South Dakota Farm and Home Research: 100Th Annual Report South Dakota State University
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
South Dakota State University Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange South Dakota Farm and Home Research SDSU Agricultural Experiment Station Spring 1988 South Dakota Farm and Home Research: 100th Annual Report South Dakota State University Follow this and additional works at: http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/agexperimentsta_sd-fhr Part of the Life Sciences Commons Recommended Citation South Dakota State University, "South Dakota Farm and Home Research: 100th Annual Report" (1988). South Dakota Farm and Home Research. 134. http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/agexperimentsta_sd-fhr/134 This Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the SDSU Agricultural Experiment Station at Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in South Dakota Farm and Home Research by an authorized administrator of Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ,out fl dokoto 1 • farm & flome ,e,ea,cfl vol 38, no 2, 1988 • 100th Annual Report Director's • comments We have begun our second century; the horizons expand ahead of us Ray Moore Agricultural Experiment Station For a year we have been looking state-who all benefit, however subtly, toward the horizon. from our work. It also meant the The drought has been only one reason; "horizons of the mind" that open up our our Experiment Station researchers have perspective and show how much there is been hoping for clouds just as anxiously yet to do as we conduct our research. as you have. With our vision of these horizons, we Some of our scientists, however, have have recommitted ourselves to our • been able to take advantage of the mission of "conducting research to drought. The data they have gathered will enhance the quality of life in South be useful to you in the next set of dry Dakota through the beneficial use and years, just as you are benefiting now development of economic, human, and from research we conducted back in 1976 natural resources.'' With the help of the and earlier. Citizens Review Committee of 1986, we It's obviously been far easier to identify have set our direction as we begin our drought-hardy wheats to incorporate into next century of service. our breeding program. We've learned We provide summaries of the lectures more about some alternative crops: if given during our centennial year in this they grew this year, we're interested in issue of Farm & Home Research. Each them. We've had plenty of weeds, insects, story relates to the new goals of the and diseases to collect data from, and Station, and the lecturers were selected .crop residue has proven itself in many of on the basis of their national reputation our plots. in their fields. But in the Ag Experiment Station this We have also come to be especially past year, we had another reason to proud of three student organizations and examine our horizons. their contributions during our Horizons We have just finished celebrating the year: the Agronomy and Conservation 100th year of the Sou th Dakota Club, the Agricultural Education Club, Agricultural Experiment Station. Our and the Range Management Club. slogan, appropriate for a state with a far They established the centennial plots reaching skyline, was "Horizons." near the Agricultural Heritage Museum It meant not only the phys1cal horizon that encompasses all the people of our continued on page 31. 2 • • Another 1PM 'Inappropriate political mediation' means • others could control farmers' use of water Agriculture has to control groundwater Statewide, for both Iowa anq South pollution from farm chemicals or it will Dakota, water analyses results are quite face something nobody wants: similar, showing that 25 to 30% of all inappropriate political mediation. private water supplies exceed the That is the warning of George Hallberg, standard for drinking water, Hallberg nationally known geologist who is an said. adjunct professor at Iowa State University The more shallow the well, the more and on the staff of the Iowa Department serious the contamination, Hallb~rg said. of Natural Resources. But it is only a matter of time before the Hallberg, centennial lecturer for the contaminants make their way into the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment deeper parts of the groundwater flow Station, spoke to a convention of system. Drilling deeper wells is only a irrigators. short-term solution to the problem. The principal investigator of many ag chemical and water quality research projects said that over the past 20 to 30 Nitrogen in groundwater equals third years there has been a parallel linear to half of average year's application increase in nitrates in the groundwater and the amount of fertilizer nitrogen that The Big Springs Groundwater Project is farmers apply to their fields. a long-term study of chemicals applied In northwest Iowa, analyses of water and chemicals detected in groundwater of quality show that 40 to 70% of the private 103 square miles in the Elkader, IA, area . water supplies sampled exceed the This basin has no industry, no landfills, • drinking water standard for nitrates. no metropolis. It is wholly agricultural. 3 Throughout the 50s and. 60s, nitrates we did not expect to find can indeed get maintained a stable concentration of into the water supply." about 12 to 13 parts per million (ppm). In some cases, point-source pollution · "But since the late 1960s, nitrates have (such as in back-siphoning in irrigation gone up dramatically, so that we now wells) has produced pesticide hover around the drinking water standard concentrations of 600 or more ppb, of 45 ppm." Hallberg said. Cropping records for the basin show a . similar increase in nitrogen fertilizer. In the last 25 to 30 years, it has moved from Advice to farmers: act now, or wait just another input to being "far and away and let somebody else do it to you our major input into the system," Hallberg said. Because of public-health implications, chemical movement into groundwater "is Other studies in other states show the something agriculture has to deal with. same pattern. Above 50 lb of nitrogen per We don't want to overreact, but not to acre, the losses to shallow groundwater in react is not responsible, either. susceptible areas increase in the same "We need to develop and implement paired fashion. management practices which will balance Yield goes up as more nitrogen is our legitimate need for efficient and added-to a point. "The line goes up, profitable agricultural production with curves, and begins to flatten off." our equally legitimate need to protect our What that curve means, according to soil and water resources." the geologist, is that for each increment A poll from Iowa shows that over 50% of nitrogen, "we're a little less efficient, of its residents recognize agricultural and a little less of it goes into grain chemicals are the biggest threat to water production." quality. It's left in the environment. Fertilizer And 78% of those polled, including 72% not recovered in the grain is fertilizer that of the farmers, said they were willing to has a chance to leach into groundwater, accept a limit on use of farm chemicals if Hallberg warned. that is what it takes to protect water In the Big Springs basin, the amount of supplies. · • nitrogen lost into the groundwater in a A national Harris poll showed that 86% couple of average years is equal to about of the people believed there should be no a third of the fertilizer nitrogen farmers exceptions to water pollution standards, pay for and add to their fields. not even for farmers. In a wet year, it is equal to over 50%. "The bottom line is that we need to take Pesticides (herbicides and insecticides) some positive action," Hallberg said. are also a growing national concern. The action he proposes is to direct Their concentrations are measured in some of the concern for economic parts per billion (ppb). They are found in development into research and many wells, often at about 10 ppb. development in agriculture. "A new car These figures are " far below any kind plant would be nice, but it can close up of acute toxic poisonous effects." and move away. However, health-related drinking water "And we nee9 to take some of these standards, already in some states and steps before we get another type of IPM proposed at the federal level, are also we really don't want-inappropriate measured in parts per billion, Hallberg political mediation," Hallberg concluded. said. "When you look at long-term exposure and chronic health impacts, there are some legitimate concerns, even at these concentrations." Research by the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and the South Dakota Water Resources Institute shows that "some of the pesticides that • 4 • • 'Not on its deathbed' 'Just' a sickbed, but ag economy will cycle again, because of 'history we haven't read' Before anyone else would more than Butz agreed that some farmers were in speculate that agriculture might be serious trouble. "Some will make- it and recovering from its 1980s downturn, Earl some shouldn't make it. That's the Butz was prophesying profitability. American system-a system of risks and Butz, Dean Emeritus of Agriculture at rewards." Purdue University and USDA Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976, told an He presented the 'Butz principle of Agricultural Experiment Station economics.' centennial lecture audience in summer ''If we, in any sector of American 1987 that restoring profitability to industry, guarantee everyone against agriculture was not exactly the issue. failure, then we remove the possibility of "The good news is that the bad news is success beyond mediocrity." wrong!" In support, he offered the previous year's total agricultural Half of American farms do not have indebtedness: 23% of total assets.