Winter 2015

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I NSI D E

Our Discovery Farm Experience......................................... 1

On Nitrogen Use Efficiency ......................................................... 1

Discovery Farms WInter Conference ................................. 2

Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future .................. 3

Creating Practical Solutions ............................................... 5

Congratulations Herricks! .................................................. 5

DF Minnesota Simonsen Family Profile ............................ 6

Words of Wisdom from Keith York of PDPW ..................... 7

Yahara Pride Watershed Conference ................................ 7

The UW Discover y Farms Newslet terThe Tree

OUR DISCOVERY FARM EXPERIENCEThe Koepkes

We, the Koepkes, were an active research site for Discovery Farms

from 2005-2009, and had done some runoff monitoring prior to that with the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative from 2003-2005. In that time frame, we had the opportunity to see how our free stall dairy farm, which uses a complete no-till cropping system, compares with other farming systems around the state.

In 1955, my grandfather, Harvey Koepke, told a neighbor, “My land is my bank, and my bank is my land.” It must have stuck, as the neighbor sold him her farm shortly thereafter! “My land is my bank” exemplifies the ethic he instilled in us, just as his father had him: taking care of the soil is of the utmost importance to maintaining a successful farm. The seeds to better ourselves have been there a long time, and Discovery Farms helped us quantify the results of some of our efforts.

Special Edition: The Farmer’s Voice

The Koepke Family

ON NITROGEN USE EFFICIENCYCallie Herron

“As far as nitrogen management,” explained Dave West, Independent Crop Consultant in Southwest

Wisconsin, “I try to ride the line between maximizing yield and not over or underestimating any nitrogen.” He is not alone. Unfortunately, we all know, this line is often more elusive than a needle in a haystack. It is this desire, however, that has led many farmers, including some of the farmers Dave West works with in the Jersey Valley Watershed, to participate in the new UW Discovery Farms Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE) Farmer Network.

Over the next several years this program will assist farmers in conducting their own on-farm evaluations of NUE and offer them the opportunity to test management practices for improvements. Many of the participating farmers have already completed nutrient management plans and are looking for the next method to improve nutrient efficiency and crop yield.

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Jason Fussy speaks about his experience with in-season nitrogen management to a crowd of over 100 farmers, crop consultants, and agency personnel at the UW-Discovery Farms Managing Nitrogen Conference.

Mr. West goes on to explain that “you don’t want to be wasting farmers’ money, you don’t want to be overapplying for nitrates and groundwater sake and you don’t want to underapply because farmers need to get as much yield as they can.”

Mr. West currently uses various strategies when it comes to nitrogen management from pre-sidedress nitrate tests, which he described as not so black and white to interpret, to taking manure and legume credits, to identifying other factors in the field that may be impacting yield like compaction.

Mr. West hopes to take the information gained from this project and use it to help the producers he works with be more efficient with their nitrogen use. Specifically, he thinks it’s possible that he needs to give “a little more credit to consecutive years of manure and reduce the nitrogen rates in those situations.”

Dennis Mitchell, a dairy and cash grain farmer in St. Croix County, is using the project as a way to help him check on the turkey manure application methods used on his farm, especially with corn-on-corn. He explained that on his farm they are wondering “how much we are retaining through the spring time and summer. … That is the main reason. We want to see what we are getting out of the manure and want to know when it is

available.” And as with all the farmer participants, he feels there is “always the hope of trying to get more efficient with the nitrogen you are putting on and the timing of it. When you need it and when the best time is to put it on and what is the best way to put it on.”

Bob Erickson, a crop farmer on his home farm in the Jersey Valley watershed, thinks “maybe we can come up

with some idea as to what is the right amount [of nitrogen]. Plus if it is an advantage to do the split application then that is what we should be doing. But that varies quite a bit … with what the weatherman throws at you. … If [this project] proves that split application is a better way of doing it I

would be in favor of changing.”

From preliminary tests Bob sees that his current nitrogen application strategy seems to be working well and finds split application to be difficult in an area like the Driftless Region with its many hills and contour strips. However, he is open to change.

The project won’t offer any farmer a silver bullet but it will provide additional information about when to apply, what to apply, how much to apply, and where to apply it. The project has only just begun so expect to hear more about farmer experiences and results in the coming years! §

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“We want to see what we are getting out of the manure

and want to know when it is available.”

- Dennis Mitchell, St. Croix County

3The Tree-Winter 2015

farms. They have held fast to their mission and have conducted quality research on farms across the state for over a decade.

While Discovery Farms is structured and staffed through UW-Extension and UW-Madison CALS, research projects are directed by a Steering Committee made up of agriculture stakeholders. The stakeholders are Wisconsin farmers and agriculturalists that meet a couple times a year to review ongoing research and make sure that it relates to the environmental challenges today’s Wisconsin farmers face.

Over the last ten years there have been reams of on-farm research published by Discovery Farms. Edge-of-field monitoring data collected on participating farms and other research has helped clarify the effectiveness of Best Management Practices and refine the use of the Phosphorus Index. Discovery Farms has also published information on the effectiveness of leachate systems, dynamics of tile drainage discharge, and considerations for winter manure management to name a few.

We still have a lot of work to do. In the future, Discovery Farms research must, as their mission statement charges, apply economic analysis to the data collected from participating farms. It is imperative that the research conducted at Discovery Farms gives value and confidence to farmers so the environment is protected while economic viability is maintained.

Just as agriculture is dynamic and ever changing, so too must Discovery Farms and the research it conducts be. I may farm different than my father did, but I still have the same environmental stewardship philosophy and commitment to agriculture’s future.

I hope you value, as I do, all that Discovery Farms has done and is doing to ensure Wisconsin agriculture and the environment are both sustainable for future generations. §

REFLECTING ON THE PAST, LOOKING TO THE FUTURERichard Gorder, Steering Committee Chairman

The more things change the more they stay the same. We’ve all

heard or used that expression through the years on a variety of issues and concerns.

Environmental concerns have been a part of agriculture’s vocabulary for generations. My dad was one of the first farmers in Iowa County to install contour strips and waterways as a means to control water and soil runoff in the 1950s.

Daily haul of cattle manure was standard operating procedure while I was growing up on our dairy farm near Mineral Point. I remember my neighbors grumbling about the idea that at some point in the future someone may dictate when and where we could haul manure.

Fast forward. We still seem to do our share of grumbling, but today we are besieged by a plethora of rules and regulations that do indeed restrict the way we farm. Strategies to regulate non-point pollution became reality in the late 1990s when the Department of Natural Resources proposed and adopted the NR 151 Performance Standards followed by ATCP 50, NR 243, NRCS 590, Phosphorus Index and more. Today the list seems endless and at times burdensome.

Some rules and the models used to support them have lacked data from on-farm scientific research. Over the years we’ve needed to both quantify what really takes place on our farms and give farmers confidence that suggested practices will actually accomplish what they are meant to achieve.

The concept of Discovery Farms came about because of that disconnect between perceptions and on-farm realities. Discovery Farms is, as their mission statement suggests, charged with the task of developing on-farm and related research to determine the economic and environmental effects of agricultural practices on a diverse group of Wisconsin

Richard Gorder Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Farm Bureau

Photo courtesy of Richard Gorder

4The Tree-Winter 2015

interesting data set. We learned keeping cover on the ground (and preferably attached to the ground) is essential, and that means every day of the year.

Sometimes, that means making compromises. This philosophy means we don’t mechanically incorporate manure, which does pose challenges from a soluble phosphorous management standpoint. This is definitely something to work on, and at times we wish the data collection equipment was still here to measure the impacts of the changes we’ve made.

It’s important to remember that we can’t incorporate manure in the fall with the chisel plow, magically leave all the crop residue on top, and think we are going to be “no-till” the following spring!

3. Perennial crops such as alfalfa and other hay crops are essential. If our data showed anything, it was that nutrient losses were much less in our alfalfa than row crops. Maybe it’s the fact they are growing most actively during the “eventful” months of April-June, maybe it’s the soil cover, maybe those deep roots. Whatever it is, alfalfa reduced our losses to surface waters and to tile more than anything else.

In an era of increasing tonnage yields, with more and more corn silage, we need to keep hay crops in the mix to maintain and improve water quality.

In summary, we need to keep learning, and keep getting better at what we do. As other Discovery Farms participants have said, we need to be proactive. Being less than that will most likely result in more regulations that allow us less room for innovation!

Let’s keep up our game, and be ready for the future. §

In 1986, in an attempt to better conserve our soil resource, we adopted a no-till strategy. We did a little at first, and then slowly added more acres to our no-till regime. The results were outstanding: the same or better yields, markedly reduced soil erosion, drastically reduced fuel and machinery costs, and much to the relief of the Koepke children- NO MORE PICKING ROCKS!

Discovery Farms came on to our farm a year or so after we parked the chisel plow in the weeds for the last time. Questions remained: What effects did leaving manure on the surface have on water quality? If there were drawbacks, did the benefits outweigh them?

What we learned: Our system was sound, but like anything, there is room for improvement.

The take-home messages:

1. We are never done learning. Frustrating as it is, we can always improve and make things better. And sometimes those little improvements offer big results.

One of the first “Discovery Farms Induced” changes was to our crop rotation. A good portion of our land was in a rotation of 3 years of alfalfa, corn, soy, corn. We also had a number of flat acres in continuous corn. Discovery Farms staff had found relatively high soil nitrate levels after the first year of corn following alfalfa, and suggested a rotation of 3 years alfalfa, 2 years of corn, beans, corn. That simple change allowed us to credit that leftover N to next year’s corn crop (50 lb credit, reducing N purchases by $25 per acre on average), allowed us to rotate alfalfa on more acres, and resulted in us dropping our continuous corn production to almost zero. That continuous corn was also our most expensive, input intensive corn. Reducing inputs while increasing yield and conservation… that’s hard to argue with!

N management here has been in a state of change since Discovery Farms left. In very recent years, we’ve attempted to do more side dressing of N rather than placing it all with the corn planter. It seems as if early results are positive from a yield standpoint. It is our hope that the greater N efficiency results in less loss to the environment.

2. We need to manage for all 365 days in a year. Nutrient losses usually occur after major storm events. Our biggest runoff events occurred during and after severe storms (of which we had plenty during our data collection!). Large hail twice in 2007, followed by flooding in 2008 that closed roads, etc. made for an

The next generation helping out on the Koepke farm.

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5The Tree-Winter 2015

Congratulations to Jack and Pat Herricks on winning the 2014 Wisconsin Leopold Conservation Award. Celebration to come this summer!

CREATING PRACTICAL SOLUTIONSTom Novak, Steering Committee Member

Life delivers all kinds of twists and turns and sometimes sends us in directions we don’t expect.

And that is somewhat how I became a Discovery Farms steering committee member. I have had a career as an independent crop consultant in Southeast/South Central Wisconsin for the past 25 years; have farmed with my wife, Tracey, raising corn, soybeans and vine crops on about 350 acres; and, most importantly, am raising two daughters. We seldom have a slow time and I tend to forget things if I don’t write them down. A couple years ago I got an email from Discovery Farms about an upcoming steering committee meeting. Looking confused and wondering why the heck I got this message, I made a call to the listed contact to straighten this out. A nice lady named Judy Goplin answered and said, yes, I am on the committee, and then explained how this came to be. Turns out I had a conversation with Bob Oleson from the Wisconsin Corn Growers about six months earlier where he asked me if I wanted to “volunteer” as a steering committee member. It was summer, an extremely busy time, so to keep the conversation short I told Bob, “sure, I can do that.” And here I am, without any regrets I might add!

I have followed Discovery Farms with interest since its inception. The work they do is tremendously important to Wisconsin farmers. The data collected is real-world and current. It is not created from models using simulated results. Discovery Farms is helping to make regulations put into place “because we have to do something” more informed and practical.

Tom Novak (middle) chats with fellow 2014 conference attendees

It can feel like practicality of implementation is left up to the farmer and private industry to figure out. Any doubts about the practicality component? I had a chance to look through the most current version of the WI NRCS 590 revision going on now. In the tech note it is suggested “when possible, divert urine away from

feces.” I suggest the person that inserted this idea into the tech note stand behind a cow and study how practical and economical this idea is!

The steering committee is farmer driven as it should be. The farmer members are truly passionate

about agriculture and protecting the environment. What impresses me most is the diverse group of people and interests that are involved in the program. We have agency personnel from DATCP and DNR on board. Industry is well represented as are all the major commodity groups in the state. Even more impressive is representation from the environmental faction. We can’t have an honest conversation about the environment without these groups at the table. Agriculture is a leaky system by the biologic nature of it. Hopefully by increasing awareness of what agriculture is, realistic goals and expectations will continue to be set. §

“What impresses me most is the diverse group of people and

interests that are involved in the program. “

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MEASURING UP TO A HIGH STANDARD IN WATER QUALITY MEANS THE WORLD TO SIMONSEN FAMILYby Jonathan Eisenthal

This article originally appeared in Minnesota Cornerstone on 12/8/14 as part of an ongoing series to highlight Minnesota corn farmers participating in Discovery Farms Minnesota.

For years, Diamond Lake has been the summer gathering place for the Simonsen family. Four years

ago Paul and Janet built a house there to replace the family cabin. Fishing, swimming and jet skiing all have their devotees among the three generations.

So Paul and Janet Simonsen, who farm in Renville County, are very conscious about water quality.

That might be the top reason they decided to sign on with the farmer-funded research program called Minnesota Discovery Farms — 11 different farm operations across Minnesota, representing the spectrum of crops, cultivation methods, topography and geography that can be found in Minnesota agriculture — united by an interest in developing real-world, on-farm data about the amount of sediment and nutrients

that run off their fields.

“Water quality is very important to farmers throughout the country,” Paul Simonsen said in a recent interview. “It’s going to be more and more important as time goes on. I thought, this is something where I can do my part….monitoring nutrients or sediment running off.”

The Simonsens divide their farm into a three-part rotation, raising corn on one third and soybeans on a second third. For many years, they raised vegetable crops on the remaining third, but switched to sugar beets recently.

Paul said the Discovery Farms field monitor has already yielded interesting data in their first three years of participation.

“I’ve learned that run-off from farms is probably not as extreme as what some groups say,” Simonsen reported. “On my farm, we are finding there hasn’t been very much run off. And I’ve got open tile inlets — some people say they’ll soon be a thing of the past, but the amount of sediment and nutrient flowing through and running off has been very low.”

Simonsen noted that even this year, when the field monitor recorded 14 inches of rain on their farm in June, they did not see elevated levels of sediment and nutrients. But Simonsen didn’t join Discovery Farms to pat himself on the back. He, like the other farmers in the program, know that every farm in Minnesota is different and more real-world, on-farm data is needed.

The more years of data from a variety of farm types farmers have, the better farmers can understand how

to adjust practices to minimize the impact on the environment.

The Simonsen’s have always been interested in conservation and stewardship of natural resources. Paul and Janet planted 90-foot buffer strips of native prairie vegetation along the entire length, on both sides, of the county ditch that runs across their land.

“The idea of creating wildlife habitat really appealed to me,” said Simonsen. “I really enjoy

Renville County, Minnesota

Paul Simonsen and his wife Janetcontinued on page 7

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hunting pheasant, and I like to see the wildlife that’s attracted to the prairie grass and that makes use of it.”

Paul is a past president of Minnesota Corn Growers Association, and currently serves as chairman of the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council. His work on behalf of soybean growers has taken him to 10 foreign countries, all in Asia, most recently to Vietnam — the fastest growing export market for American-grown soybeans.

The Simonsen family takes pride in its role providing food to a growing world, and doing it in a way that preserves the natural world for generations to come. §

Yahara Pride Watershed Wide Conference

When: Thursday, March 5th, 2015

Time: 10:30 am to 2:30 pm

Where: Comfort Inn & Suites, Deforest, WI

Audience: farmers, crop consultants, agribusiness representatives, agency personnel, technical service providers

For more detailed information visit www.yaharapridefarms.org or email rachel@yaharapridefarms.org

“I have found that it isn’t necessary to jump in and refute every assertion made about dairy foods or dairy farming. Instead of being quick to react, try asking a question. Listen carefully, and learn more about why people say the things they do. What are their sources of information?

Keith York Photo courtesy of Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin

I have found that I learn more when I do not automatically assume the defensive position. We can foster critical thinking about food and animal welfare issues if we start by listening and asking great questions.” - Keith York, President, Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin Board of Directors

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Aerial View of Simonsen Farm Photo courtesy of Discovery Farms Minnesota

FROM THE FARMER’S VOICE...

Return Service Requested

University of Wisconsin

Cooperative Extension Trempealeau County

Discovery Farms

PO Box 429, 40195 Winsand Drive

Pigeon Falls, WI 54760-0429

PIGEON FALLS, WISCONSIN 54760

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This newsletter can be found on the web at: www.uwdiscoveryfarms.org

Regarding the mailing list, call/e-mail 715-983-5668 or jgoplin@wisc.eduUW Discovery Farms is a producer-led research and outreach program based out of the University of Wisconsin-Extension. The program is unique in that it conducts research on working farms located throughout Wisconsin, seeking to identify the impacts of production agriculture on water quality. The program is managed by faculty from the University of Wisconsin, along with oversight from a steering committee of producers, citizens and agency personnel representing a wide variety of non-profit and government organizations. Funding has been provided by the State of Wisconsin, UW-Extension, as well as a number of annual grants from producer groups and our federal partners.

An EEO/Affirmative Action employer, University of Wisconsin-Extension provides equal opportunities in employment and programming, including Title IX and ADA requirements. Request for reasonable accommodation for disabilities or limitations should be made prior to the date of the program or activity for which it is needed. Publications are available in alternative formats upon request. Please make such requests as early as possible by contacting the Discovery Farms office at 715-983-5668 so proper arrangements can be made.

Co-DirectorsEric Cooley 608-235-5259 etcooley@wisc.edu Amber Radatz 608-317-0001 aradatz@wisc.eduFaculty AdvisorMatt Ruark 608-263-2889 mdruark@wisc.eduNitrogen Use Efficiency Project CoordinatorMegan Chawner 608-262-0383 chawner@wisc.eduOutreach SpecialistKevan Klingberg 715-983-2240 kevan.klingberg@ces.uwex.edu

Outreach SpecialistCallie Herron 715-983-5668 callie.herron@ces.uwex.eduProgram AssistantJudy Goplin 715-983-5668 jgoplin@wisc.eduResearch SpecialistAaron Wunderlin 920-839-5431 aaron.wunderlin@ces.uwex.eduDry Run Watershed CoordinatorTodd Prill 715-225-0862 discovery.farms.prill@gmail.com

For more information and to stay connected:

facebook.com/uwdiscoveryfarms fyi.uwex.edu/discoveryfarmstwitter.com/DiscoveryFarms youtube.com/DiscoveryFarms