NC1012: Improved Crop and Livestock Management for Protecting the Non-Glaciated Upper Mississippi Valley
(Multistate Research Project)
Status: Inactive/Terminating
NC1012: Improved Crop and Livestock Management for Protecting the Non-Glaciated Upper Mississippi Valley
Duration: 10/01/2003 to 09/30/2008
Administrative Advisor(s):
NIFA Reps:
Non-Technical Summary
Statement of Issues and Justification
STATEMENT OF THE ISSUES
Intensive row-crop production on unglaciated soils in the Upper Mississippi Valley and Southern Indiana karst areas result in high soil erosion of already fragile land and degrade soil and water quality. This hurts community structure and reduces the high value of natural resources in these areas. Improved forage and ruminant livestock systems integrated with more conservation oriented crop production systems are required for these resource sensitive areas to remain economically viable and socially stable.
JUSTIFICATION
The "unglaciated" Upper Mississippi Valley in northwestern Illinois, southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, and northeastern Iowa (MLRA 105), along with the Mitchell and Muscatatuck Plateaus in southern Indiana, are unique: the surface was not modified by recent glaciation and the area is dominated by steeply dissected bedrock. The soils are highly productive, but high rainfall, steep karst topography, shallow soils, and an erodible soil condition require resource conserving agricultural systems atypical of other areas in the North Central U.S. Erosion has been identified as the principal management concern of this area (Soil Conservation Service, 1981).
Clean-tilled row crops have increased at the expense of traditional soil conserving practices. Increased soybean production, replacing forage crops, aggravates a very sensitive soil erosion problem. Table 1 exemplifies changes in Grant County, from the karst area, in extreme Southwest Wisconsin. In Jennings County, Indiana on the Muscatatuck Plateau soybean acreage has increased from 22,000 acres in 1980 to 47,200 in 2000 (USDA, 2003). Cropland in this county grew from 58,167 acres in 1964 to 79,439 acres in 1997 with a decline in pastureland. Dairy and other cattle numbers have declined significantly in both areas since 1993. A greater demand is being placed on soil and water resources in response to farm economic pressure. Existing crop/livestock production systems in this region result in only marginal ecosystem sustainability (SWCS, 1999).
Table 1. Numbers of selected livestock and area devoted to selected crops in Grant
County Wisconsin for 1979, 1993, and 2001 (USDA, 2003)
Year | Cattle & Calves | Dairy Cattle | Hay (ha) | Soybeans (ha) |
--------------------------thousands-------------------------- | ||||
1979 | 197 | 56 | 50 | 0.6 |
1993 | 202 | 58 | 39 | 4.1 |
2001 | 179 | 52 | 33 | 25 |
Environmental challenges associated with row crop production are intuitively obvious. However, row crops must be an integral part of animal based agriculture in this region. Row crop production, however, must meet stringent environmental requirements in this natural resource sensitive area. Development of new, or improvement of existing, cropping and livestock systems adapted to this area is imperative for the economic and environmental well being of the region.
The Lancaster Agricultural Research Station in Grant County, Wisconsin, is the only research farm in the "unglaciated" Upper Mississippi Valley of Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. The station possesses the soil, topography, and climatic conditions necessary to evaluate crop and livestock management practices in karst regions of the North Central U.S. A regional research and educational project allows scientists in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin to interact at one location in a multidisciplinary manner that is relevant to the clientele groups that each scientist serves in his/her respective state. The proposed project requires input from each of these states and agencies in planning, conducting, and data analysis of research required to meet the project objectives. MLRA 105 stakeholders will benefit from a developing outreach collaborator relationship with the Soil and Water Conservation Society. Without this regional project stakeholders must obtain much of their management information from research and education activities from areas with much different land and water resource characteristics or from uncoordinated component activities within the region. In contrast, a successful project will provide improved crop, soil, livestock and water management information specific for this unique area to citizens living in this area.
Related, Current and Previous Work
Related current research was identified through CRIS searches. CRIS searches were restricted to eleven states with soil, crop and climatic conditions deemed relevant to the conditions under which the proposed research will be conducted. The states were Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Zone/Strip Tillage.
No-tillage is ideal for conserving soil in this region. Surface residue cover reduces soil erosion losses (Hudson, 1995), but also slows early season soil warming and drying (Kaspar et al., 1990). One of our goals is to identify a tillage system that maximizes surface crop residue cover, creates favorable soil environmental conditions for crop production, is well suited for integrated crop/animal production systems in karst regions, and is acceptable to this regions producers.
Zone, or strip tillage, while not a new concept, is a relatively new practice that tills the row zone only. Surface residue coverage with strip tillage is well above 50% after planting with either a continuous corn (Wolkowski, 2000) or a corn/soybean rotation (Vetch and Randall, 2002). Residue cover favors soil conservation, while the tilled zone favors soil warming and drying for early planting (Wolkowski, 2000). Limited data suggests this system yields well in Ontario, Indiana (Arends et al., 2000; Arends, 2001; Opoku et al., 1997; Vyn et al., 2002a; Vyn et al., 2002b), and in Minnesota outside of MLRA 105 (Vetsch and Randall, 2002; Randall et al. 2001a; Randall et al. 2001b; Randall et al, 2002). Published strip tillage research done within MLRA 105 is limited to one paper by Wolkowski (2000), which suggested strip tillage may be favorable for this area.
Zone/strip tillage research is limited. Six CSREES projects relate to the objectives of this project. The National Soil Tilth Laboratory (NSTL) is evaluating conservation tillage changes in the U.S. Members of the NSTL are potential project members, which should strengthen this project. Members, from at least four institutions, developing this proposal - Tony Vyn of Purdue University; Richard Cruse of Iowa State University; Richard Wolkowski of the University of Wisconsin; and John Moncrief, Jeff Vetsch, and Gyles Randall at the University of Minnesota are conducting closely related projects. Three of these (Purdue, Iowa, and Wisconsin) are CSREES projects. These projects address: conservation tillage management that will be adopted by North Central Region farmers; optimum planting dates for different tillage systems (including strip tillage) and how these interact with corn and soybean yield; fertilizer placement methods that are adaptable to strip tillage; tillage management for manured cropland; and corn hybrid response to tillage systems. The remaining CRIS projects found in the CRIS search relating to strip tillage address production potential and soil carbon dynamics (USDA -Minnesota), tillage systems and cover crops (Pennsylvania), and the requirement for row crop cultivation with strip tillage methods (New York).
Alternative Forage Crops and Cropping Systems
Alfalfa and corn silage have long been the primary high quality harvested forage crops in the driftless region. However, corn silage production results in excessive soil loss (Gallagher et al., 1996), prompting the need for alternative soil conserving cropping systems. Living mulches have been tested (Eberlein et al., 1992; Hartwig and Ammon, 2002) but generally compete with corn or fail to recover after corn production. Kura clover (Trifolium ambiguum M. Bieb.), however, seems an ideal living mulch. It can be managed to provide minimal competition to corn and recover to full production the season following corn (Zemenchik et al., 2000). Corn grain and silage yields in a kura clover living mulch have equaled those in conventional production, while requiring only 50 kg/ha N fertilizer (Affeldt et al., 2003). A preliminary study (Eleki, 2003) suggests that the living mulch will reduce soil erosion from corn silage production systems. Furthermore, manure utilization in living mulch-corn systems is a major issue needing attention. Reports of 6 to 15 Mg/ha of below ground kura clover biomass make this living mulch attractive for carbon sequestration. Only WI, MN and the NSTL in IA are doing research on living mulches in the 11 state CRIS data base, and this research will be coordinated through the new multi-state project.
Small grain cover crops reduce soil and water losses (Kaspar et al., 2001) and following corn silage harvest provide forage. In Wisconsin, winter small grains have been fall-seeded into kura clover and the mixture harvested for spring silage. The high levels of fructans in winter wheat resulted in excellent fermentation and forage nutritive value of these small grain-clover mixtures (Contreras and Albrecht, 2002). In short, a system composed of corn silage produced in a living mulch of kura clover followed by winter wheat or winter rye for early spring forage production could maximize the growing season, minimize N fertilizer requirements for grain-crop silage production, and reduce soil erosion losses to low levels reported for perennial forage crops (Zemenchik et al., 1996). Only Wisconsin and NSTL are conducting research on small grain cover crops incorporated into corn silage production systems.
Cupplant (Silphium perfoliatum L.), a native prairie plant, is a very persistent, high yielding forage when managed well (Albrecht and Goldstein, 1997). Initial feeding trials with dairy cattle (Han, et al., 2000) and heifers receiving embryo transplants (Fischer-Brown et al., 2003) demonstrated promising animal performance. Further evaluation of cupplant and testing its capacity for manure utilization is warranted. About eight years ago, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute advertised a small amount of seed available for distribution and had greater than 1,000 requests (Walter Goldstein, personal communication) based solely on our preliminary data. Though a nontraditional crop, cupplant is attractive to farmers because it tolerates long-term flooding and can produce annual high quality forage yields greater than 15 Mg/ha. (Albrecht and Goldstein, 1997). Cupplant research is conducted in WI, SD, Chile, and the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
Pasture Based Livestock Production
Preliminary evaluations of a kura clover grass mixture (Kim and Albrecht, 2003; Kim et al., 2003; Zemenchik et al., 2003) led to steer performance testing on kura clover-grass pastures in the driftless region. Over a three year period, beef production averaged 1020 kg/ha with average daily gains of 1.2 kg/day, performance that was about 20% better than steers grazing excellent red clover-grass pastures, and unprecedented in any previous grazing research in the region. Superior animal performance on mixed grass pastures containing kura clover was associated with greater total forage yield, clover proportion in pastures, and nutritive value compared to red clover-grass pastures. Twenty years of kura evaluation in the northern USA suggests that it will be a truly permanent component of pastures into which it is sown (Sheaffer and Marten, 1991; Albrecht et al., 2002), a new characteristic for pasture legumes grown in the northern USA. The potential for gross economic returns of $1570/ha for stocker steer production (assuming a price of ($1.55 per kg of beef) warrants further investigation of the role that this very persistent legume can play in increasing biological and economic performance of livestock production while maintaining a permanent ground cover on erosion prone landscapes. Currently there is only one other project in the 11 state CRIS database that is testing animal performance on kura clover-grass pastures, a dairy project through NE-132 conducted in Wisconsin by D.K. Combs and K.A. Albrecht.
Manure Management and Nutrient Balances
Eight active projects were identified addressing this topic in the eleven-state database. Three are USDA projects in Maryland that deal with fate and transport of P in the environment, and feeding strategies of minimize N and P in manure. One USDA project in Wisconsin explores opportunities to use manure nutrients in cropping systems. The two New York projects study feeding strategies to minimize nutrient excretion and quantification of nutrient transport in agricultural systems. Wisconsin has two projects that provide a framework for decision making related to nutrient management, and outreach related to developing a network of interagency partnerships to address on-farm nutrient management. The proposed work with whole farm nutrient balance analysis on dairy farms will characterize actual on-farm situations and aid in understanding the causes and acceptable remedies for nutrient accumulation in livestock operations.
Modeling surface water quality impacts of current and alternative land management strategies.
The NRCS adopted a national policy for nutrient management emphasizing P and N application rates when developing nutrient management plans (NRCS, 1999). This policy requires using a P-based application rate standard where manure or other organic wastes are applied. Average soil test P levels in Wisconsin exceed optimum crop production levels (Bundy, 1998). Much recent work relating soil P and manure effects on P concentrations in runoff has been done in pasture (Sharpley et al., 1994; Daniel et al., 1994, Pote et al., 1996; Sauer et al., 2000) and row crop systems (Baker and Laflen, 1982; Mueller et al., 1984; Hansen et al., 2000; Bundy et al., 2001). Many interacting factors affect P losses from agricultural fields (i.e. time of year, slope, crop type, surface residue cover, soil test P level, P rate applied in manure, organic matter rate applied in manure, etc.).
A CRIS search found numerous projects related to water quality modeling including erosion and nutrient transport from agricultural surfaces and land use practices. A Wisconsin project (Field-Scale Evaluation of the Wisconsin Phosphorus Index in Wisconsin's Driftless Region) will determine relative phosphorus transport risk from several fields in MLRA 105 as compared to an empirical index. The modeling effort proposed here, however, differs from all other efforts in three important aspects: 1) the model predicts a comprehensive suite of ecosystem phenomena in addition to water quality parameters, 2) the hydrologic modeling is very detailed (10-20 m grid scale) and includes re-infiltration of runoff, a feature not found in any other model in this class, and 3) the model includes a decision support user interface designed for use by agricultural consultants, i.e. it is intended for direct use by practitioners, especially in the precision agriculture community.
Agricultural activities in the karst regions can be improved to reduce environmental impacts while at least maintaining current economic conditions and likely improving them.