Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

WERA-103 successfully hosted the 2007 Western Nutrient Management Conference in Salt Lake City in March. Approximately 80 persons attended the conference. The WERA-103 website has received several thousand hits over last couple of years. The site links to former proceedings and reports of earlier WERA 103 meetings, and documents. Dan Sullivan, Stu Pettygrove, and Robert Flynn have made progress on a manure N mineralization guide. The purpose is to provide guidance to NRCS on regional N transformation values. Group was formed and work has been ongoing for 2+ years. Dan has focused on ammonia volatilization; Stu on organic N mineralization and decay series/steady state availability coefficient for repeated manure applications to the same site over time; Robert has focused on nitrate crediting in manure (how to use nitrate testing in context of nutrient management plan). The final product goal is a NRCS manure management planning guide. They are working on it as time and resources permit. They envision something short highlighting the problems with historical mineralization/decay series. Two new publications are nearly complete: a) "Irrigation Water Quality" (Hopkins PI and co-authors) and b) "Salt Affected Soils" (Horneck PI and co-authors). These publications are designed to complement one another. Distribution will occur as a PNW publication (OR-WA-ID) in a few months (after PNW review). The goal for the publications, which are available online, is to give people background on the subject and enhance understanding so that they know what questions to ask. Don Horneck also has a PowerPoint presentation on irrigation water quality to supplement the guides. The "Soil Acidification for the Inland Northwest" publication, originally written for eastern Oregon, has been reviewed and approved as a PNW publication. This publication is for people that want to reduce pH to grow acid-loving crops. Oregon State University has a set of 4 acidification guides for various scenarios (west side, east side; homeowners, commercial applications). About 1.5 years ago, when 34-0-0 availability to the public began to decline, calls regarding urea management started coming in. Jones, Koenig, Brown, and Jackson started work on a urea management guide but later decided to focus only on urea and ammonia volatilization. The target audience for the publication is consultants, CCAs and more informed readers. Each state will also produce a brief, targeted guide for crops in their particular state and specific situation.