Big challenges to cut nitrate loading

Efforts are needed beyond the 4R’s, including no-till or strip till, controlled drainage, cover crops, wetlands, buffers and landowner help.

Reprinted with permission of Corn+Soybean Digest.

In a blog post this spring, Tom Buman laid out the huge challenge facing Iowa farmers to voluntarily meet nitrogen loading reduction goals (https://www.precisionconservation.com//nitrogen-problem-numbers/). Noting that models demonstrate agriculture is responsible for 70 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus load delivered to the Gulf of Mexico, Buman, took a look at the numbers needed to meet Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy (NRS). What this founder and CEO of Agren found was a staggering gap between current application rates and projected needs.

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