Stewardship Advocate

The October 2024 Stewardship Advocate from Iowa Corn covers the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council Survey Results.

To help farmers and others understand and simplify this area, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board has developed a series of resources to help address questions from farmers about carbon intensity, tax credits, carbon markets and payments and premiums.

To help farmers and others understand and simplify this area, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board has developed a series of resources to help address questions from farmers about carbon intensity, tax credits, carbon markets and payments and premiums.

This Stewardship Advocate describes a CI calculator recently developed by ISU Extension and Outreach that is posted on the ISU Ag Decision Maker website here. The calculator is meant for informational and educational purposes only and produces estimates of CI scores.

In this month’s edition of Stewardship Advocate the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, Iowa Soybean Association, and the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance are leading a statewide push toward a national cover crop goal of 30 million acres.

This month’s Stewardship Advocate is partially adapted from an article from the Illinois Corn Growers Association entitled “A Farmer’s Guide to the GREET model”. Recently, there has been a lot of information and confusion about the GREET model, especially as it relates to tax credits like 45Z and 40B.

This month’s Stewardship Advocate features denitrifying bioreactors, a relatively new edge-of-field water treatment technology used to reduce nitrate-nitrogen in tile water coming from crop fields. Bioreactors are below-ground chambers, where tile water mixes with a high-carbon material like woodchips in a low-oxygen environment. Naturally occurring microorganisms on the wood chips consume the nitrates in the water and release it as nitrogen gas. The average bioreactor can handle up to 100 acres of upstream tile drained land. Installed bioreactors have shown up to a 54% nitrate load reduction, with an average nitrate removal of 43%.

This month’s Stewardship Advocate focuses on Carbon Intensity (CI) scores, including how they are calculated and what farmers can do to improve their scores. CI is defined as carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy and is recorded as grams of greenhouse gases (GHG) per mega-jewel (MJ). Carbon dioxide makes up the majority of greenhouse…

This month’s Stewardship Advocate focuses on saturated buffers, an edge of field practice that cleanses the water draining from tiled fields. This article describes the design of this practice, the effect on water quality and cost-share options that can defray most or all of the installation costs. While saturated buffers are less than a 10-12…

Happy New Years and best wishes for a successful 2024! This month’s Stewardship Advocate focuses on farm data protection. It poses a series of questions for farmers to consider before sharing their data. Iowa Corn has a strong interest in supporting and advocating for the protection of data generated by farmers. We believe farm data…

NATIONAL COLLABORATION AIMS TO CATALYZE COVER CROP ADOPTION, IOWA TAKES CENTER STAGE In a united front, three Iowa ag partners are leading a statewide effort to increase the adoption of cover crops, an erosion-prevention and water quality practice, as part of a national program called Farmers for Soil Health. The Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB),…

THE IOWA NUTRIENT RESEARCH AND EDUCATION COUNCIL, NEW REPORT A new report from the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council (INREC) shows that some good progress is being made in some areas of conservation adoption that can provide increased productivity and profitability and there is plenty of room for growth to maximize efforts to lead…