Reprinted with permission from The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture By LAURA MILLER, Newsletter editor and JERI NEAL, Ecology Initiative Leader Rick Cruse is getting used to hearing a collective gasp about two-thirds of the way through his presentations these days. Cruse, who directs the Iowa Water Center and is Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, has made it his mission to share some startling information about soil erosion in Iowa. His message is two-fold:We’re losing much more soil than we think because not all …
Soil Triage
Triage, Triage, Triage…or the medical term for “setting priorities” Ok, so here is a stupid question. How important is it to take someone’s body temperature when you are assessing their overall health? Well that depends, doesn’t it. If the patient is at the doctor’s office for flu-like symptoms, then taking someone’s body temperature is pretty important. However, if the patient is in the Emergency Room with a severed arm and bleeding profusely, then taking their temperature is probably not high on the priority list. The same can be said …
We Need Soil Saviors
“If we had just controlled the soil erosion in past years,” Dr. Jerry Hatfield, ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, says “we would not be trying to figure out how to obtain 300 bushels/acre of corn.” Farmers would already be producing 300 bushels/acre with current technology.Obviously, agronomists need a new set of tools to communicate with farmers. Since soil erosion is not distributed evenly across the field, the farmer will want to evaluate those areas of the field where erosion is the worst and therefore costing …
No, soil doesn’t just grow on trees
You would think by now that those of us working in the conservation field would have a really good handle on the value of topsoil. Again, you would think. In the abstract, I think we would all say that we “value” topsoil. However, in the 80 years since we’ve identified soil erosion as an issue in the U. S., we have been unable to even begin to quantify the value of topsoil in real numbers; until recently. Thanks to the leadership of Iowa State University Professor, Rick Cruse, we’ve moved one step closer to identifying the value of one ton …