towards new conservation solutions on top of his full workload. In addition to crops, Doug raises hogs in hoop confinements, which fits his management style better than traditional confinement buildings. He had received a new litter the day I visited and had just finished grading them before I arrived.

As we walked to the hog confinements from his house, we passed numerous historic buildings left on the property, an RV and finally an enclosure with a few cattle. When I asked Doug about the cattle and RV, he paused again and smiled. He had mentioned that his son was interested in show cattle. Rather than buying the RV for vacations, the Noltes use it to live out of during cattle shows.

Characteristic of his nature, Doug balances an investment into his son’s interests with a sense of humor at the aspects of the “hobby” that perplex him. He joked about the existence of chiropractors for show pigs and all the special shampoos and supplements sold for showing cattle, before adding, “A steer is a steer, and in the end, it’s all gonna be hamburger.”

At the heart of his joking, however, is earnest concern for the industry his son will inherit, and the ways farmers will continue to support themselves while ensuring the health of the land. He explained his attitude towards the changing landscape of farming: “I don’t want to pigeonhole my son, because he may have to do it way differently than I think it has to be done. Things change, so you just do what you can to make sure that change is wise and the land stays healthy.”

Richard Frailing

Applying Liquid Manure to Living Roots: Research Update-Webinar Recap

In her August 4 webinar “Applying Liquid Manure to Living Roots: Research Update”, Dr. Melissa Wilson presented findings from two, recent studies. Most broadly, her team at the University of Minnesota is interested in alternatives to fertilizing fallow fields, with the hopes that living roots can integrate nutrients from swine manure with high effectiveness and, ultimately, save farmers money.

The two studies were conducted on corn and soy beans using a variety of cover crops and during different seasons. Also of interest was the variable effectiveness of sidedressing corn with manure versus sweep injecting into living cover crop.

While injecting, there was some variation in the results in respect to crop types, but a few broad conclusions were drawn. Although the manure was not seen to be effective during early fall (possibly due to the activity of microbes), application during late fall was found to have equal or greater effectiveness than spring fertilization.

While side-dressing crops with a drag line, all nutrient sources fared better than the control, but, otherwise, there was little difference between the methods that were tested. A key point of interest in this study was the growth stage at which corn was the most “draggable”, as some growth stages of stalks were prone to snapping from the weight of the line.

In a moment of humor at the end of the talk, Dr. Wilson recounted the farmer’s good nature and willingness to experiment with new methodologies when it was clear that stalks would snap under the drag line. “Are you sure you want me to drag that corn again”, she’d asked. “Yeah, let’s go for it”, the farmer responded. 

You can watch the full archived webinar here for the full details, and you can keep up with the latest from Melissa Wilson’s research at @ManureProf on Twitter. Dr. Wilson recounted that the handle @DrManure had already been taken.

–Richard Frailing