Corn, crop rotation, sediment, and general misuse/over planting

(Kamyar) Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa, suspects that this natural disaster wasn't really all that natural. He points out that the heavy rains fell on a landscape radically reengineered by humans. Plowed fields have replaced tallgrass prairies. Fields have been meticulously drained with underground pipes. Streams and creeks have been straightened. Most of the wetlands are gone. Flood plains have been filled and developed.


"I sense that the flooding is not the result of a 500-year event," said Jerry DeWitt, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. "We're farming closer to creeks, farming closer to rivers. Without adequate buffer strips, the water moves rapidly from the field directly to the surface water."

Corn alone will cover more than a third of the state's land surface this year. The ethanol boom that began two years ago encouraged still more cultivation.

Between 2007 and 2008, farmers took 106,000 acres of Iowa land out of the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to keep farmland uncultivated, according to Lyle Asell, a special assistant for agriculture and environment with the state's Department of Natural Resources (DNR). That land, if left untouched, probably would have been covered with perennial grasses with deep roots that help absorb water.





Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25254541 /


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Land ill-suited for deluge
Crop rotation may also play a subtle role in the flooding. Farmers who may have once grown a number of crops are now likely to stick to just corn and soybeans -- annual plants that don't put down deep roots.

Another potential factor: sediment. "We're actually seeing rivers filling up with sediment, so the capacity of the rivers has changed," Asell said. He said that in the 1980s and 1990s, Iowa led the nation in flood damage year after year.

http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm

All of us, I am afraid.

http://southern.ducks.org/news_WetlandsPostKatrinaWorld.php

“Theoretically, if you had a healthy chunk of marsh when Katrina hit, that could have mitigated some of the damage,” explained Tom Moorman, director of conservation planning for Ducks Unlimited’s Southern Regional Office.

The storm surge that hit the Gulf Coast reached some 29 feet, the highest ever recorded. But, in New Orleans, a few miles of marsh may have made a difference.

“In terms of protecting a city like New Orleans - a city that’s below sea level - storm surge abatement is critical,” Moorman said.

“The actual surge in lake Pontchartrain was about 10 feet. That was enough to get water over the levees and actually blow out a few of them. In theory, if you’d restored the marsh, you may have lessened the effects of Katrina a little bit,” Moorman explained. “And even a little bit is enough sometimes to save a city like New Orleans.”

and it always disturbs me to see fellow farmers not taking nature into consideration when planning crops. Actually, I should not say that. Most "farmers" don't have enough land anymore to do much damage, it is mostly agribusiness I suspect (but I do not know).

Today as I type this I am planting Prairie grass from the pond to the drive and buffalo grass from the drive to the house. Native need no fertilizer after established and little water after established. Of course you have to give up that pretty, fake looking lawn. :)

1930's. Much of the problem was due to poor farming practices.




http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm

during the Dust Bowl. They had a small farm and the few pictures of the family from that time are dreadful. Poverty like I can't imagine. My father did not have a full set of clothing (pants, shirt, socks, shoes and underwear) during much of his childhood and they were filthy. Everything was filthy and skinny as rails and there was not a thing they could do about it.

There has been a big push to no till farming and many of the younger farmers are doing it, many of them because they have been educated at K State, or another Ag school. Still, the old ways prevail far too often. We need prairie buffers, native grasses. I can tell you from the small amount that I just planted that it is very expensive but it will be worth it. It may well be too expensive for those who would like to do it in large areas. One thing may even it out though. Those of us with Brome pastures are suffering the price of petroleum based fertilizers. I did not fertilize this year and my crop is fine but I don't know how long it will stay that way. Manure is just not reliable for Brome. I am hoping the native grasses I do have in my pastures will take over in time.

Things are way out of control and way out of whack and I do not know if it can be stopped until something drastic happens. Most farmers just can't afford to do things in an ecologically beneficial way. We will pay the price for that.

They are good, knowledgeable folks - helping lots of farmers who, for many reasons, have had it when petrochemical-based fertilizer.

"Sustainable Growth Texas™ is in the business of producing and delivering the right biology and nutrients to pasture and crop land, thereby improving the health and vitality of the land, the nutrient value of the forage, and hence, the productivity of the livestock grazing those lands."


http://www.sustainablegrowthtexas.com/

Thank you so much. I am going to pass this link to my feed store. The new owner is a fairly recent Kansas State grad and he is big into organic ways to do things and trying to talk people in town to use this rather than everything they use now that is so horrible for the environment. The biggest problem is the need for instant gratification. I am going to have a big problem on my hands when my husband sees little growth for several years. We tried to tell him but he did not listen. People are do impatient. Mother takes her time but if you treat her right she will come through in big ways.

This is great! I tried to go organic but the Brome did not respond well to that and it took me 5 years to get the pasture back.

thanks

Gotta honor the farmers and the land...

farmers shouldn't be able to grow any one crop on more than 1/3 of their acreage at one time, with crops rotated between fields.

it would decrease the demand/use of so many fertilizers and pesticides.

I grew up with a creek running through part of Dad's property. The WPA re-made the creek in the 30s and put in a small dam on our section of the creek. It was lovely and did a nice job of draining the area land but never going dry. Then, the dumb-ass county drain commissioner, after being bought off by the county's biggest farming family who had lands on part of the creek, decided to re-make the gorgeous creek into a ditch with high berms on each side that became roads and took out the dam. My dad fought it tooth and nail and lost. Interestingly enough, the dam never quite disappeared, so Dad started re-making it by putting a few rocks in whenever he could. Every few years, they dredge it out again, ruining all the new growth on the berm and the dam, and it often goes dry or almost all the way dry in the heat of summer.

It used to be a great creek and even is on some really old maps of Michigan, but the farmers had to get on their fields faster and turn the creek into a ditch. Disgusting.

it is amazing to learn how encompassing and involved the farming community has been in this sort of thing for a long time. I never knew of this issue or subject as well as many others-we just thought you planted stuff and then waited to get it and sell it....well that appears to be about all they are doing now.

They're active in their communities and in politics. Some are wonderful, like the family that runs our CSA, but some overuse pesticides and chemicals (though with the costs of those going up, I'm sure that's going to stop soon) and bully local politicians into doing whatever they want.