41 / 46
2016 Logan County Fall Farm Outlook Magazine
Lincoln Daily News
Oct. 27, 2016
41
In response to the United States Environmental
Protection Agency’s
Clean Water Act
, states were
asked to set their own standards to help reduce
nutrient loads and sediment entering streams. The
contaminants affect drinking water supplies, are costly
to remove, create health risks and environmental
damages.
Agriculture is identified as contributing 80 percent of
the Nitrogen and Nitrates (N) and 48 percent of the
Phosphorous (P) contaminating streams through runoff
and leached nutrients to tile drainage, as well as
contributing to soil loss by erosion, all of which have
led to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy
may seem like another government impingement
on the farmer, and it is really. But, working with
ag industry leaders and a host of other experts, the
program targets graduated measures by voluntary
compliance aiming for 45 percent reduction of both N
and P by 2050, with a 2025 early assessment.
These goals may seem lofty and a burden, but consider
that farmers are already striving to be good land
stewards while making a profit, and as it appears
from recent field research, both goals are compatible,
particularly in the use of N.
No one goes to the gas station and over fills their tank
time and again. That would be wasteful, costly, and
environmentally unsound.
Everyone knows, corn eats nitrogen, more than any
other grain crop; both the plant while it is in growth
stage and the grain while in development. The
nitrogen to yield ratio on established fields shows
adding more N gets higher yields.
But when is adding N eating profit potentials?
Nitrogen rates for corn
A bushel of corn contains about 0.8 pounds of N.
A 200-bushel corn crop removes about 160 pounds N
from the field.
Is the Illinois Nutrient Reduction
Strategy counter intuitive profits?
By
Jan Youngquist
Continued ►