October 2, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, Tony Mensing sits down with Dr. Matt Helmers to explore the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (INRS)—an initiative launched in 2013 to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico by 45%. Dr. Helmers breaks down the science and policy behind the strategy, highlighting the roles of both agricultural (non-point) and municipal/industrial (point) sources.
Tune in to hear how Iowa is measuring success against historical baselines (1980–1996), and what’s next in scaling up implementation to meet ambitious water quality goals.
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Episode Transcript
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Tony Mensing (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to The Engineering your farm
podcast. This podcast isproduced by the Iowa State
University Extension andOutreach field agricultural
engineering team. Welcome backto another episode of the
Engineering Your Farm Podcast.
I'm Tony Mensing, agriculturalengineer with Iowa State
University Extension andOutreach in southwest Iowa, and
today I'm honored to have Dr.
(00:37):
Matt Helmers, Professor in theag and biosystems engineering
department at Iowa StateUniversity and director of the
Iowa Nutrient Research Center asmy guest. I'm looking forward to
hearing about the Iowa NutrientReduction Strategy from the
expert himself. Thanks for beingon the podcast with me today.
Dr. Helmers, if you want to goahead and introduce yourself to
the audience, I'll I'll let youdo that, and then we'll get
(00:59):
started. You can teach me aboutthe Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
Matt Helmers (01:03):
All right, I don't know about expert, but I guess
I've been involved with it along time. Thanks Tony for for
having me today. So, MattHelmers, I've been at Iowa State
21 years. So I started in Augustof of 2003 at Iowa State. Native
Iowan from the northwest part ofthe state, grew up about five
miles from Minnesota and 40 fromSouth Dakota, so way up there.
(01:25):
Did my undergraduate degree atIowa State University. So alumni
of Iowa State, not the agengineering department, though
civil engineering, and got acivil engineering Master's at
Virginia Tech, and worked alittle bit and then got a PhD at
the University of NebraskaLincoln in their agricultural
engineering or their biologicalsystems engineering program and
and was able to start in anextension research position in
(01:48):
August of '03. And feelfortunate that I've been able to
work with Iowans since thatpoint in time.
Tony Mensing (01:55):
Yeah, I appreciate your background there. And
August of '03 has been a day ortwo ago, maybe. Actually, I was
here when you were here inAugust of, '03, but they didn't
let me stay. I guess I'm backnow. And, yeah, expert for sure
in the field. And we'll justmaybe start if you want to give
(02:15):
me maybe a overview of what theIowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy
is and who developed it? Yeah,start there. How about that?
Matt Helmers (02:22):
Yeah, that's a it's a great place to start. And
and I kind of joke that if I hadknown then what I know now, you
know, it's kind of consumed mylife since, since 2010. So in
the fall of 2010 then Secretaryof Agriculture, Bill Northey,
was the co-chair of the hypoxiatask force, and as part of the
(02:43):
task force action plan, one ofthe items was for states to
develop state nutrient reductionstrategies. And Secretary
Northey really wanted to be aleader in that. And so he worked
with then dean of the College ofAgriculture and Life Sciences,
Dr Wendy Wintersteen, now ourpresident, and said, one of the
(03:04):
first things we need is ascience assessment on, you know,
what what practices could we useto reduce nutrient loading to
the Mississippi River andultimately to the Gulf of
Mexico? You know, what practicescould we use? What might be the
performance? Can we reach someof the goals that are out there?
So the Gulf of Mexico TaskForce, their goals were, and
(03:25):
are, a 45% reduction in nitrogenand phosphorus down the
Mississippi River.
Tony Mensing (03:31):
Okay,
Matt Helmers (03:32):
And those were really set based on an EPA
science advisory board that ifwe could reduce N and P loading
by that much, we could shrinkthe size of of the dead zone in
the Gulf. And so, you know, insome years, it might be the size
of New Jersey, and we'd like toshrink it about to the size of
Rhode Island is, is the goal.
And so Science Advisory Board,which there are members from
(03:55):
Iowa State University that wereon that Science Advisory Board,
Dr. Bill Crumpton and then ISUfaculty member Dr. Kathy Kling,
were on that science advisoryboard, and in the science
assessment was a 45% reductioncould help help us reach that
that goal. So in October of2010, Dean Wintersteen and
(04:15):
Associate Dean Dr. John Lawrenceconvened a science team of Iowa
State University, some fromUSDA-ARS, the National Lab for
Ag and the Environment. We had acouple from University of Iowa,
the Iowa Geological Survey andDNR and IDALS. And we went
through a process about twoyears. So it takes a while, but
(04:40):
we met about every two weeks,both on the nitrogen side and
the phosphorus side, onreviewing you know, where are we
at right now? What practicesmight we be able to use and
could we, you know, with acombination of practices, reach
that 45% reduction goal. InNovember of 2012, that draft
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategywas released, and May of 2013 is
(05:03):
when the official kind ofrollout of the Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy was. So theprinciples that were really
involved with developing thatwere the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and LandStewardship, the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources, and thenIowa State University. And it
does encompass both looking atnutrient load reductions from
(05:24):
the non-point source, which isprimarily agriculture in Iowa,
because we have so much in, youknow, agricultural land, but
then also the point sources,recognizing that they have a
role to play in this as well inreducing nitrogen and phosphorus
from wastewater treatmentplants, you know, permitted
industrial facilities. Sothere's been a lot of work
(05:46):
around that as well since that2013 timeframe. So that kind of
gives a background on it. As Isaid, you know, I probably have
thought something about theNutrient Reduction Strategy
every day since, since thatpoint in time, at least during
the during the work week, and,you know, sometimes wake up at
night thinking about it, but,you know, it's been a good 10
years, interesting 10 years. AndI think that, you know, we're
(06:08):
still, you know, still so muchwork to do, but it's kind of
exciting to think about what's,what's happened over the last,
you know, about 11 years now.
Tony Mensing (06:17):
Right? Yeah, like you said, I look at it, and I
see 10 years there, but there'sa lot of background time and
effort that went in prior to therollout of the strategy itself.
So yeah, there's from someaspects. Maybe it seems like
it's been around a while, but Ithink there's probably still
(06:37):
some newness about it. It's along ways from a mature
solutions and system in place,right?
Matt Helmers (06:44):
Yeah, that you're exactly right. And, you know,
we're kind of learning, I wouldsay, learning new things all the
time, how to better implementpractices, kind of new
technology development. So, yes,there, there are some things
that have happened, and we kindof, you know, we have enough
information to really pursueactive implementation of
conservation practices, but wewant to continue to do research
(07:05):
and kind of development work tounderstand, you know, are there
new practices out there we canuse, and how can we best get
those practices on the land,deliver that make it efficient
to get those practices out, youknow, for farmers to implement.
Tony Mensing (07:18):
Right. We need to be, yeah, efficient. That's a
good value of return on on theinvestment, essentially, right?
So you mentioned other statesactually also asked to implement
a plan or put a plan together.
Give me a little bit of arundown of where Iowa fits into
the other states, and if they'redoing things similar to us, or
(07:39):
we're, I'm sure, with the braintrust that you listed off there,
we're leading the way on lots ofgreat things.
Matt Helmers (07:47):
Yeah, I don't want to be too biased and say we're
leading the way, but the hypoxiatask force is made up of the
states along the main stem andthe Mississippi River, as well
as Indiana and Ohio. And so allthose states have really been
implementing their nutrientreduction strategies, or their
nutrient loss reductionstrategies, all of them a little
bit different. So, you know,each state's a little different,
(08:09):
and kind of how they're pursuingthat is, is a little bit
different. But you know,specifically, I would say,
Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, arethree states that you know did a
science assessment and areactively implementing practices
on the landscape and tracking,tracking what's happened. And,
you know, as we think about it,those are pretty are three big
contributors of nutrients tothe, you know, to the
(08:31):
Mississippi River, becausethey're, you know, pretty big
states with a lot ofagricultural production where we
see that nitrogen and phosphorusloss. But, you know, I was still
actively engaged in all of this.
Now, Secretary of AgricultureMike Naig, is the co chair of
the hypoxia task force. And so Ithink really, since that 2010,
timeframe, somebody from Iowahas been a co-chair of that
(08:53):
hypoxia task force. And soreally on a leadership side
there, and we have goodrepresentation on the on the
task force coordinatingcommittee, kind of those people
that are, you know, really doingthe doing the work on a daily
basis or a real frequent basis.
Tony Mensing (09:09):
Sure, yeah. And to your point, there just the sheer
land mass drainage area thatthat those states represent,
it's a big chunk of the waterthat ends up in the Gulf from
the river.
Matt Helmers (09:22):
Yeah. And if we look at, you know, not only, you
know, pretty large states, butso much of the land in those
states is used for agriculturalproduction, as working land that
we see, you know, a lot of thatnutrient loss from.
Tony Mensing (09:35):
Sure, maybe, would you mind touching on that a
little bit? So you mentionednon-point source, and we're
thinking production ag systemstypically in that scenario, and
point source a little bit. Giveme just a little bit of a
rundown on the proportion ofnutrient loading from both of
those and how the strategy kindof addresses them in proportion
(09:57):
then.
Matt Helmers (09:57):
Yeah, yeah, kind of in Iowa the estimate, you
know, is, I think a little over90% of the nitrogen that we see
in our streams is coming fromnon-point sources, and those
primarily agricultural. But thenthey're, you know, about 9% from
point source, a little bit lessfrom from the non-point on, the
phosphorus, you know, a littlebit more, least proportionally
(10:20):
for the point sources. And sure,so we're, you know, like,
relatively, yeah, relative tothe nitrogen. And as we look at
that, you know, different statesare going to be different. So,
right? Like Illinois, little bitmore populated, they're going to
have a little higher percentage,and do have a higher percentage
from their their point sources,you know, if you think, sure,
you know, the number of peoplein Chicago is more than than the
(10:41):
number of people in Iowa.
Tony Mensing (10:42):
Right.
Matt Helmers (10:43):
So, you know, so there is a portion that comes
from those point sources, andthat's why, you know, the DNR
has been actively working withthose, those permitted
facilities to look at, you know,feasibility of upgrading their
facilities to reduce nitrogenand phosphorus loading and then
implementing that in in certainsituations where they can as as
(11:03):
new systems are are being built.
And so I think that's a a realexample of Iowa working Iowans
working together on this. Thisis not just agriculture, you
know, working
Tony Mensing (11:15):
Right.
Matt Helmers (11:15):
but it's also, you know, our municipalities and our
point sources working on this aswell.
Tony Mensing (11:19):
We're all Iowans, and we're in this together.
Essentially, is, is kind of howit shakes out in my mind. So,
yeah, yeah, fraction of thenutrients are coming from those
point sources. If we eliminatedall of those, we would not meet
the goal, right? You just said20% ish on the phosphorus and 9%
on on nitrogen. So those,neither one of those, get to 45%
(11:40):
alone, right? And same thing onthe on the non-point source.
There are going to be someplaces where some of your
practices, we can get bettervalue from a treatment or
reduction in maybe we don't evenhave to get to a treatment
scenario if, if we just aren'tlosing those right? But it's,
it's going to take, going totake a big variety of things to
(12:02):
make that all happen, right?
Matt Helmers (12:04):
Yeah, you're exactly right. Sometimes, I've,
you know, gotten the question,What's one thing we can do? And
and it's like, no, it's not onething. It's the whole and we'll
talk a little about thedifferent practices.
Tony Mensing (12:13):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (12:14):
We need a lot of, a lot of different practices
because, you know, things are,are different for agriculture in
different parts of Iowa, anddifferent practices are are
going to work in differentareas.
Tony Mensing (12:25):
No one size fits all.
Matt Helmers (12:26):
No one size fits all. That's exactly right. You
know what may what may be very,a very good practice to
implement, like wetlands, whichwe'll talk about, but wetlands
in north central Iowa, you knowthat may not work very well in
in southern Iowa.
Tony Mensing (12:39):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (12:39):
Because we don't have the locations to to
implement them. Or, you know,maybe nitrate is not big, as big
of an issue there as it is in innorth central Iowa.
Tony Mensing (12:48):
The landscape and the systems aren't the same
across the state, right?
Matt Helmers (12:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Mensing (12:53):
One thing I would maybe like to touch on a little
bit is, so we are workingtowards a reduction in this
nutrient loading in the riverwith the ultimate goal, or what
kind of started this is thehypoxia zone in the Gulf, right?
So tell me why you care aboutthat, and why we, as Iowans all
(13:14):
should care about that.
Matt Helmers (13:15):
Yeah, I think that's a great, great question,
because we can think globally,but maybe act locally and and so
what would be the impacts onlocal and so if we can reduce
nitrogen and phosphorus goingdown the Mississippi River,
we're reducing it in the watersin our state.
Tony Mensing (13:33):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (13:33):
And so, you know, if we think about our streams
and our lakes in the state ofIowa, they're also going to
benefit greatly from reductionsin nitrogen and phosphorus, you
know, maybe reductions in algaegrowth in those bodies of water.
Tony Mensing (13:46):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (13:47):
You know, maybe better water quality for the
aquatic community, forrecreating in that water and so
forth. For some of our, youknow, smaller Well, really, for
any municipality, but for areaswhere we're, you know, drinking
water, there's concerns aboutnitrate and some of our drinking
water sources. So if we canreduce the delivery of that
(14:07):
nitrate to our surface waterbodies or to shallow
groundwater, we're helping withdrinking water supplies as well.
So I think there's, you know,all that may ultimately benefit
what's going down theMississippi River and into the
Gulf of Mexico, but first, it'sgoing to benefit Iowans, right?
You know, whether that be, youknow, not having to have nitrate
removal facilities, not have to,having to have concerns about
(14:30):
about nitrate levels in some ofour our water bodies, for
drinking water, or whether thatbe for, you know, reduction in
nutrients that that mightstimulate algae growth. So I
think it, you know, really does,there's a local benefit, and
maybe that's one of the thingsI, you know, I haven't talked
about enough, is that thesethings, you know, we're doing in
response to the hypoxia taskforce, but really, these are
(14:50):
things that that we should bedoing to protect our our local
assets, our local water qualityassets,
Tony Mensing (14:57):
Right.Yeah, that makes great sense to me. We're a
yeah, if we can get twobenefits, the in my backyard is
important to me, right? But alsowe, as Iowans and Americans and
just global citizens, shouldcare about what's going
downstream also, right? We takewater even down to the field
(15:18):
scale level. We take water fromneighbors and we take water from
other states at that level,everybody is kind of in the
chain, so to speak, right? So,yeah, if we can, if we can
improve our water quality andmanagement of those nutrients
here in the state, we're gettingsome benefit to you. So it gets
a lot of, seems like it gets alot of traction at the Gulf
(15:40):
level, but it's not just therethat the benefit is to be had.
Matt Helmers (15:45):
That's yeah, exactly yeah.
Tony Mensing (15:47):
That's that's something that I think is is
important maybe, to keep inmind. And I think once in a
while, maybe I even lose trackof that a little bit. yeah. So
yeah, lots of benefits, right?
How about are there? Are thereany drawbacks, other than it
takes time and effort? Yeah,give me a little bit of the
other side, I guess.
Matt Helmers (16:06):
Yeah. So, I mean, so some of these practices that
we're implementing, you know, ifwe think about about reducing
nutrients from, you know, fieldto stream delivery of nutrients,
I kind of say it starts with,you know, doing the best job we
can with infield nutrientmanagement, thinking about
things like cover crops, andthen maybe implementing some
practices where we interceptthat water before it gets into
(16:28):
the stream. You know, maybe thatbe terrace water and sediment
control base in a pond, maybefor phosphorus, sure on the
nitrogen. We're thinking aboutwetlands bioreactors and
saturated buffers, you know, aswe think about things like cover
crops and then some of theseedge of field practices, like
wetlands, saturated buffers,bioreactors, they may cost
(16:49):
money, you know. So in fieldnutrient management that may
have a direct positive impact tothe farmer, if they do a better
job and improve their nutrientmanagement while maintaining
their crop yields, you know,they might be able to reduce
some of their fertilizer inputswhile maintaining crop yields.
That might be a direct, youknow, economic benefit. But some
of these other practices,certainly, there's a cost to
(17:11):
somebody, whether that's tosociety and paying for, you
know, some of the cost shareprograms, or, you know, where
farmers are, have some somedollars in it as well. That's,
that's some an economic outlayfor for them as well. So that
would be, you know, one of thethings that, unfortunately, we
don't necessarily within our,you know, kind of our system as
(17:32):
it is now, we don't have thatpractice that we know it's going
to have a great nutrientreduction benefit, and it's
going to have a big economicbenefit of the farmer. That
would be like the Yeah, thatwould, that would be the best
case scenario. Now we're lookingat at some of those where I
might be getting ahead ofmyself, but we're looking at a
practice of drainage waterrecycling.
Tony Mensing (17:52):
okay.
Matt Helmers (17:53):
Where we're capturing drainage water that
would have otherwise been, youknow, exported downstream with
with nitrate primarily, but somephosphorus. And we're looking at
storing
Tony Mensing (18:04):
Disposed of, essentially, right?
Matt Helmers (18:05):
Yeah, and we're looking at storing that on the
farm and using that forsupplemental irrigation. While
that water's in storage, weprobably get some
denitrification and nitrateremoval, and then, rather than
having that water and nutrientsgo downstream, we're putting it
back onto the crop to try toenhance crop production. So, you
know, that's one of thosepractices that we're looking at
(18:26):
that we might get a waterquality benefit. We might get a
Tony Mensing (18:28):
Right.
Matt Helmers (18:28):
Questions are, you know, there are a lot of
crop yield benefit as well.
questions around that, but youknow, what's the return on
investment from an engineeringstandpoint? We can design this,
right? We can design pumps, wecan design irrigation systems,
but does the return for thefarmer? Is that greater than
what it what it might cost? Andso that's some of the things
(18:48):
that we're looking at from aresearch perspective right now.
Tony Mensing (18:51):
You can probably tell me exactly what that answer
is. If somebody could tell youexactly what the weather was
going to be like what.
Matt Helmers (18:58):
the Yeah, that'd be one of the things, you know,
what's the weather going to belike? You know, how much water
are we going to need? How muchland do we need for that storage
feature? Is that land that wascropped, or is it land that was,
you know, kind of at the edge ofa field that wasn't being
cropped, that we
Tony Mensing (19:17):
Not productive, necessarily.
Matt Helmers (19:19):
Yeah. So there's a lot of different. You know, we
were looking at three of thosetypes of systems right now that
we're monitoring two of thethree, that water storage
feature was in an area of landthat really wasn't being used
for crop production. So, youknow, the opportunity cost of
that system is a lot less thanour third one, where we took 3
to 4% of the land area at thecorner of a field out of
(19:41):
production. Now, it wasn't yourmost highly productive area of
the field, but it was some landthat was taken out of
production. So sure, you know,so kind of it depends on that. I
didn't mean to get sidetrackedwith thinking about drainage,
water recycling, but that's onethat, you know, a practice that
that could have benefits. Iwould also say, in certain areas
of the state you know you'refrom, I won't say southern Iowa,
(20:04):
but, you know, south of I-80,right?
Tony Mensing (20:05):
Yes.
Matt Helmers (20:06):
And so, you know, some of these areas cover crops
could be a practice where theremight be some return, if we're
using that in a livestockoperation,
Tony Mensing (20:16):
Right.
Matt Helmers (20:17):
If we're grazing that for livestock, there might
be some some feed value if we'remaybe getting enough biomass
that we can chop and use it forfeed, or people are looking at
growing biomass and using it inanaerobic digestion, so there
might be some economic value tothat cover crop.
Tony Mensing (20:33):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (20:33):
In that case, you know that economic value might
be enough or greater to offsetthe cost of that practice. So
that would be one that. But youknow, that's not going to work
everywhere, because, you know,some parts of Iowa there may not
be a livestock need for thatcover crop, where other places
there might be.
Tony Mensing (20:52):
There's even we could get down the rabbit hole
of soil health benefits and weedpressure reduction. And there
are things and it gets a littlebit hard to pinpoint truly what
the cost is and whether thereturn on that is tomorrow
return or a long-term return. Sosome of those things are, yeah,
(21:16):
it's hard to dial in exactly,but we definitely have some
tools available to help us withthe nutrient management and
meeting the goals of thereduction there the have
potential and have some benefit.
It just isn't, maybe alwaysnecessarily easy to pinpoint
exactly where that is, to scaleit out of true cost benefit
analysis on a year basis, right?
Matt Helmers (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And I do think
that's one of the things that ifwe can start thinking a little
bit longer term with some ofthese practices, like no-till or
cover crop, you know, the shortterm, you know, payback, you
know, may be challenging, but ifwe look at that, we're having a
more resilient agriculturalsystem, you know, to be able to
(22:00):
respond in wet or dryconditions, right? We're
protecting our long term assetof the soil. So, you know, we do
something like no-till covercrops that may help us reduce
soil erosion. So we're, youknow, we're concerned about
phosphorus and nitrogen loss andand cover crops can help us with
with nitrate loss, and it mayhelp us with phosphorus loss
that's with with runoff. But ifwe can reduce that soil erosion,
(22:23):
then we're protecting that soiland keeping that soil in the
field so that we maintainproductivity. Now, you know, in
Iowa, we've been able tomaintain productivity and
increase productivity, but atsome point in time, if we lose
soil greater at greater ratesthan it's regenerated, you know,
at some point in time, we mayhave more challenges with
maintaining or increasingproduction. So if we take that
(22:46):
long term view of it, of keepingthat soil in place, protecting
our long term asset, then it maypay, pay out over the long run,
but it's tough to you know Iunderstand the economic
timetable of some of thesethings may not fit in as well
with farmers, decision makingprocess, right?
Tony Mensing (23:02):
And I don't think neither you nor I are naive
enough to not realize that thereare some challenges to those
long term things also. But theother side of that coin is there
are some long-term challengesand costs associated with not
doing a better job than we havebeen that it's hard to put your
thumb on truly what that costis, too.
(23:23):
You're exactly right. You know,you think about that area of the
field, that maybe we get anephemeral Gully, and all the
time we could put that into agrassed waterway and probably
reduce that ephemeral gullyerosion, but we're taking a
little land out of production.
But if you start factoring in,you know, the time it takes for
you to fill that back in everyyear or two. You know, all of a
(23:44):
sudden, maybe that economictrade office is not as much as
you initially, as one initiallythinks, but recognizing that
that's, you know, it's easy forme to say from sitting on the
Ames campus, but maybe justsomething for folks to think
about is, you know, trying tothink a little bit more long
term as much as I can with someof these practices.
(24:05):
And it's, it's a balancing act,right? So if we go all the way
back to, I don't want tonecessarily dive off the deep
end, but pre-crop production inIowa, what that looked like?
Somebody might say, well, that'sthe answer, right? Well, we
wouldn't be producing the cropswe produce here if there wasn't
(24:25):
a demand and a need. And sothat's why it's a balancing act
again, of the what can we do tomeet both of those needs, right?
Matt Helmers (24:32):
Yeah, and I think that's where it gets us to the
nutrient reduction strategy, isthat we can meet some of our
goals in the state, it's goingto take a lot of effort, a lot
of dedicated effort. Peoplereally getting practices
implemented, but I think, Ithink we can do that while still
maintaining agriculturalvitality and understanding that
(24:52):
we're need to, we're need to, weare going to need to grow some
type of crops in aerated soils.
Who's to say, 100 years from nowit's just corn and soybeans. I
don't, I don't know that. I didhave somebody tell me once,
well, we've always grown cornand soybeans. We're always going
to grow corn and soybeans. And Isaid, Well, now let's look at
that. Less than 100 years ago,there were really no soybeans
(25:13):
grown in the state of Iowa. Soone of the things that you know,
kind of, everything that we'vewe've grown, in a way, has in
common is it needs aeratedsoils, and this is still one of
the best places in the world togrow crops. We have some of the
best soils in the world. Mostyears we get enough rain to grow
some some type of crop. So it'sstill a great place to grow. But
(25:34):
we can, I think we can stillproduce at a high level, while
while reducing the nutrientsthat are getting to our stream,
Tony Mensing (25:43):
Right. And that's, in my mind, kind of truly back
to, like you said, that's thebasis of what the strategy is,
right? We're trying to marrythose two things up and do
better from a nutrientmanagement standpoint, and still
maintain our, yeah, we, we trulyare living in the garden of the
(26:03):
world as far as being able toproduce what we can produce
here.
Matt Helmers (26:06):
Yeah, yeah.
Tony Mensing (26:06):
So it's a, it's a balancing act, like so many
things seem to be, right, we'rebalancing the trade offs there.
We talked through a little bit,I guess, about kind of where
we're trying to go. So we'vebeen, we've been 10 years into
this. How about some progress?
And those are things that maybeare not necessarily always easy
to measure. 10 year sounds likea long term, but tell me a
(26:30):
little bit about where we'resetting our baseline up, and
then what kind of progress wehave made, or do we know yet and
where we go?
Matt Helmers (26:39):
Yeah, I think that's a great question Tony,
and I certainly get that a lot.
Okay, so the nutrient reductionstrategy and the hypoxia task
force laid out that the baselinefor which we'd be measured
against from was from the 80 to1996 period. So the loading for
that period
Tony Mensing (26:58):
To base our 45% reduction off of.
Matt Helmers (27:02):
Okay, yep, yep, that's exactly right. So you
know, that's kind of what we'recompared to. Now, when we did
the nutrient reduction strategy,we more looked at what were the
conditions in '06 to 2010,subsequent to that, we've tried
to look back at what it was to'80 to '96 Okay, okay, so if we
look at some of the changes thatwe've seen from '80 to '96 and
(27:25):
you know, maybe there's somelisteners that there might be
some listeners that weren't evenborn in in those years. Sure, I
was, you know, we have seen, youknow, '80 to '96 if we look at
the early '80s, we had a lot oftillage out there,
Tony Mensing (27:40):
Right.
Matt Helmers (27:40):
And you know, a lot of soil loss, more than we
see now, and with that soilloss, more phosphorus loss. So
if we look at our estimates, wewe have estimated that we have
made progress compared to '80 to'96 in reducing field to stream
transport of phosphorus.
Primarily becausewe've reduced the tillage
intensity out there. We'reprotecting that soil with
Tony Mensing (27:58):
Okay.
greater conservation or no- tillsystems,
Sure. Mostly driven by keepingthe soil wher it is, not losing
it down the stream.
So that's exactly right, yep. Sothat you know, in that case, if
we look at it, compared back tothat period, we've made some
(28:18):
progress in at least reducingthe field to stream transport of
phosphorus. We'll get to, youknow, some of the challenges
with measuring that in the inthe river, and Sure.
Matt Helmers (28:28):
on the nitrogen side, we've not seen that same
type of progress, because a lotof it's driven by how much corn
and soybean land we have, andwhat are the nutrient
application, nitrogenapplications, to that corn and
soybean land. And as we compareto the '80 to '96 period, we've
seen some incremental increasein row crop land,
Tony Mensing (28:49):
Okay.
Matt Helmers (28:49):
Not an exponential increase. I like to tell people
that for the last 100 years inIowa, we've grown greater than
10 million acres of corn everyyear. So you know, and we're
about 12, 13, 14 million in anygiven year. You know, what's
changed since 100 years ago iswe've, you know, we've reduced
the amount of small grains,pasture or hay ground and
(29:09):
replaced it with with soybeans.
But a lot, a lot of thathappened before that the '80 to
'96 period.
Tony Mensing (29:15):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (29:16):
But we've seen some increases in nitrogen
application rate to to corn. Soas we look at that, we've seen
some, you know, maybe 5% youknow, our estimate are like
about a 5 to 10% increase innitrate delivery to our stream
because of the changes in someof those, some land use changes,
(29:37):
and more so because of the thenitrogen application.
Tony Mensing (29:41):
It's hard to pick out what progress we've made
with the with practices from thereduction strategy, because the
rest of the system hasn't stayedstatic compared to our baseline.
Matt Helmers (29:52):
Yeah, and that.
And so that's exactly right. Andso a lot of this is reported now
on the Iowa Nutrient ReductionStrategy data dashboard.
Tony Mensing (30:00):
Okay.
Matt Helmers (30:00):
We've specifically looked at things like, you know,
what's our kind of, ourestimated load changes compared
to that baseline period? And weshould estimate, estimate a
reduction in field to streamtransport of phosphorus and
about steady on the nitrateside, you know. And that some of
the practices that we'veimplemented since 2013 have
(30:22):
helped offset any increases wemight have seen with with
increased land use or row cropor with increase in in nitrogen
application. So, you know, someof the estimates are, we have
two to 4 million acres of covercrops every year. That's a
benefit, you know, on each ofthose acres we, you know, from
the nutrient reduction strategy,we estimate about a 30%
(30:43):
reduction in nitrate that's lostout of the plant root zone and
lost to downstream water bodies.
But we have to remember thatstill, only you know anywhere
from 10 to 20%, 25% 10 to 20% ofthe overall row crop acres that
we have in the state. So we haveabout 24 million acres, where
anywhere from, you know, maybetwo to 4 million acres of cover
(31:03):
crops. So still, still more thatwe can do. You know, that's
still pretty small fraction. Ifyou multiply that 30% by however
greater percent of the land istreated by that so.
Tony Mensing (31:15):
Right.
Matt Helmers (31:15):
You know, I kind of say, yes, we've reduced field
to stream transport ofphosphorus. We probably held
steady to the baseline with withnitrate, but now we're starting
to see more of those practicesgo out on the landscape that can
help us with with nitrate. Andso I think, you know, the next
10 year period is what I'mexcited about. Can we measure in
(31:36):
certain watersheds where we seea high level of implementation?
Can we see that that benefit inthe water quality, and that's
some of the work that we havegoing on with the Iowa Nutrient
Research Center other efforts inthe state is, you know, can we
document that if we get, if wescale up that implementation and
in some of our smaller watershedareas?
Tony Mensing (31:54):
Sure, yeah. And they those pieces have to be
kind of taken in context totruly make sense of what the
numbers are telling you, right?
And, yeah, yeah, the next 10years look bright to me, as we
are kind of thinking about we'vedone a lot to get to here, but
there's a lot left to do, but wegot the wheels spinning the
right way to make that happen,
Matt Helmers (32:16):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Because, you
right?
know, sometimes I get well, wehaven't made progress. Well, we
we have. So if we think back toall the things that have to
happen. And so, you know, we'rein extension. So we hear a lot
about a logic model, right? Andso our ultimate goal is to see
the water quality in the stateand leaving the state to
improve.
Tony Mensing (32:34):
Yes.
Matt Helmers (32:34):
But for us to get to that ultimate goal, we need
to see a change in in practice,implementation, land use, you
know, nutrient management on thelandscape. For us to get that to
happen, we need for, you know,people to have better knowledge
of this, for better systems tobe implemented to deliver these
practices. And for us to dothat, we need some financial
(32:56):
resources. Well, we've beenreally fortunate because in the
state, you know, there's a lotof state and federal dollars,
you know, Senate File 512 passedby the Iowa legislature
dedicated a lot more dollars toconservation practice
implementation. We've seen overthe last 10 years, so more
resource, financial resources.
We've seen infrastructuredevelop in human resources to
deliver these programs to workwith farmers on this, you know.
(33:19):
And so now we're seeing, youknow, we're kind of, we've laid
the foundation for us to startscaling this up. You know, some
exciting things are, if we thinkabout some of these edge of
field practices, if you designeach one individually, bid that
each one in individually for acon, you know, for contractor,
every one of those takes quite abit of time, there's a lot of
(33:40):
paperwork. So there's some workthat started really led out of
Polk County with John Swanson ona batch and build effort. So can
can we combine, you know,multiple, kind of one entity
work with the landowners to say,you know, can we get these
practices on your land? So thenthere's, they're batching them
all together. Sure, might have,you know, 10 to 15 of these all
(34:01):
in one batch that you getdesigned by one engineer, you
bid it out to one contractor todo all of them that may improve
the efficiency, and so we canget a lot more of those out
there on the landscape in thatshorter amount of time. We've
laid that foundation over thelast 10 years to think about,
how do we better deliver theseprograms to try to scale it up,
(34:21):
rather than a runoff scenario?
So yeah.
Tony Mensing (34:26):
And it's a continuous learning process,
right? So yeah, if we caneconomies of scale that a little
bit to get better value for thetime and effort, like you said,
instead of individual pieces, wecan do kind of a grouping or for
those things. I don't know.
Maybe that's something thatpeople thought about 10 years
ago, but I'm guessing that'sbeen learned through the
process.
Matt Helmers (34:45):
That's exactly, yeah, that's where that's, you
know, kind of been a constantevolution in a way, of, how do,
you know, we see this barrier?
How do we overcome that? How dowe do things more efficiently,
you know? So if we need, youknow, hundreds of 1,000s of
bioreactors, or 100,000 you. Youknow, everyone individually may
not make sense, but we starttrying to put that together, you
know, and we can think aboutthat. They've been looking at
(35:05):
some wetland efforts like thatwith in Polk County and and I
think there could be otheropportunities for that. So if we
think look back at that, andlook back at the things that
have happened over the last 10years, there's been a lot of
progress. We've laid thegroundwork for the next 10
years. But we also don't want torest on our laurels and say, Oh,
look at what we've done. Youknow, we'll just, let's just
keep doing that. No, we want tokeep, you know, thinking about
(35:28):
how we do it better, you know,how we do it more efficiently,
and how do we get more peopleinvolved? And kind of, you know,
create that sense of urgency,that that this is important.
Like we kind of going back to Italked about creating that sense
of urgency, that there is abenefit to us as Iowans, while
there's a benefit downstream.
(35:48):
And sure, so that, and thisisn't about one person making a
change. It's kind of abouteverybody thinking about what
they can do on their land toreduce their the nutrient loss,
leaving their individual pieceof property, right? Kind of me
on the urban sector where Ilive, or if you farm a lot of
land.
Tony Mensing (36:07):
Sure, yeah, it's, it's a process, no doubt, right?
It, it's gonna take some time.
But to your point, exactly, weneed to not use that as an
excuse to not be progressive andkind of continue building the
momentum that 10 years of theIowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy
has got us to here, keep theball rolling and keep that
(36:28):
progress coming. And that'swhere your your 10 year look
into the future, and beingexcited about that is is fun to
think about. We're the thesnowballs building on the way
down the hill. Right?
Matt Helmers (36:39):
And we can, you know, we can think about it from
we both work for Iowa StateUniversity and educational
institution, you know, how canwe help drive that new
innovation? But also, how can wetrain students to be the
engineers of the future, or, youknow, the agronomist of the
future, or natural, you know,conservation managers of the
(37:01):
future, think there's going tobe more need for that. You know,
as we think about scaling upimplementation of some of these
practices, there's going to needto be more people with expertise
for designing them and managingthem. And so, you know, nobody,
nobody listens to me,necessarily, but I see that as
potential rural economicdevelopment,
Tony Mensing (37:19):
Right.
Matt Helmers (37:19):
You know, I once worked for a large engineering
firm ended up being one of thelargest. There is a civil
engineering firm. They'reprobably not going to come and
design bio reactor saturatedbuffers and wetlands in Iowa,
but our smaller engineeringfirms that know this landscape
know drainage systems are goingto be the ones to do it. I think
our ag and agriculturalengineering grads are well
(37:40):
positioned to really lead thateffort going forward. So I try
to tell the young people that wework with this, there are great
opportunities here, and thereare great opportunities for, I
think, many small businesses tobe involved with this as we move
forward as well.
Tony Mensing (37:55):
Sure, yeah, that totally makes sense to me, that
part of that process, if we'regoing to make those changes, you
have the tools in place to beable to do that. So yeah, as we
kind of look through that, Ifeel like I could spend several
podcasts with you talking aboutI would love to cover some more
about the practices and thosekind of things. Maybe I could
get you back for another episodeand dive a little deeper into
(38:18):
that. If we think the 10 yearplan, and looking at that and
the potential additionalprogress and keeping that
momentum going, that leads meinto wondering, is there an end
game in the strategy? Is there,it's continual? I mean, we
haven't met our goal, right?
Matt Helmers (38:39):
We've not met our goal. And so I would say it's
continual, and it's continuallyevaluated. And that's where I
think that, you know, some ofthe strength of Iowa is kind of,
it's an adaptive managementwhat's worked, what hasn't
worked, and let's continue to tokind of reevaluate that as we go
along. That's where kind of,some of the new, new delivery
mechanisms have been developed.
So I think that that's right.
(38:59):
And you know, there are newthere may be new research. You
know, as we think about 10 yearsago, and we look at the practice
list for the Nutrient ReductionStrategy, saturated buffers were
not included because they werenot, you know, the first
saturated buffer in the worldhad been implemented about that
time, but it hadn't beenevaluated.
Tony Mensing (39:19):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (39:19):
Multi-purpose oxbows are another one that have
been added since then. Sothere's been new technology
development, and hopefully thatwill be the case with something
like we talked about withdrainage water recycling. But
there may be other practices.
There's some work going on onsaturated grass waterways. That
might be something else that'simplemented. Then I would also,
I'm going to put a little plugin for the Iowa Nutrient
Research Center, or researchthat's going on in general. And
(39:42):
maybe, again, I'm a little bitbiased, but as we look at the
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategypractice list and the tools that
we have, the practices that wehave, many of those were
developed by researchers at IowaState University. You know, Dr.
Bill Crumpton in the nitrateremoval wetlands has been a
world leader there. TomEisenhart on the saturated
buffers, and Dan Janes, that'sretired from the USDA-ARS. Tom
(40:05):
is is here at Iowa State inNatural Resource Ecology and
Management. Then we have Dr.
Michelle Sapir, that's one ofthe leaders on on bioreactors
and new research on corn cobbioreactors. And a lot of that
research has been funded by whatI would say is farmers in the
State of Iowa.
Tony Mensing (40:25):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (40:26):
They pay a fertilizer tax. A lot of that
has been reinvested in researchto look at, you know, kind of
why do we have some of theseproblems, and then developing
solutions and working to try toimplement those So,
Tony Mensing (40:38):
Science based answers.
Matt Helmers (40:39):
Science based.
Tony Mensing (40:40):
So that's why we we didn't have all the answers
10 years ago, but we continue togrow and evolve. And from a
producer production standpoint,I love to hear that we're not
just taking a swing and hopingfor the best, right? We're truly
evaluating and looking at thingsand making a science based
evaluation to decide what weshould or shouldn't be doing and
(41:03):
and we may, as time progresses,kind of have to change course a
little bit on that. But that'swe're not just going about it
without looking at the science.
Matt Helmers (41:12):
Yeah, I think that's a good point, you know.
So that, yes, you know, theremay be things that we we change,
we learn about new performancesof practices. That doesn't mean
that, you know, five years ago,my gosh, we didn't know
anything. But, you know, it'skind of evolving as we go, but
trying to base all of ourdecisions on the best science we
at that we have at that point intime, and then, you know,
(41:33):
building on it in the future.
And if that can help us betterdesign practices, better
implement practices, that'sgreat. That doesn't mean what we
did before was wrong. But, youknow, we all we shouldn't
believe, well, this is how it'salways been done. Let's continue
to do that and and, you know, weneed to continue to to look for
kind of that next, that nextthing, not not forgetting about
other things. But how can weevolve, evolve it, and make sure
(41:53):
that it's it's that we're usingas much science as we can in
informing our decision making,process.
Tony Mensing (42:02):
Production ag is not the same as it was 20, 30,
40, even last year, we'reevolving and progressing on that
side. It makes sense that weshould be doing the same thing
here.
Matt Helmers (42:14):
Yep, on the conservation side. And that's
where you know. Another thing isthat, can we start evaluating,
what are some of the what wewhat we might term co benefits.
So what are some of the otherbenefits of these practices?
Whether that be, you know,esthetic value, wildlife
habitat, waterfowl habitat, forsome of these things, we should
also start looking, I think, atthat as well, because that's,
you know, that's another piecein this. And May,
Tony Mensing (42:36):
absolutely,
Matt Helmers (42:37):
You know, may help inform you know, what practices
you know are most effective forcertain co-benefits that you
know certain, certain watershedprojects might prioritize over
over others.
Tony Mensing (42:49):
Right? And from a from a different part of the
state than you are from, it'snice to kind of think through
that with the with the mindsetof there isn't a one size fits
all again, and if there's abetter value from some of those
other things in one area, andthat may be across the fence,
even one place to another place,of what we really are getting
(43:10):
the best value for that, thereare lots of tools and lots of
ways that we can makeimprovements and not necessarily
have to fit into a mold ofeverybody needs to do X, Y, or Z
to solve the problem,
Matt Helmers (43:22):
Yeah. And I would, you know, I think that brings,
makes me think of one otherthing. There's been a
development of a tool, theagricultural conservation
planning framework, where ittakes information about soils
and topography and land use andthat and can identify, you know,
maybe where in a watershed,certain practices might fit
(43:43):
best, best. So that kind ofhelps with that conservation
planning. So it kind of gets atthat
Tony Mensing (43:48):
Get a starting point.
Matt Helmers (43:49):
Gets a starting point and recognize, well, you
know, I'm in this areabioreactors, there's really no
sites here, so let's not spend alot of time trying to sell
bioreactors, for example,because we don't have much tile
drainage. So bioreactors are nota good fit, but we can focus on
things like cover crops,terraces, water and sediment
control basis. So maybe helps usdo our job a little bit better
(44:10):
on, on focusing on thosepractices best best suited for
that locale.
Tony Mensing (44:15):
Sure, and maybe from a producer standpoint,
would that help me, if I'm ifI'm thinking about like, it's a
little overwhelming to look at alist of practices. Maybe half of
those don't apply to mysituation. And then that leaves
you with half that you canwhittle down to see what really
is the best for here.
Matt Helmers (44:31):
That you're exactly right. Because you know
that, yeah, you look at thatwhole menu of practices, and
it's like, almost informationoverload. Like, where do I
start? You know, but, oh, youknow, yeah, can I? Can I hone
into, you know, three or four,rather than 20 practices.
Tony Mensing (44:45):
And as we have done some of those practices, we
continue to see where they maywork better and what, yeah,
other things that you don't knowwithout experience sometimes.
So, yeah. Evolution on thatfront is, is a good thing too.
So do you want to share with thelisteners some additional
(45:07):
resources? And yeah, I would behappy to have you back for more
podcast on this. There's tons ofinformation there, but people
want to do a little digging ontheir own. Where do they go?
Matt Helmers (45:17):
Yeah, I got a couple couple places. One is, if
you're interested in kind ofthat, that menu of practices,
you can go to our specialpublication 435, within the ISU
Extension and Outreach Store,and that gives kind of our the
practice performance for, youknow, this kind of menu of
practices on nitrogen andphosphorus. So if you kind of
(45:38):
want to one, if you wonder, youknow, how well do some of these
different practices perform?
Tony Mensing (45:43):
And people can go to the extension online store
and down that.
Matt Helmers (45:46):
Download it free of charge, yeah, PDF, get it on
computer. Yep. Okay. And thenthe other one, other two, first
off, Iowa Nutrient ReductionStrategy. We have a website, and
if you just Google Iowa NutrientReduction Strategy, you'll find
that site or whatever searchengine you use. I
Tony Mensing (46:01):
Yes,
Matt Helmers (46:02):
shouldn't, shouldn't have said the name,
but use a search engine andsearch for Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy, and you'llkind of find all the strategy
documents. But then you can alsogo to the Data Dashboard. So if
you wonder about, you know,what's been, you know, the
increase in acres treated byterraces over the last 10 years.
(46:23):
You can find that how manydollars have been spent by
different entities on this orhow many events have been held
in my location last year or inmy county, you can find all that
data,
Tony Mensing (46:33):
Tons of data.
Matt Helmers (46:33):
Tons of data. So go to the Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy datadashboard. And then the other
is, if you're interested on someof the current research and
current topics. You could go toIowa Nutrient Research Center.
So INRC, the Iowa NutrientResearch Center website, and we
have all of the projects wefunded are listed there. There's
going to be some seminar videosthat you can watch. And then one
(46:57):
of the last ones, if you'reinterested in some of these
practices, be on the lookout fora field day, virtual field day,
or we hold weekly webinars aswell with Iowa Learning Farms.
So that's another kind ofresource out there as well.
Tony Mensing (47:10):
Fantastic.
Matt Helmers (47:11):
Yeah, I, well, I'm biased. I get to help moderate
them, so I enjoy them, but Ilearned something every week I
get to moderate them. So, youknow, I think it's and those are
all archived too. So if youknow, if you can't sleep some
night and just need to go toYouTube and watch people talking
about conservation practices, goto the Iowa Learning Farms
Conservation Webinars videos.
Tony Mensing (47:31):
Lots of variety.
Yeah, there too.
Matt Helmers (47:32):
Yeah,
Tony Mensing (47:33):
yeah, that. That sounds great. Like you said,
tons of information available.
And the data that's collectedthere is, is huge and assorted,
and is interesting to be able tolook back and see kind of where
we were and what has happened,and we'll keep building on that
in the years to come. Trulyappreciate you being a guest on
the podcast today. And yeah,expert, no doubt. It's fun to
(47:56):
hear from you about somethingthat I can tell you're
passionate about.
Matt Helmers (48:01):
Well, thanks a lot for the opportunity, Tony. And
Tony Mensing (48:01):
Yeah, thanks a lot certainly is appreciated. So and
I'd also say, if you know,people have more interest, my
information is pretty easy tofind, too. And I'm, I am always
happy to talk about this.
to the listeners, I thank youfor joining us for another
episode of Engineering Your Farmpodcast, and hope to have you
join us back again for anotherpodcast in the future. If you
(48:24):
have questions or comments aboutthis or one of the other
episodes, feel free to reach outto me, Tony Mensing, at the Iowa
State University Extension andOutreach, one of the field ag
engineers in southwest Iowa, oranyone else on the extension
outreach AG, engineering team.
So thanks again. Dr Helmers,
Matt Helmers (48:41):
Yeah, thanks Tony.
Hello, and welcome to The Engineering your farm
podcast. This podcast isproduced by the Iowa State
University Extension andOutreach field agricultural
engineering team. Welcome backto another episode of the
Engineering Your Farm Podcast.
I'm Tony Mensing, agriculturalengineer with Iowa State
University Extension andOutreach in southwest Iowa, and
today I'm honored to have Dr.
(00:37):
Matt Helmers, Professor in theag and biosystems engineering
department at Iowa StateUniversity and director of the
Iowa Nutrient Research Center asmy guest. I'm looking forward to
hearing about the Iowa NutrientReduction Strategy from the
expert himself. Thanks for beingon the podcast with me today.
Dr. Helmers, if you want to goahead and introduce yourself to
the audience, I'll I'll let youdo that, and then we'll get
(00:59):
started. You can teach me aboutthe Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
Matt Helmers (01:03):
All right, I don't know about expert, but I guess
I've been involved with it along time. Thanks Tony for for
having me today. So, MattHelmers, I've been at Iowa State
21 years. So I started in Augustof of 2003 at Iowa State. Native
Iowan from the northwest part ofthe state, grew up about five
miles from Minnesota and 40 fromSouth Dakota, so way up there.
(01:25):
Did my undergraduate degree atIowa State University. So alumni
of Iowa State, not the agengineering department, though
civil engineering, and got acivil engineering Master's at
Virginia Tech, and worked alittle bit and then got a PhD at
the University of NebraskaLincoln in their agricultural
engineering or their biologicalsystems engineering program and
and was able to start in anextension research position in
(01:48):
August of '03. And feelfortunate that I've been able to
work with Iowans since thatpoint in time.
Tony Mensing (01:55):
Yeah, I appreciate your background there. And
August of '03 has been a day ortwo ago, maybe. Actually, I was
here when you were here inAugust of, '03, but they didn't
let me stay. I guess I'm backnow. And, yeah, expert for sure
in the field. And we'll justmaybe start if you want to give
(02:15):
me maybe a overview of what theIowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy
is and who developed it? Yeah,start there. How about that?
Matt Helmers (02:22):
Yeah, that's a it's a great place to start. And
and I kind of joke that if I hadknown then what I know now, you
know, it's kind of consumed mylife since, since 2010. So in
the fall of 2010 then Secretaryof Agriculture, Bill Northey,
was the co-chair of the hypoxiatask force, and as part of the
(02:43):
task force action plan, one ofthe items was for states to
develop state nutrient reductionstrategies. And Secretary
Northey really wanted to be aleader in that. And so he worked
with then dean of the College ofAgriculture and Life Sciences,
Dr Wendy Wintersteen, now ourpresident, and said, one of the
(03:04):
first things we need is ascience assessment on, you know,
what what practices could we useto reduce nutrient loading to
the Mississippi River andultimately to the Gulf of
Mexico? You know, what practicescould we use? What might be the
performance? Can we reach someof the goals that are out there?
So the Gulf of Mexico TaskForce, their goals were, and
(03:25):
are, a 45% reduction in nitrogenand phosphorus down the
Mississippi River.
Tony Mensing (03:31):
Okay,
Matt Helmers (03:32):
And those were really set based on an EPA
science advisory board that ifwe could reduce N and P loading
by that much, we could shrinkthe size of of the dead zone in
the Gulf. And so, you know, insome years, it might be the size
of New Jersey, and we'd like toshrink it about to the size of
Rhode Island is, is the goal.
And so Science Advisory Board,which there are members from
(03:55):
Iowa State University that wereon that Science Advisory Board,
Dr. Bill Crumpton and then ISUfaculty member Dr. Kathy Kling,
were on that science advisoryboard, and in the science
assessment was a 45% reductioncould help help us reach that
that goal. So in October of2010, Dean Wintersteen and
(04:15):
Associate Dean Dr. John Lawrenceconvened a science team of Iowa
State University, some fromUSDA-ARS, the National Lab for
Ag and the Environment. We had acouple from University of Iowa,
the Iowa Geological Survey andDNR and IDALS. And we went
through a process about twoyears. So it takes a while, but
(04:40):
we met about every two weeks,both on the nitrogen side and
the phosphorus side, onreviewing you know, where are we
at right now? What practicesmight we be able to use and
could we, you know, with acombination of practices, reach
that 45% reduction goal. InNovember of 2012, that draft
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategywas released, and May of 2013 is
(05:03):
when the official kind ofrollout of the Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy was. So theprinciples that were really
involved with developing thatwere the Iowa Department of
Agriculture and LandStewardship, the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources, and thenIowa State University. And it
does encompass both looking atnutrient load reductions from
(05:24):
the non-point source, which isprimarily agriculture in Iowa,
because we have so much in, youknow, agricultural land, but
then also the point sources,recognizing that they have a
role to play in this as well inreducing nitrogen and phosphorus
from wastewater treatmentplants, you know, permitted
industrial facilities. Sothere's been a lot of work
(05:46):
around that as well since that2013 timeframe. So that kind of
gives a background on it. As Isaid, you know, I probably have
thought something about theNutrient Reduction Strategy
every day since, since thatpoint in time, at least during
the during the work week, and,you know, sometimes wake up at
night thinking about it, but,you know, it's been a good 10
years, interesting 10 years. AndI think that, you know, we're
(06:08):
still, you know, still so muchwork to do, but it's kind of
exciting to think about what's,what's happened over the last,
you know, about 11 years now.
Tony Mensing (06:17):
Right? Yeah, like you said, I look at it, and I
see 10 years there, but there'sa lot of background time and
effort that went in prior to therollout of the strategy itself.
So yeah, there's from someaspects. Maybe it seems like
it's been around a while, but Ithink there's probably still
(06:37):
some newness about it. It's along ways from a mature
solutions and system in place,right?
Matt Helmers (06:44):
Yeah, that you're exactly right. And, you know,
we're kind of learning, I wouldsay, learning new things all the
time, how to better implementpractices, kind of new
technology development. So, yes,there, there are some things
that have happened, and we kindof, you know, we have enough
information to really pursueactive implementation of
conservation practices, but wewant to continue to do research
(07:05):
and kind of development work tounderstand, you know, are there
new practices out there we canuse, and how can we best get
those practices on the land,deliver that make it efficient
to get those practices out, youknow, for farmers to implement.
Tony Mensing (07:18):
Right. We need to be, yeah, efficient. That's a
good value of return on on theinvestment, essentially, right?
So you mentioned other statesactually also asked to implement
a plan or put a plan together.
Give me a little bit of arundown of where Iowa fits into
the other states, and if they'redoing things similar to us, or
(07:39):
we're, I'm sure, with the braintrust that you listed off there,
we're leading the way on lots ofgreat things.
Matt Helmers (07:47):
Yeah, I don't want to be too biased and say we're
leading the way, but the hypoxiatask force is made up of the
states along the main stem andthe Mississippi River, as well
as Indiana and Ohio. And so allthose states have really been
implementing their nutrientreduction strategies, or their
nutrient loss reductionstrategies, all of them a little
bit different. So, you know,each state's a little different,
(08:09):
and kind of how they're pursuingthat is, is a little bit
different. But you know,specifically, I would say,
Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, arethree states that you know did a
science assessment and areactively implementing practices
on the landscape and tracking,tracking what's happened. And,
you know, as we think about it,those are pretty are three big
contributors of nutrients tothe, you know, to the
(08:31):
Mississippi River, becausethey're, you know, pretty big
states with a lot ofagricultural production where we
see that nitrogen and phosphorusloss. But, you know, I was still
actively engaged in all of this.
Now, Secretary of AgricultureMike Naig, is the co chair of
the hypoxia task force. And so Ithink really, since that 2010,
timeframe, somebody from Iowahas been a co-chair of that
(08:53):
hypoxia task force. And soreally on a leadership side
there, and we have goodrepresentation on the on the
task force coordinatingcommittee, kind of those people
that are, you know, really doingthe doing the work on a daily
basis or a real frequent basis.
Tony Mensing (09:09):
Sure, yeah. And to your point, there just the sheer
land mass drainage area thatthat those states represent,
it's a big chunk of the waterthat ends up in the Gulf from
the river.
Matt Helmers (09:22):
Yeah. And if we look at, you know, not only, you
know, pretty large states, butso much of the land in those
states is used for agriculturalproduction, as working land that
we see, you know, a lot of thatnutrient loss from.
Tony Mensing (09:35):
Sure, maybe, would you mind touching on that a
little bit? So you mentionednon-point source, and we're
thinking production ag systemstypically in that scenario, and
point source a little bit. Giveme just a little bit of a
rundown on the proportion ofnutrient loading from both of
those and how the strategy kindof addresses them in proportion
(09:57):
then.
Matt Helmers (09:57):
Yeah, yeah, kind of in Iowa the estimate, you
know, is, I think a little over90% of the nitrogen that we see
in our streams is coming fromnon-point sources, and those
primarily agricultural. But thenthey're, you know, about 9% from
point source, a little bit lessfrom from the non-point on, the
phosphorus, you know, a littlebit more, least proportionally
(10:20):
for the point sources. And sure,so we're, you know, like,
relatively, yeah, relative tothe nitrogen. And as we look at
that, you know, different statesare going to be different. So,
right? Like Illinois, little bitmore populated, they're going to
have a little higher percentage,and do have a higher percentage
from their their point sources,you know, if you think, sure,
you know, the number of peoplein Chicago is more than than the
(10:41):
number of people in Iowa.
Tony Mensing (10:42):
Right.
Matt Helmers (10:43):
So, you know, so there is a portion that comes
from those point sources, andthat's why, you know, the DNR
has been actively working withthose, those permitted
facilities to look at, you know,feasibility of upgrading their
facilities to reduce nitrogenand phosphorus loading and then
implementing that in in certainsituations where they can as as
(11:03):
new systems are are being built.
And so I think that's a a realexample of Iowa working Iowans
working together on this. Thisis not just agriculture, you
know, working
Tony Mensing (11:15):
Right.
Matt Helmers (11:15):
but it's also, you know, our municipalities and our
point sources working on this aswell.
Tony Mensing (11:19):
We're all Iowans, and we're in this together.
Essentially, is, is kind of howit shakes out in my mind. So,
yeah, yeah, fraction of thenutrients are coming from those
point sources. If we eliminatedall of those, we would not meet
the goal, right? You just said20% ish on the phosphorus and 9%
on on nitrogen. So those,neither one of those, get to 45%
(11:40):
alone, right? And same thing onthe on the non-point source.
There are going to be someplaces where some of your
practices, we can get bettervalue from a treatment or
reduction in maybe we don't evenhave to get to a treatment
scenario if, if we just aren'tlosing those right? But it's,
it's going to take, going totake a big variety of things to
(12:02):
make that all happen, right?
Matt Helmers (12:04):
Yeah, you're exactly right. Sometimes, I've,
you know, gotten the question,What's one thing we can do? And
and it's like, no, it's not onething. It's the whole and we'll
talk a little about thedifferent practices.
Tony Mensing (12:13):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (12:14):
We need a lot of, a lot of different practices
because, you know, things are,are different for agriculture in
different parts of Iowa, anddifferent practices are are
going to work in differentareas.
Tony Mensing (12:25):
No one size fits all.
Matt Helmers (12:26):
No one size fits all. That's exactly right. You
know what may what may be very,a very good practice to
implement, like wetlands, whichwe'll talk about, but wetlands
in north central Iowa, you knowthat may not work very well in
in southern Iowa.
Tony Mensing (12:39):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (12:39):
Because we don't have the locations to to
implement them. Or, you know,maybe nitrate is not big, as big
of an issue there as it is in innorth central Iowa.
Tony Mensing (12:48):
The landscape and the systems aren't the same
across the state, right?
Matt Helmers (12:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Mensing (12:53):
One thing I would maybe like to touch on a little
bit is, so we are workingtowards a reduction in this
nutrient loading in the riverwith the ultimate goal, or what
kind of started this is thehypoxia zone in the Gulf, right?
So tell me why you care aboutthat, and why we, as Iowans all
(13:14):
should care about that.
Matt Helmers (13:15):
Yeah, I think that's a great, great question,
because we can think globally,but maybe act locally and and so
what would be the impacts onlocal and so if we can reduce
nitrogen and phosphorus goingdown the Mississippi River,
we're reducing it in the watersin our state.
Tony Mensing (13:33):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (13:33):
And so, you know, if we think about our streams
and our lakes in the state ofIowa, they're also going to
benefit greatly from reductionsin nitrogen and phosphorus, you
know, maybe reductions in algaegrowth in those bodies of water.
Tony Mensing (13:46):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (13:47):
You know, maybe better water quality for the
aquatic community, forrecreating in that water and so
forth. For some of our, youknow, smaller Well, really, for
any municipality, but for areaswhere we're, you know, drinking
water, there's concerns aboutnitrate and some of our drinking
water sources. So if we canreduce the delivery of that
(14:07):
nitrate to our surface waterbodies or to shallow
groundwater, we're helping withdrinking water supplies as well.
So I think there's, you know,all that may ultimately benefit
what's going down theMississippi River and into the
Gulf of Mexico, but first, it'sgoing to benefit Iowans, right?
You know, whether that be, youknow, not having to have nitrate
removal facilities, not have to,having to have concerns about
(14:30):
about nitrate levels in some ofour our water bodies, for
drinking water, or whether thatbe for, you know, reduction in
nutrients that that mightstimulate algae growth. So I
think it, you know, really does,there's a local benefit, and
maybe that's one of the thingsI, you know, I haven't talked
about enough, is that thesethings, you know, we're doing in
response to the hypoxia taskforce, but really, these are
(14:50):
things that that we should bedoing to protect our our local
assets, our local water qualityassets,
Tony Mensing (14:57):
Right.Yeah, that makes great sense to me. We're a
yeah, if we can get twobenefits, the in my backyard is
important to me, right? But alsowe, as Iowans and Americans and
just global citizens, shouldcare about what's going
downstream also, right? We takewater even down to the field
(15:18):
scale level. We take water fromneighbors and we take water from
other states at that level,everybody is kind of in the
chain, so to speak, right? So,yeah, if we can, if we can
improve our water quality andmanagement of those nutrients
here in the state, we're gettingsome benefit to you. So it gets
a lot of, seems like it gets alot of traction at the Gulf
(15:40):
level, but it's not just therethat the benefit is to be had.
Matt Helmers (15:45):
That's yeah, exactly yeah.
Tony Mensing (15:47):
That's that's something that I think is is
important maybe, to keep inmind. And I think once in a
while, maybe I even lose trackof that a little bit. yeah. So
yeah, lots of benefits, right?
How about are there? Are thereany drawbacks, other than it
takes time and effort? Yeah,give me a little bit of the
other side, I guess.
Matt Helmers (16:06):
Yeah. So, I mean, so some of these practices that
we're implementing, you know, ifwe think about about reducing
nutrients from, you know, fieldto stream delivery of nutrients,
I kind of say it starts with,you know, doing the best job we
can with infield nutrientmanagement, thinking about
things like cover crops, andthen maybe implementing some
practices where we interceptthat water before it gets into
(16:28):
the stream. You know, maybe thatbe terrace water and sediment
control base in a pond, maybefor phosphorus, sure on the
nitrogen. We're thinking aboutwetlands bioreactors and
saturated buffers, you know, aswe think about things like cover
crops and then some of theseedge of field practices, like
wetlands, saturated buffers,bioreactors, they may cost
(16:49):
money, you know. So in fieldnutrient management that may
have a direct positive impact tothe farmer, if they do a better
job and improve their nutrientmanagement while maintaining
their crop yields, you know,they might be able to reduce
some of their fertilizer inputswhile maintaining crop yields.
That might be a direct, youknow, economic benefit. But some
of these other practices,certainly, there's a cost to
(17:11):
somebody, whether that's tosociety and paying for, you
know, some of the cost shareprograms, or, you know, where
farmers are, have some somedollars in it as well. That's,
that's some an economic outlayfor for them as well. So that
would be, you know, one of thethings that, unfortunately, we
don't necessarily within our,you know, kind of our system as
(17:32):
it is now, we don't have thatpractice that we know it's going
to have a great nutrientreduction benefit, and it's
going to have a big economicbenefit of the farmer. That
would be like the Yeah, thatwould, that would be the best
case scenario. Now we're lookingat at some of those where I
might be getting ahead ofmyself, but we're looking at a
practice of drainage waterrecycling.
Tony Mensing (17:52):
okay.
Matt Helmers (17:53):
Where we're capturing drainage water that
would have otherwise been, youknow, exported downstream with
with nitrate primarily, but somephosphorus. And we're looking at
storing
Tony Mensing (18:04):
Disposed of, essentially, right?
Matt Helmers (18:05):
Yeah, and we're looking at storing that on the
farm and using that forsupplemental irrigation. While
that water's in storage, weprobably get some
denitrification and nitrateremoval, and then, rather than
having that water and nutrientsgo downstream, we're putting it
back onto the crop to try toenhance crop production. So, you
know, that's one of thosepractices that we're looking at
(18:26):
that we might get a waterquality benefit. We might get a
Tony Mensing (18:28):
Right.
Matt Helmers (18:28):
Questions are, you know, there are a lot of
crop yield benefit as well.
questions around that, but youknow, what's the return on
investment from an engineeringstandpoint? We can design this,
right? We can design pumps, wecan design irrigation systems,
but does the return for thefarmer? Is that greater than
what it what it might cost? Andso that's some of the things
(18:48):
that we're looking at from aresearch perspective right now.
Tony Mensing (18:51):
You can probably tell me exactly what that answer
is. If somebody could tell youexactly what the weather was
going to be like what.
Matt Helmers (18:58):
the Yeah, that'd be one of the things, you know,
what's the weather going to belike? You know, how much water
are we going to need? How muchland do we need for that storage
feature? Is that land that wascropped, or is it land that was,
you know, kind of at the edge ofa field that wasn't being
cropped, that we
Tony Mensing (19:17):
Not productive, necessarily.
Matt Helmers (19:19):
Yeah. So there's a lot of different. You know, we
were looking at three of thosetypes of systems right now that
we're monitoring two of thethree, that water storage
feature was in an area of landthat really wasn't being used
for crop production. So, youknow, the opportunity cost of
that system is a lot less thanour third one, where we took 3
to 4% of the land area at thecorner of a field out of
(19:41):
production. Now, it wasn't yourmost highly productive area of
the field, but it was some landthat was taken out of
production. So sure, you know,so kind of it depends on that. I
didn't mean to get sidetrackedwith thinking about drainage,
water recycling, but that's onethat, you know, a practice that
that could have benefits. Iwould also say, in certain areas
of the state you know you'refrom, I won't say southern Iowa,
(20:04):
but, you know, south of I-80,right?
Tony Mensing (20:05):
Yes.
Matt Helmers (20:06):
And so, you know, some of these areas cover crops
could be a practice where theremight be some return, if we're
using that in a livestockoperation,
Tony Mensing (20:16):
Right.
Matt Helmers (20:17):
If we're grazing that for livestock, there might
be some some feed value if we'remaybe getting enough biomass
that we can chop and use it forfeed, or people are looking at
growing biomass and using it inanaerobic digestion, so there
might be some economic value tothat cover crop.
Tony Mensing (20:33):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (20:33):
In that case, you know that economic value might
be enough or greater to offsetthe cost of that practice. So
that would be one that. But youknow, that's not going to work
everywhere, because, you know,some parts of Iowa there may not
be a livestock need for thatcover crop, where other places
there might be.
Tony Mensing (20:52):
There's even we could get down the rabbit hole
of soil health benefits and weedpressure reduction. And there
are things and it gets a littlebit hard to pinpoint truly what
the cost is and whether thereturn on that is tomorrow
return or a long-term return. Sosome of those things are, yeah,
(21:16):
it's hard to dial in exactly,but we definitely have some
tools available to help us withthe nutrient management and
meeting the goals of thereduction there the have
potential and have some benefit.
It just isn't, maybe alwaysnecessarily easy to pinpoint
exactly where that is, to scaleit out of true cost benefit
analysis on a year basis, right?
Matt Helmers (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right. And I do think
that's one of the things that ifwe can start thinking a little
bit longer term with some ofthese practices, like no-till or
cover crop, you know, the shortterm, you know, payback, you
know, may be challenging, but ifwe look at that, we're having a
more resilient agriculturalsystem, you know, to be able to
(22:00):
respond in wet or dryconditions, right? We're
protecting our long term assetof the soil. So, you know, we do
something like no-till covercrops that may help us reduce
soil erosion. So we're, youknow, we're concerned about
phosphorus and nitrogen loss andand cover crops can help us with
with nitrate loss, and it mayhelp us with phosphorus loss
that's with with runoff. But ifwe can reduce that soil erosion,
(22:23):
then we're protecting that soiland keeping that soil in the
field so that we maintainproductivity. Now, you know, in
Iowa, we've been able tomaintain productivity and
increase productivity, but atsome point in time, if we lose
soil greater at greater ratesthan it's regenerated, you know,
at some point in time, we mayhave more challenges with
maintaining or increasingproduction. So if we take that
(22:46):
long term view of it, of keepingthat soil in place, protecting
our long term asset, then it maypay, pay out over the long run,
but it's tough to you know Iunderstand the economic
timetable of some of thesethings may not fit in as well
with farmers, decision makingprocess, right?
Tony Mensing (23:02):
And I don't think neither you nor I are naive
enough to not realize that thereare some challenges to those
long term things also. But theother side of that coin is there
are some long-term challengesand costs associated with not
doing a better job than we havebeen that it's hard to put your
thumb on truly what that costis, too.
(23:23):
You're exactly right. You know,you think about that area of the
field, that maybe we get anephemeral Gully, and all the
time we could put that into agrassed waterway and probably
reduce that ephemeral gullyerosion, but we're taking a
little land out of production.
But if you start factoring in,you know, the time it takes for
you to fill that back in everyyear or two. You know, all of a
(23:44):
sudden, maybe that economictrade office is not as much as
you initially, as one initiallythinks, but recognizing that
that's, you know, it's easy forme to say from sitting on the
Ames campus, but maybe justsomething for folks to think
about is, you know, trying tothink a little bit more long
term as much as I can with someof these practices.
(24:05):
And it's, it's a balancing act,right? So if we go all the way
back to, I don't want tonecessarily dive off the deep
end, but pre-crop production inIowa, what that looked like?
Somebody might say, well, that'sthe answer, right? Well, we
wouldn't be producing the cropswe produce here if there wasn't
(24:25):
a demand and a need. And sothat's why it's a balancing act
again, of the what can we do tomeet both of those needs, right?
Matt Helmers (24:32):
Yeah, and I think that's where it gets us to the
nutrient reduction strategy, isthat we can meet some of our
goals in the state, it's goingto take a lot of effort, a lot
of dedicated effort. Peoplereally getting practices
implemented, but I think, Ithink we can do that while still
maintaining agriculturalvitality and understanding that
(24:52):
we're need to, we're need to, weare going to need to grow some
type of crops in aerated soils.
Who's to say, 100 years from nowit's just corn and soybeans. I
don't, I don't know that. I didhave somebody tell me once,
well, we've always grown cornand soybeans. We're always going
to grow corn and soybeans. And Isaid, Well, now let's look at
that. Less than 100 years ago,there were really no soybeans
(25:13):
grown in the state of Iowa. Soone of the things that you know,
kind of, everything that we'vewe've grown, in a way, has in
common is it needs aeratedsoils, and this is still one of
the best places in the world togrow crops. We have some of the
best soils in the world. Mostyears we get enough rain to grow
some some type of crop. So it'sstill a great place to grow. But
(25:34):
we can, I think we can stillproduce at a high level, while
while reducing the nutrientsthat are getting to our stream,
Tony Mensing (25:43):
Right. And that's, in my mind, kind of truly back
to, like you said, that's thebasis of what the strategy is,
right? We're trying to marrythose two things up and do
better from a nutrientmanagement standpoint, and still
maintain our, yeah, we, we trulyare living in the garden of the
(26:03):
world as far as being able toproduce what we can produce
here.
Matt Helmers (26:06):
Yeah, yeah.
Tony Mensing (26:06):
So it's a, it's a balancing act, like so many
things seem to be, right, we'rebalancing the trade offs there.
We talked through a little bit,I guess, about kind of where
we're trying to go. So we'vebeen, we've been 10 years into
this. How about some progress?
And those are things that maybeare not necessarily always easy
to measure. 10 year sounds likea long term, but tell me a
(26:30):
little bit about where we'resetting our baseline up, and
then what kind of progress wehave made, or do we know yet and
where we go?
Matt Helmers (26:39):
Yeah, I think that's a great question Tony,
and I certainly get that a lot.
Okay, so the nutrient reductionstrategy and the hypoxia task
force laid out that the baselinefor which we'd be measured
against from was from the 80 to1996 period. So the loading for
that period
Tony Mensing (26:58):
To base our 45% reduction off of.
Matt Helmers (27:02):
Okay, yep, yep, that's exactly right. So you
know, that's kind of what we'recompared to. Now, when we did
the nutrient reduction strategy,we more looked at what were the
conditions in '06 to 2010,subsequent to that, we've tried
to look back at what it was to'80 to '96 Okay, okay, so if we
look at some of the changes thatwe've seen from '80 to '96 and
(27:25):
you know, maybe there's somelisteners that there might be
some listeners that weren't evenborn in in those years. Sure, I
was, you know, we have seen, youknow, '80 to '96 if we look at
the early '80s, we had a lot oftillage out there,
Tony Mensing (27:40):
Right.
Matt Helmers (27:40):
And you know, a lot of soil loss, more than we
see now, and with that soilloss, more phosphorus loss. So
if we look at our estimates, wewe have estimated that we have
made progress compared to '80 to'96 in reducing field to stream
transport of phosphorus.
Primarily becausewe've reduced the tillage
intensity out there. We'reprotecting that soil with
Tony Mensing (27:58):
Okay.
greater conservation or no- tillsystems,
Sure. Mostly driven by keepingthe soil wher it is, not losing
it down the stream.
So that's exactly right, yep. Sothat you know, in that case, if
we look at it, compared back tothat period, we've made some
(28:18):
progress in at least reducingthe field to stream transport of
phosphorus. We'll get to, youknow, some of the challenges
with measuring that in the inthe river, and Sure.
Matt Helmers (28:28):
on the nitrogen side, we've not seen that same
type of progress, because a lotof it's driven by how much corn
and soybean land we have, andwhat are the nutrient
application, nitrogenapplications, to that corn and
soybean land. And as we compareto the '80 to '96 period, we've
seen some incremental increasein row crop land,
Tony Mensing (28:49):
Okay.
Matt Helmers (28:49):
Not an exponential increase. I like to tell people
that for the last 100 years inIowa, we've grown greater than
10 million acres of corn everyyear. So you know, and we're
about 12, 13, 14 million in anygiven year. You know, what's
changed since 100 years ago iswe've, you know, we've reduced
the amount of small grains,pasture or hay ground and
(29:09):
replaced it with with soybeans.
But a lot, a lot of thathappened before that the '80 to
'96 period.
Tony Mensing (29:15):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (29:16):
But we've seen some increases in nitrogen
application rate to to corn. Soas we look at that, we've seen
some, you know, maybe 5% youknow, our estimate are like
about a 5 to 10% increase innitrate delivery to our stream
because of the changes in someof those, some land use changes,
(29:37):
and more so because of the thenitrogen application.
Tony Mensing (29:41):
It's hard to pick out what progress we've made
with the with practices from thereduction strategy, because the
rest of the system hasn't stayedstatic compared to our baseline.
Matt Helmers (29:52):
Yeah, and that.
And so that's exactly right. Andso a lot of this is reported now
on the Iowa Nutrient ReductionStrategy data dashboard.
Tony Mensing (30:00):
Okay.
Matt Helmers (30:00):
We've specifically looked at things like, you know,
what's our kind of, ourestimated load changes compared
to that baseline period? And weshould estimate, estimate a
reduction in field to streamtransport of phosphorus and
about steady on the nitrateside, you know. And that some of
the practices that we'veimplemented since 2013 have
(30:22):
helped offset any increases wemight have seen with with
increased land use or row cropor with increase in in nitrogen
application. So, you know, someof the estimates are, we have
two to 4 million acres of covercrops every year. That's a
benefit, you know, on each ofthose acres we, you know, from
the nutrient reduction strategy,we estimate about a 30%
(30:43):
reduction in nitrate that's lostout of the plant root zone and
lost to downstream water bodies.
But we have to remember thatstill, only you know anywhere
from 10 to 20%, 25% 10 to 20% ofthe overall row crop acres that
we have in the state. So we haveabout 24 million acres, where
anywhere from, you know, maybetwo to 4 million acres of cover
(31:03):
crops. So still, still more thatwe can do. You know, that's
still pretty small fraction. Ifyou multiply that 30% by however
greater percent of the land istreated by that so.
Tony Mensing (31:15):
Right.
Matt Helmers (31:15):
You know, I kind of say, yes, we've reduced field
to stream transport ofphosphorus. We probably held
steady to the baseline with withnitrate, but now we're starting
to see more of those practicesgo out on the landscape that can
help us with with nitrate. Andso I think, you know, the next
10 year period is what I'mexcited about. Can we measure in
(31:36):
certain watersheds where we seea high level of implementation?
Can we see that that benefit inthe water quality, and that's
some of the work that we havegoing on with the Iowa Nutrient
Research Center other efforts inthe state is, you know, can we
document that if we get, if wescale up that implementation and
in some of our smaller watershedareas?
Tony Mensing (31:54):
Sure, yeah. And they those pieces have to be
kind of taken in context totruly make sense of what the
numbers are telling you, right?
And, yeah, yeah, the next 10years look bright to me, as we
are kind of thinking about we'vedone a lot to get to here, but
there's a lot left to do, but wegot the wheels spinning the
right way to make that happen,
Matt Helmers (32:16):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Because, you
right?
know, sometimes I get well, wehaven't made progress. Well, we
we have. So if we think back toall the things that have to
happen. And so, you know, we'rein extension. So we hear a lot
about a logic model, right? Andso our ultimate goal is to see
the water quality in the stateand leaving the state to
improve.
Tony Mensing (32:34):
Yes.
Matt Helmers (32:34):
But for us to get to that ultimate goal, we need
to see a change in in practice,implementation, land use, you
know, nutrient management on thelandscape. For us to get that to
happen, we need for, you know,people to have better knowledge
of this, for better systems tobe implemented to deliver these
practices. And for us to dothat, we need some financial
(32:56):
resources. Well, we've beenreally fortunate because in the
state, you know, there's a lotof state and federal dollars,
you know, Senate File 512 passedby the Iowa legislature
dedicated a lot more dollars toconservation practice
implementation. We've seen overthe last 10 years, so more
resource, financial resources.
We've seen infrastructuredevelop in human resources to
deliver these programs to workwith farmers on this, you know.
(33:19):
And so now we're seeing, youknow, we're kind of, we've laid
the foundation for us to startscaling this up. You know, some
exciting things are, if we thinkabout some of these edge of
field practices, if you designeach one individually, bid that
each one in individually for acon, you know, for contractor,
every one of those takes quite abit of time, there's a lot of
(33:40):
paperwork. So there's some workthat started really led out of
Polk County with John Swanson ona batch and build effort. So can
can we combine, you know,multiple, kind of one entity
work with the landowners to say,you know, can we get these
practices on your land? So thenthere's, they're batching them
all together. Sure, might have,you know, 10 to 15 of these all
(34:01):
in one batch that you getdesigned by one engineer, you
bid it out to one contractor todo all of them that may improve
the efficiency, and so we canget a lot more of those out
there on the landscape in thatshorter amount of time. We've
laid that foundation over thelast 10 years to think about,
how do we better deliver theseprograms to try to scale it up,
(34:21):
rather than a runoff scenario?
So yeah.
Tony Mensing (34:26):
And it's a continuous learning process,
right? So yeah, if we caneconomies of scale that a little
bit to get better value for thetime and effort, like you said,
instead of individual pieces, wecan do kind of a grouping or for
those things. I don't know.
Maybe that's something thatpeople thought about 10 years
ago, but I'm guessing that'sbeen learned through the
process.
Matt Helmers (34:45):
That's exactly, yeah, that's where that's, you
know, kind of been a constantevolution in a way, of, how do,
you know, we see this barrier?
How do we overcome that? How dowe do things more efficiently,
you know? So if we need, youknow, hundreds of 1,000s of
bioreactors, or 100,000 you. Youknow, everyone individually may
not make sense, but we starttrying to put that together, you
know, and we can think aboutthat. They've been looking at
(35:05):
some wetland efforts like thatwith in Polk County and and I
think there could be otheropportunities for that. So if we
think look back at that, andlook back at the things that
have happened over the last 10years, there's been a lot of
progress. We've laid thegroundwork for the next 10
years. But we also don't want torest on our laurels and say, Oh,
look at what we've done. Youknow, we'll just, let's just
keep doing that. No, we want tokeep, you know, thinking about
(35:28):
how we do it better, you know,how we do it more efficiently,
and how do we get more peopleinvolved? And kind of, you know,
create that sense of urgency,that that this is important.
Like we kind of going back to Italked about creating that sense
of urgency, that there is abenefit to us as Iowans, while
there's a benefit downstream.
(35:48):
And sure, so that, and thisisn't about one person making a
change. It's kind of abouteverybody thinking about what
they can do on their land toreduce their the nutrient loss,
leaving their individual pieceof property, right? Kind of me
on the urban sector where Ilive, or if you farm a lot of
land.
Tony Mensing (36:07):
Sure, yeah, it's, it's a process, no doubt, right?
It, it's gonna take some time.
But to your point, exactly, weneed to not use that as an
excuse to not be progressive andkind of continue building the
momentum that 10 years of theIowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy
has got us to here, keep theball rolling and keep that
(36:28):
progress coming. And that'swhere your your 10 year look
into the future, and beingexcited about that is is fun to
think about. We're the thesnowballs building on the way
down the hill. Right?
Matt Helmers (36:39):
And we can, you know, we can think about it from
we both work for Iowa StateUniversity and educational
institution, you know, how canwe help drive that new
innovation? But also, how can wetrain students to be the
engineers of the future, or, youknow, the agronomist of the
future, or natural, you know,conservation managers of the
(37:01):
future, think there's going tobe more need for that. You know,
as we think about scaling upimplementation of some of these
practices, there's going to needto be more people with expertise
for designing them and managingthem. And so, you know, nobody,
nobody listens to me,necessarily, but I see that as
potential rural economicdevelopment,
Tony Mensing (37:19):
Right.
Matt Helmers (37:19):
You know, I once worked for a large engineering
firm ended up being one of thelargest. There is a civil
engineering firm. They'reprobably not going to come and
design bio reactor saturatedbuffers and wetlands in Iowa,
but our smaller engineeringfirms that know this landscape
know drainage systems are goingto be the ones to do it. I think
our ag and agriculturalengineering grads are well
(37:40):
positioned to really lead thateffort going forward. So I try
to tell the young people that wework with this, there are great
opportunities here, and thereare great opportunities for, I
think, many small businesses tobe involved with this as we move
forward as well.
Tony Mensing (37:55):
Sure, yeah, that totally makes sense to me, that
part of that process, if we'regoing to make those changes, you
have the tools in place to beable to do that. So yeah, as we
kind of look through that, Ifeel like I could spend several
podcasts with you talking aboutI would love to cover some more
about the practices and thosekind of things. Maybe I could
get you back for another episodeand dive a little deeper into
(38:18):
that. If we think the 10 yearplan, and looking at that and
the potential additionalprogress and keeping that
momentum going, that leads meinto wondering, is there an end
game in the strategy? Is there,it's continual? I mean, we
haven't met our goal, right?
Matt Helmers (38:39):
We've not met our goal. And so I would say it's
continual, and it's continuallyevaluated. And that's where I
think that, you know, some ofthe strength of Iowa is kind of,
it's an adaptive managementwhat's worked, what hasn't
worked, and let's continue to tokind of reevaluate that as we go
along. That's where kind of,some of the new, new delivery
mechanisms have been developed.
So I think that that's right.
(38:59):
And you know, there are newthere may be new research. You
know, as we think about 10 yearsago, and we look at the practice
list for the Nutrient ReductionStrategy, saturated buffers were
not included because they werenot, you know, the first
saturated buffer in the worldhad been implemented about that
time, but it hadn't beenevaluated.
Tony Mensing (39:19):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (39:19):
Multi-purpose oxbows are another one that have
been added since then. Sothere's been new technology
development, and hopefully thatwill be the case with something
like we talked about withdrainage water recycling. But
there may be other practices.
There's some work going on onsaturated grass waterways. That
might be something else that'simplemented. Then I would also,
I'm going to put a little plugin for the Iowa Nutrient
Research Center, or researchthat's going on in general. And
(39:42):
maybe, again, I'm a little bitbiased, but as we look at the
Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategypractice list and the tools that
we have, the practices that wehave, many of those were
developed by researchers at IowaState University. You know, Dr.
Bill Crumpton in the nitrateremoval wetlands has been a
world leader there. TomEisenhart on the saturated
buffers, and Dan Janes, that'sretired from the USDA-ARS. Tom
(40:05):
is is here at Iowa State inNatural Resource Ecology and
Management. Then we have Dr.
Michelle Sapir, that's one ofthe leaders on on bioreactors
and new research on corn cobbioreactors. And a lot of that
research has been funded by whatI would say is farmers in the
State of Iowa.
Tony Mensing (40:25):
Sure.
Matt Helmers (40:26):
They pay a fertilizer tax. A lot of that
has been reinvested in researchto look at, you know, kind of
why do we have some of theseproblems, and then developing
solutions and working to try toimplement those So,
Tony Mensing (40:38):
Science based answers.
Matt Helmers (40:39):
Science based.
Tony Mensing (40:40):
So that's why we we didn't have all the answers
10 years ago, but we continue togrow and evolve. And from a
producer production standpoint,I love to hear that we're not
just taking a swing and hopingfor the best, right? We're truly
evaluating and looking at thingsand making a science based
evaluation to decide what weshould or shouldn't be doing and
(41:03):
and we may, as time progresses,kind of have to change course a
little bit on that. But that'swe're not just going about it
without looking at the science.
Matt Helmers (41:12):
Yeah, I think that's a good point, you know.
So that, yes, you know, theremay be things that we we change,
we learn about new performancesof practices. That doesn't mean
that, you know, five years ago,my gosh, we didn't know
anything. But, you know, it'skind of evolving as we go, but
trying to base all of ourdecisions on the best science we
at that we have at that point intime, and then, you know,
(41:33):
building on it in the future.
And if that can help us betterdesign practices, better
implement practices, that'sgreat. That doesn't mean what we
did before was wrong. But, youknow, we all we shouldn't
believe, well, this is how it'salways been done. Let's continue
to do that and and, you know, weneed to continue to to look for
kind of that next, that nextthing, not not forgetting about
other things. But how can weevolve, evolve it, and make sure
(41:53):
that it's it's that we're usingas much science as we can in
informing our decision making,process.
Tony Mensing (42:02):
Production ag is not the same as it was 20, 30,
40, even last year, we'reevolving and progressing on that
side. It makes sense that weshould be doing the same thing
here.
Matt Helmers (42:14):
Yep, on the conservation side. And that's
where you know. Another thing isthat, can we start evaluating,
what are some of the what wewhat we might term co benefits.
So what are some of the otherbenefits of these practices?
Whether that be, you know,esthetic value, wildlife
habitat, waterfowl habitat, forsome of these things, we should
also start looking, I think, atthat as well, because that's,
you know, that's another piecein this. And May,
Tony Mensing (42:36):
absolutely,
Matt Helmers (42:37):
You know, may help inform you know, what practices
you know are most effective forcertain co-benefits that you
know certain, certain watershedprojects might prioritize over
over others.
Tony Mensing (42:49):
Right? And from a from a different part of the
state than you are from, it'snice to kind of think through
that with the with the mindsetof there isn't a one size fits
all again, and if there's abetter value from some of those
other things in one area, andthat may be across the fence,
even one place to another place,of what we really are getting
(43:10):
the best value for that, thereare lots of tools and lots of
ways that we can makeimprovements and not necessarily
have to fit into a mold ofeverybody needs to do X, Y, or Z
to solve the problem,
Matt Helmers (43:22):
Yeah. And I would, you know, I think that brings,
makes me think of one otherthing. There's been a
development of a tool, theagricultural conservation
planning framework, where ittakes information about soils
and topography and land use andthat and can identify, you know,
maybe where in a watershed,certain practices might fit
(43:43):
best, best. So that kind ofhelps with that conservation
planning. So it kind of gets atthat
Tony Mensing (43:48):
Get a starting point.
Matt Helmers (43:49):
Gets a starting point and recognize, well, you
know, I'm in this areabioreactors, there's really no
sites here, so let's not spend alot of time trying to sell
bioreactors, for example,because we don't have much tile
drainage. So bioreactors are nota good fit, but we can focus on
things like cover crops,terraces, water and sediment
control basis. So maybe helps usdo our job a little bit better
(44:10):
on, on focusing on thosepractices best best suited for
that locale.
Tony Mensing (44:15):
Sure, and maybe from a producer standpoint,
would that help me, if I'm ifI'm thinking about like, it's a
little overwhelming to look at alist of practices. Maybe half of
those don't apply to mysituation. And then that leaves
you with half that you canwhittle down to see what really
is the best for here.
Matt Helmers (44:31):
That you're exactly right. Because you know
that, yeah, you look at thatwhole menu of practices, and
it's like, almost informationoverload. Like, where do I
start? You know, but, oh, youknow, yeah, can I? Can I hone
into, you know, three or four,rather than 20 practices.
Tony Mensing (44:45):
And as we have done some of those practices, we
continue to see where they maywork better and what, yeah,
other things that you don't knowwithout experience sometimes.
So, yeah. Evolution on thatfront is, is a good thing too.
So do you want to share with thelisteners some additional
(45:07):
resources? And yeah, I would behappy to have you back for more
podcast on this. There's tons ofinformation there, but people
want to do a little digging ontheir own. Where do they go?
Matt Helmers (45:17):
Yeah, I got a couple couple places. One is, if
you're interested in kind ofthat, that menu of practices,
you can go to our specialpublication 435, within the ISU
Extension and Outreach Store,and that gives kind of our the
practice performance for, youknow, this kind of menu of
practices on nitrogen andphosphorus. So if you kind of
(45:38):
want to one, if you wonder, youknow, how well do some of these
different practices perform?
Tony Mensing (45:43):
And people can go to the extension online store
and down that.
Matt Helmers (45:46):
Download it free of charge, yeah, PDF, get it on
computer. Yep. Okay. And thenthe other one, other two, first
off, Iowa Nutrient ReductionStrategy. We have a website, and
if you just Google Iowa NutrientReduction Strategy, you'll find
that site or whatever searchengine you use. I
Tony Mensing (46:01):
Yes,
Matt Helmers (46:02):
shouldn't, shouldn't have said the name,
but use a search engine andsearch for Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy, and you'llkind of find all the strategy
documents. But then you can alsogo to the Data Dashboard. So if
you wonder about, you know,what's been, you know, the
increase in acres treated byterraces over the last 10 years.
(46:23):
You can find that how manydollars have been spent by
different entities on this orhow many events have been held
in my location last year or inmy county, you can find all that
data,
Tony Mensing (46:33):
Tons of data.
Matt Helmers (46:33):
Tons of data. So go to the Iowa Nutrient
Reduction Strategy datadashboard. And then the other
is, if you're interested on someof the current research and
current topics. You could go toIowa Nutrient Research Center.
So INRC, the Iowa NutrientResearch Center website, and we
have all of the projects wefunded are listed there. There's
going to be some seminar videosthat you can watch. And then one
(46:57):
of the last ones, if you'reinterested in some of these
practices, be on the lookout fora field day, virtual field day,
or we hold weekly webinars aswell with Iowa Learning Farms.
So that's another kind ofresource out there as well.
Tony Mensing (47:10):
Fantastic.
Matt Helmers (47:11):
Yeah, I, well, I'm biased. I get to help moderate
them, so I enjoy them, but Ilearned something every week I
get to moderate them. So, youknow, I think it's and those are
all archived too. So if youknow, if you can't sleep some
night and just need to go toYouTube and watch people talking
about conservation practices, goto the Iowa Learning Farms
Conservation Webinars videos.
Tony Mensing (47:31):
Lots of variety.
Yeah, there too.
Matt Helmers (47:32):
Yeah,
Tony Mensing (47:33):
yeah, that. That sounds great. Like you said,
tons of information available.
And the data that's collectedthere is, is huge and assorted,
and is interesting to be able tolook back and see kind of where
we were and what has happened,and we'll keep building on that
in the years to come. Trulyappreciate you being a guest on
the podcast today. And yeah,expert, no doubt. It's fun to
(47:56):
hear from you about somethingthat I can tell you're
passionate about.
Matt Helmers (48:01):
Well, thanks a lot for the opportunity, Tony. And
Tony Mensing (48:01):
Yeah, thanks a lot certainly is appreciated. So and
I'd also say, if you know,people have more interest, my
information is pretty easy tofind, too. And I'm, I am always
happy to talk about this.
to the listeners, I thank youfor joining us for another
episode of Engineering Your Farmpodcast, and hope to have you
join us back again for anotherpodcast in the future. If you
(48:24):
have questions or comments aboutthis or one of the other
episodes, feel free to reach outto me, Tony Mensing, at the Iowa
State University Extension andOutreach, one of the field ag
engineers in southwest Iowa, oranyone else on the extension
outreach AG, engineering team.
So thanks again. Dr Helmers,
Matt Helmers (48:41):
Yeah, thanks Tony.
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