Agricultural chemical dealers: Shifting from selling products to services

The East Central Iowa Education Team worked with agricultural chemical and fertilizer dealers to help them shift from selling chemical products to selling services that will make their clients better informed and more effective farm managers

Nitrogen Carryover from Swine Manure

Swine manure or commercial fertilizer had been fall applied for the prior year(s) crop. Late spring soil nitrate tests and crop yield for the current year were collected to determine the value of nitrogen carryover

Hitomi (ASTRO-H) X-ray Astronomy Satellite

The Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission is the sixth Japanese x-ray astronomy satellite developed by a large international collaboration, including Japan, USA, Canada, and Europe. The mission aimed to provide the highest energy resolution ever achieved at E  >  2  keV, using a microcalorimeter instrument, and to cover a wide energy range spanning four decades in energy from soft x-rays to gamma rays. After a successful launch on February 17, 2016, the spacecraft lost its function on March 26, 2016, but the commissioning phase for about a month provided valuable information on the onboard instruments and the spacecraft system, including astrophysical results obtained from first light observations. The paper describes the Hitomi (ASTRO-H) mission, its capabilities, the initial operation, and the instruments/spacecraft performances confirmed during the commissioning operations for about a month

Agricultural chemical dealers: Shifting from selling products to services

The East Central Iowa Education Team worked with agricultural chemical and fertilizer dealers to help them shift from selling chemical products to selling services that will make their clients better informed and more effective farm managers .</p

Teaching Farmland Drainage Design Features to Contractors and Service Providers

Farmland drainage is an integral part of Iowa’s landscape and plays a critical role in its bio-economy. Production capacities of Iowa soils can only be optimized with well-designed and properly operating subsurface drainage systems. Features needing attention when designing and installing a new system or retrofitting an old one include drainage intensity (spacing and depth), drainage capacity (size and grade), water quality and quantity management (controlled drainage, shallow drainage, etc.), and the economics of payback. Iowa State University Extension & Outreach initiated the Iowa Drainage School in 2007 to educate stakeholders on subsurface drainage concepts customized to the upper Midwestern states. Three hundred thirty-five participants, consisting of contractors, engineers, drainage planners, land owners, farmers, agency staff, and drainage district supervisors, have attended the school. All participants completing the end-of-school evaluation have ranked the school good (45%) or excellent (55%) and reported making drainage decisions on over 1,100 acres per participant. A summary of participants’ preferred methods of surveying and developing topographic maps, methods of determining drainage sizing and spacing, and developing drainage maps is presented. This paper summarizes the nine-year outreach efforts of Iowa Drainage School in terms of what students learned in the school, how they have used the knowledge gained, and how they have applied what they learned in the drainage school.This paper is from International Drainage Symposium, Paper No. 162490928, pages 1-6 (doi: 10.13031/IDS.20162490928). St. Joseph, Mich.: ASABE.</p

Revolution and the redeeming of the world: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy's messianic reading of history

A key component in managing subsurface drainage is controlling water table depth to limit excess drainage off site. The objectives of this work were to evaluate the impact of drainage water management through controlled drainage and shallow drainage on subsurface drainage volumes, water table depths, and crop yields. This research was conducted at the Iowa State University Southeast Research Farm and consisted of four paired management schemes for a total of eight plots. Plots consisted of a corn-soybean rotation with half of the plot planted in corn and half planted in soybeans each year. Preliminary findings for three years show undrained plots had a high occurrence of elevated water tables. Controlled and shallow plots had elevated water tables in the early spring and early fall in accordance with the rainfall and management protocols for controlled drainage. Water table response was quick with drawdown to tile depth within 2 to 3 days after significant rain events. Total annual drainage from the shallow and controlled plots was approximately equal and ranged from 20 to 40% of rainfall, while the conventional plots typically drained greater than 40% of the rainfall. There was no statistically significant difference between drained plots in terms of corn and soybean yield for the study period. Undrained plots, however, had slightly lower yields for both corn and soybeans. Overall, during the period of the study drainage water management through controlled drainage or shallow drainage reduced overall drainage volume while maintaining crop yield