Successful Multi-Agency Approaches to
Nutrient Management Education

Joel Delzer and Vincent Rynish
Student Interns, Nutrient and Pest Management Program

Dave Shultz
District Conservationist, USDA-NRCS

Manure management education has been an afterthought in many watershed projects. Technicians and project staff, limited by workload, rarely have the time to work one on one with farmers to show them how to properly manage manure to prevent water pollution. At the same time, different agencies have different agendas, which also influences the information and impressions the farmers receive.

To overcome these challenges, two projects were created in northeast Wisconsin during the summer of 1997. In each, four conservation agencies (county Land and Water Conservation Districts, USDA-FSA, USDA-NRCS and UW-Extension) came together and hired an outsider to give farmers in each project updated information on nutrient management. Part of the project was to re-educate farmers by manure spreader calibrations, manure analysis, pre-sidedress nitrogen tests and nutrient crediting to show farmers how to accurately give nitrogen credits to manure and legume plowdowns. This would allow a larger profit from the crop along with improving environmental standards. Also, a survey was conducted in each watershed to establish a baseline so that a future impact could be assessed.

Each of the above agencies contributed to the special projects in a different but helpful way. The county Land and Water Conservation Agency gave some advertisement and monetary support. Next the USDA-Farm Services Agency supplied the list of farmers within the watershed along with aerial maps for location of farms and fields to be sampled. The USDA-NRCS provided transportation to farms along with cropping history of these farms. Finally UW-Extension roughly structured the projects, providing basic training for the students and funding for soil and manure analysis through the Nutrient and Pest Management Program (NPM). The cooperation of each Agency increased the likelihood of success of the two projects they supported.

Two watersheds in Northeastern Wisconsin that were of concern for nutrient overapplication were the Trout Creek Watershed (in lower Marinette County, Wisconsin) and Pensaukee Watershed (in Oconto and Shawano Counties, Wisconsin). These two watersheds had unique characteristics to formulate projects designed to work one on one with the farmers. What made these two watersheds unique was the number of possible clientele to participate in the special projects. Also, in the Pensaukee priority watershed there was a previous program for nutrient management. There was an environmental concern in each watershed of over-application of fertilizer due to lack of farmer knowledge of crediting organic nutrients. Therefore these two watersheds had high probability of success in educating farmers in nutrient management that in turn would improve the environmental standards.

The Trout Creek Watershed Special Project, in lower Marinette County, Wisconsin has only 64 active farmers. A conscious effort was made to get all of the farmers to participate in the project. Trout Creek is considered a virgin area, with no previous water quality programming of any kind. Even without prior exposure, more than 70% of the contacted farmers were willing to participate with the project. This high rate of cooperation was due partly to the willingness of the farmers to cooperate with government programs. Many of the farmers had worked with either the Land and Water Conservation Department or the NRCS in different projects that in turned helped the farmers trust in governmental projects.

The Trout Creek Special Project provided a free manure analysis to show farmers how many pounds of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus were available in their manure. Also by doing the free manure samples farmers were surprised at the value of a ton of manure. With the Trout Creek Watershed the value of manure varied from $1.06 to $3.79 per ton of manure.

Another aspect of the projected allowed the farmers to have about 5 cornfields each to be tested with the Pre-Sidedress Nitrogen Test (PSNT). The PSNT was used to convince farmers of the current amount of nitrogen in the soil (from previous manure and legume plowdowns) and from this some hesitantly cut the amount of nitrogen they would normally apply.

The UW-Extension supplied a survey that the farmers were verbally given. This survey (80% of the participating farmers) gave us a very solid insight into how the farmers manage fertilizer. This data will be used in future EQIP grant applications. The data showed:

• The average dairy herd size was about 53 cows per farm.
• The average farmer that soil tests does so about once every 5 years. (Every 3-4 years is recommended)
• The farmers credited about 80 pounds of nitrogen from a legume plowdown. (90# is the minimum, 190 the maximum legume credit possible)
• Average starter fertilizer was 16-18-22 at 244 pounds/acre. (100 pounds of 10-20-20 is recommended where soil tests are high)
• 62% do not soil test or have no pattern to when they do soil test.
• Excess fertilizer applications are a low $2.28 per acre.
• The average of 116 pounds of nitrogen applied per acre was close to the recommended average of 120 pounds of nitrogen per acre for this watershed soil type.

Although many of the farmers were crediting their nutrients correctly, they were still over applying their starter fertilizer. The fact that the farmers never or do not have a pattern when they soil test is a disadvantage to the farmer. The soil tests would allow the farmer to know of the overabundance of nutrients due to the extra starter fertilizer.

In Marinette County, Wisconsin, home of the Trout Creek Special Project, there is an abundance of County, State, and Federal support. In this project, all the listed agencies cooperated within one county allowed the project to prosper due to the communication skills and cooperative reputation of the agencies. Many times when one agency was busy, the intern could turn to a different agency with the same question and expect the answer to be right. As mentioned above, each agency had certain skills and resources that came together in one project and flourished. The key to any program within one county is the successful multi-agency communication.

The Pensaukee Priority Watershed Special Project took place in a watershed approximately two hundred fifty square miles that had previous programs to encourage farmers to do nutrient management. The project was formulated in a way that the farmer was to take the initiative to participate in the project. Twenty farmers in each county (Shawano, Oconto) received a letter to explain the project in hopes that word of mouth would get enough farmers interested. However, the time of year that the project took place is a rather busy time for the farmer so that there was not a high return on the farmers that wanted to participate. Therefore, farmers that hauled manure on a daily basis were targeted and approximately thirty six farmers were gathered to participate in the project.

Two years prior to this project, a pilot nutrient management cost-share program was instituted for just one year in this same watershed. In the old project consultants were paid to formulate nutrient management plans for individual farmers. However, the farmer was not required to follow the plan and there was no follow up to the project to see if the farmers were following the plans. This allowed the new project to see how well the old project worked in terms of how well the farmers were managing the nutrients of the land.

The two most important parts to the Pensaukee River Special Project were the pre-sidedress nitrogen test (PSNT) and the manure spreader calibration. The PSNT was a lab analysis that determined the amount of nitrogen needed on a specific field. This showed the farmers the amount of nitrogen that was in the soil from manure, legumes, and carryover from the previous year. The manure spreader calibration showed the farmer the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium applied from the manure. This was done by weighing the spreader full and empty and measuring the area covered by the manure. These two parts of the project helped to educate the farmer in nitrogen and manure crediting.

Through out this project, twenty manure spreaders were calibrated and over eighty fields were tested with the PSNT. Approximately 75% of the farmers that had previous nutrient management said that the 1995 pilot project had helped in some way to manage nutrients. However, it was found that only 38.5% of the farmers participating in the project gave some nitrogen credits to manure (This is closer to the state average than the 75%). Finally, the average cost of excess fertilizer applied was found to be $6.37 an acre.

When accounting for nitrogen credits, it would be safe to say that most farmers guess the nitrogen value from manure applications and legume plowdowns. In the course of this project there were a few farmers that were quite surprised as to how far off they were. The amount of fertilizer they felt was needed was generally much more than actually was. Some farmers could not believe the amount of nutrients already in the soil which led them to feel they should have the PSNT done every year.

The success of this project depended on the cooperation of agencies in two counties. The USDA-FSA in the two counties both equally participated in the project helping find farmers to participate and giving back ground knowledge of participating farmers. The USDA-NRCS also participated by helping with the aerial view maps and soil indexes. With the multi-agency approach, the project overcame many barriers that occur through county, state, and federal boundaries.

In conclusion, there are opportunities to help the farmers while also improving nutrient management in watersheds. This can be done by educating the farmer by nitrogen crediting, and actually showing the farmer the amount of nutrients in the manure that they apply to their fields. By showing farmers the value of the nutrients this reduces the amount of the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus that will run-off and contaminate near-by waterways.

In this discussion two distinct watersheds were surveyed with the common result that most farmers are eager to learn how to save money through nutrient crediting. In the Trout Creek Watershed, there was accurate nitrogen crediting. In contrast, with overapplication of starter fertilizer and not enough soil testing the amount of nutrient carry over from year to year could not be determined. In the Pensaukee Watershed, the previous nutrient management pilot project gave the farmers an edge when crediting nutrients.

However, farmers could still save money by reducing nutrient overapplication. Even though these two watersheds were of different size and shape, the structure of the projects was shown to be successful. With each watershed the maximum number of farmers that could be handled effectively in each distinct project was found to be similar.

For each of the projects, the cornerstone was the open communication lines between agencies. Each specific agency contributed the resources needed to complete the project. This allowed the worker to feel comfortable to approach any agency at any time and except a quick, reasonable response. By having this approach, the success of future similar projects can be insured through proper communication among various contributing agencies.

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