At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
BERNE, MINN. — On a hot afternoon in mid-July, Brian Bennerotte, who was raised on a farm in the hill country south of Minneapolis in the 1960s and 1970s, made a pilgrimage of sorts to County Road B in Dodge County in his home state. Running straight as a gun barrel east and west, the gravel and dirt road crosses what was once rolling prairie before being steadily converted into crop and livestock farms in …
WINONA, MN. — Corn drapes every curve and rise here in Winona County, Minnesota – seemingly endless fields of grain that contribute to the food, fuel and finances of a robust US agricultural economy. But the bucolic landscape belies a dark and dangerous truth: Much of the groundwater in the porous limestone beneath Winona County is contaminated with some of the nation’s highest levels of nitrates — harmful pollutants released into the environment by the …
In 1990, following intensive field trials, a respected agronomist at Iowa State University named Fred Blackmer formally introduced an inexpensive tool to accurately measure how much nitrogen farmers actually require to produce abundant harvests of corn, the most heavily fertilized crop. Driven by concerns about rising production costs and increasing water pollution, Blackmer’s “late spring nitrate test†was stunningly simple in concept. His test focused on one essential data point: the optimum amount of nitrogen …
It’s been 33 years since an Iowa State University agronomist named Fred Blackmer thought he’d struck gold for Midwestern corn farmers. Using a fairly simple three-step method, Blackmer developed an analytical tool that could accurately tell farmers exactly how much fertilizer their fields needed to produce abundant harvests each season. The analytics Blackmer perfected showed not only how much fertilizer the corn crops would need to meet production targets, but also exposed how much could …
Gabrielle sold her Somerset, KY home in March 2022 and moved to Michigan permanently. Part of the proceeds from the sale of her house, with an equal investment by yours truly, led us to purchase a Benzie County fixer-upper to renovate for rental. We finished the project in May, and through word of mouth it was rented immediately to an exemplary tenant who’s told us she loves her new home. Why shouldn’t she? It turned …
Here’s a sweet story of friendship, family, and love. Every five years my close friends from Haverford College gather for our class of 1978 reunion. These are don’t-miss affairs for me, and for them. Memorial Day weekend marked our 45th reunion. I attended this year because those friendships produced entirely unanticipated virtues. In March, Gabrielle scheduled hip replacement surgery two weeks prior to the reunion. Our email train includes the fellas and their wives, all …
Water is not my beverage of choice. That is, until deer started eating my lilies. After I balked at online chemical repellents that cost as much as $199, Gabrielle reminded me that deer wouldn’t eat anything sprayed with urine. I began chugging water like it was a cold lager on a hot day. I now collect the non-toxic, organic, aromatic waste stream daily in wide-mouth kambucha jars. Every evening the contents are liberally poured onto …
IOWA CITY, IOWA — There’s no mystery that fertilizer and manure running off farm fields are the primary cause of Iowa’s wretched water quality. Farm fields laden with synthetic fertilizers and manure produce bounties of over 2 billion bushels of corn each year. Data from the Iowa Water Quality Information System, the state’s advanced monitoring network, shows those same fields also produce a torrent of run-off that contaminates virtually every mile of streams and rivers …
In the realm of the important-but-obscure, a place I’ve resided for most of my professional life, Chris Jones is a hero. A research engineer at the University of Iowa, Jones studies and writes with masterful expertise about agriculture, the environment, and water. Put those three elements together, and consider that state and federal law essentially immunizes crop and livestock farms from responsibly managing their nitrogen and phosphorus wastes. The result is a disturbing but familiar …
With the exception of federal and state programs to convert corn into ethanol and soybeans into biodiesel to fuel cars and trucks the United States has never regarded farming as a primary energy producer. That changed when Congress passed the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act last August. The law provides $140 billion in tax incentives, direct loans, and grants to replace fossil fuels with cleaner renewable energy that lowers emissions of carbon dioxide. …
