Iowans have a new way to learn about conserving soil and improving water quality. Iowa farmers, cooperating with Iowa State University Extension, are ready to “teach as they learn” through on-farm demonstration plots. Seventeen farmers are implementing conservation practices on 38 sites as part of the Iowa Learning Farm project, a five-year study.
Rick Juchems, a Plainfield farmer, is comparing two tillage systems in a corn silage/soybean rotation — one field with a fall rye cover crop, the other without the fall rye on his Butler County farm.
Richard Mason, a Webster City farmer, decided to join in after hearing project leader Mahdi Al-Kaisi, an ISU Extension soil management specialist, speak at an ISU Extension seminar. He is comparing no-tillage to minimum till for his corn/soybean crop rotation in Hamilton County.
Barbara Johnson isn’t changing any farming practices on her Page County farm during this first year of the project, so she can establish an information base. Her cow/calf herd continues to provide the manure application to pasture and crop ground.
“During the first year of the project, ISU Extension specialists will determine yields from our hayfields, pasture and crop ground based on rain, weather, land slope, fertilizer and farming practices,” Johnson said. “This will help us put numbers to the practices that we believe in and make it possible for us to talk to our neighbors about the specific gains from our conservation practices.”
Learning more about the benefits of conservation on their farms is a reason cooperators give for participating. They also are willing to be first-person contacts for curious neighbors and visitors and take part in formal education events led by ISU Extension specialists at field days, demonstrations, trainings and regional meetings.
Extension’s partners in the project — Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Iowa Department of Natural Resources, in collaboration with Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and Conservation Districts of Iowa — also are excited about this learning model.
“This information education model is a cost effective way of reaching more Iowans,” said Dean Lemke, IDALS Water Resources Bureau chief. “Producers are learning from each other, and there is mutual learning as the producers interact with Extension specialists adapting research to Iowa’s five major soils and finding out what really works for the various soil formation and landscapes on a typical farm.”
NRCS state resource conservationist Jim Ayen believes Iowa Learning Farm is a good fit with NRCS goals and the conservation stewardship of agricultural working land supported by their Conservation Security Program (CSP).
“The project invites early innovators to track their methods and document the good things they are doing related to conservation stewardship,” Ayen said. “They are demonstrating the practices we preach and learning how to tweak those practices to make it work on the farm. We see them as the magnet that can draw more farmers into understanding the practices that will increase Iowa’s conservation ethics.”
Besides applying agricultural research on farms, Iowa Learning Farm includes the study of economic and sociological implications of conservation practices. Updated project information can be found on the project’s Web site, www.extension.iastate.edu/ilf, or by contacting Al-Kaisi at (515) 294-8304.
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