Preserving land and water
There are many things farmers are doing to keep their fields and adjacent waterways as healthy as possible and still provide for profit potential. WinField United continues to supply data and tools to help you and other farmers increase yield potential for every drop of water used. In turn, you play a vital role in promoting land and water conservation through various management practices.
Nutrient management
Some of the biggest gains not only in sustainability but also in yield potential come from applying nutrients closer to the time crops use them. For example, Answer Plot® trials have shown that strategic application timing can help reduce the financial and environmental costs of applying excess nitrogen.
My colleague Ryan Wolf, agronomy manager, also attributes successful nutrient management to strategic tissue sampling. “Well-timed tissue sampling allows farmers to respond with targeted nutrient applications only when needed and not to apply nutrients that are not needed,” he says.
Irrigation management
Using water probes in irrigated fields lets you see the amount of water in your soil profile, allowing you to make better irrigation decisions. In the past, we tended to over-irrigate because we didn’t know what the moisture in our soil profile looked like. Much like nutrient management, irrigation management and water probes aid agronomic decision-making so you provide only the amount of water that’s needed at optimal times.
Land management
You may use buffer strips, grass waterways, or minimum- or no-till methods to manage soil integrity and nutrient runoff, depending on the part of the country you’re in. Cover crops are another way to capture nutrients and build soil health.
Genetics and trait technologies
New seed technologies can also help promote sustainability. “Traits that add herbicide tolerance and insect protection save pounds of pesticides from being applied to crops during the season,” says Wolf.
For example, most corn hybrids contain a corn rootworm trait. The less corn rootworm pressure we have in the field, the more plentiful roots we have under the corn plant, which usually translates into higher yield potential. Those roots also capture many more nutrients, so they don’t get into the watershed. The more of a crop we can convert into grain, the more nutrients we remove from the soil profile so they can’t travel where we don’t want them to.
Nutrient management
Some of the biggest gains not only in sustainability but also in yield potential come from applying nutrients closer to the time crops use them. For example, Answer Plot® trials have shown that strategic application timing can help reduce the financial and environmental costs of applying excess nitrogen.
My colleague Ryan Wolf, agronomy manager, also attributes successful nutrient management to strategic tissue sampling. “Well-timed tissue sampling allows farmers to respond with targeted nutrient applications only when needed and not to apply nutrients that are not needed,” he says.
Irrigation management
Using water probes in irrigated fields lets you see the amount of water in your soil profile, allowing you to make better irrigation decisions. In the past, we tended to over-irrigate because we didn’t know what the moisture in our soil profile looked like. Much like nutrient management, irrigation management and water probes aid agronomic decision-making so you provide only the amount of water that’s needed at optimal times.
Land management
You may use buffer strips, grass waterways, or minimum- or no-till methods to manage soil integrity and nutrient runoff, depending on the part of the country you’re in. Cover crops are another way to capture nutrients and build soil health.
Genetics and trait technologies
New seed technologies can also help promote sustainability. “Traits that add herbicide tolerance and insect protection save pounds of pesticides from being applied to crops during the season,” says Wolf.
For example, most corn hybrids contain a corn rootworm trait. The less corn rootworm pressure we have in the field, the more plentiful roots we have under the corn plant, which usually translates into higher yield potential. Those roots also capture many more nutrients, so they don’t get into the watershed. The more of a crop we can convert into grain, the more nutrients we remove from the soil profile so they can’t travel where we don’t want them to.
