An Ag Drainage Field Day hosted by Iowa State University Extension has been scheduled for Monday, Aug. 18, beginning at 5 p.m. at a research site located northwest of Gilmore City in Pocahontas County.  

The field day will celebrate the 20th anniversary of research and technology development at the site. The meeting is free and open to the public and will include sandwiches prepared by the Pocahontas County Cattlemen’s Association.

Twenty years ago this drainage research site was established near Gilmore City to address concerns with agricultural drainage wells and now the site is serving the broader purposes related to all water quality issues of the tile drained landscapes. 

The program will include comments by Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey and Gerald Miller, associate dean of the ISU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of ISU Extension agriculture and natural resources programs. The field day program will focus on impacts and findings from the past 20 years as well as current research. 

Specific topics include discussions of how much nitrogen was lost due to 2008 rains, how much nitrogen is lost from fall versus spring fertilization, current crop production issues and how  drainage systems of the future might be designed and managed to meet crop production demands while meeting new water quality expectations. In addition, there will be a discussion of what has been learned from two years of monitoring in Pocahontas and Palo Alto county drainage districts.

The site is located two miles west of Gilmore City on Highway 3, one mile north on 320th Avenue and then one-half mile west on 510th Street.  For more information, contact Matt Helmers, extension agricultural engineer, at (515) 294-6717 (mhelmers@iastate.edu) or Nancy Jenson, Pocahontas County Extension education director, at (712) 335-3103 (njenson@iastate.edu).

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