Water-Monitoring Project

With Real-time Data, Researchers with Discovery Farms Hope to Show How Agricultural Practices Affect Water Quality and to Figure out the Best Management Practices to Decrease Nutrients Lost in Runoff and Tile Drains

How much fertilizer is going out of the tile drain? Kent Bartholomay wants to know.

Doyle Johannes wonders if phosphates and nitrates from his feedlot go into the Missouri River watershed.

Both are voluntary participants in a North Dakota State University (NDSU) Extension water-monitoring project as part of North Dakota Discovery Farms. After being involved in it for a few years, Bartholomay and Johannes believe the results indicate they are making environmentally wise decisions.

With real-time data, researchers with Discovery Farms hope to show how agricultural practices affect water quality and to figure out the best management practices to decrease nutrients lost in runoff and tile drains.

K&K Bartholomay Farms
When Bartholomay saw U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) staff testing water in the Maple River, he asked if they would test the water coming out of the drain on a quarter section he and his brother, Keith, farm near Sheldon, North Dakota.

"I was wondering how much nitrogen we were losing out of the pipe," Bartholomay says. With about 5,000 acres of mostly sandy soils for crops and hay in the Sheyenne Delta, the brothers conscientiously seek to use the best environmentally friendly practices they can. They grow 500 to 600 acres of cover crops annually, use no-till and strip-till, and rotationally graze cattle. To resolve issues with wet spots in the fields, they random-tiled low areas that take out excess water through two drains.

Though the USGS water testers couldn't test the Bartholomays' water, they suggested contacting NDSU, and the brothers became part of the Discovery Farms project in 2008.

"They can do actual side-by-side studies on it," Bartholomay says. "One side (drain) has alfalfa (since 2011), so we shouldn't have any nitrogen coming out of that pipe. Alfalfa should use everything that goes in. The other side is wheat this year, so they can check both to see if the different crops use up all the fertilizer."

The Bartholomays follow a nutrient-management plan to spread cattle manure from their herd of 270 Angus cows and replacement heifers plus as many as 300 calves they background annually. Cover crops and crop residue lengthen the grazing season and naturally spread out nutrients, as does rotational grazing in the summer.

The cover crops planted after wheat harvest beginning in 2011 may be making a difference in how much water (and nutrients) drain from the wheat field, says Paulo Flores, nutrient management specialist with the NDSU Carrington Research Extension Center.

Source: Agriculture.com

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