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AMES, Iowa - Working Towards Better Water Quality through Regional Collaborative Research is the theme of the Iowa N
While many farmers express interest in growing alternative crops that could be profitable and improve environmental quality, there are strong incentives for growing conventional row crops. Exploring the potential of options that could outweigh those risks is a professional quest for Andy VanLoocke, associate professor of agronomy at Iowa State University. Recent research he led showed that incorporating miscanthus, a perennial biomass crop, on less productive farm ground can increase farm income, and improve water quality and soil health.
Iowa has made real progress on water quality innovations. Here are the details. | Opinion
Iowa View, Des Moines Register, Sunday, 7/20/25
Mike Castellano and Matt Helmers
Guest columnists
A new $1.9 million project aims to reduce nitrate runoff into Beaver Creek, a stream that flows directly into Central Iowa’s drinking water supply. The state hopes this initiative can stop nitrates, nutrients that help crops grow but can cause health concerns, before the nitrates reach the Des Moines River. (KCC8 article and video, July 9, 2025). .
AMES, Iowa - The Iowa Nutrient Research Center has released its 2024 Annual Review.
Recent study shows that many Iowa farmers and landowners “aren’t sure” about edge-of-field practices
Ames, Iowa – A new policy brief from the Iowa Learning Farms and Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) shares the findings on Edge-of Field (EOF) conservation practice adoption in Iowa. Detailing unique data and insights on consistently low adoption rates of EOF practices as well as barriers to adoption, the brief,“How to Increase Iowa Farmers’ and Landowners’ Understanding of Edge-of-Field Practices,” features responses from some 774 Iowa farmers and landowners across five different HUC-8 watersheds in the Des Moines Lobe and provides actionable data and recommendations for increasing conservation adoption.
Do wetlands engineered for water quality treatment function in ways that provide benefits for biodiversity, similar to Iowa’s natural wetlands? A research project led by Charlie Loewen, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University, is trying to better understand these systems, their potential benefits and unintended consequences, with support from the Iowa Nutrient Research Center.
The Swampbuster provision has been in the news recently, so I thought it would be a good time to provide a refresher on what the provision is, how it came about, and why we care about wetlands in the agricultural landscape.
-- excerpt from Iowa Learning Farms blog post (5-14-25) by INRC Assistant Director Kay Stefanik
INREC's five-part video series highlights different aspects of Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy—where it started, how it’s measured and advanced, and where we’re headed next. These videos, presented in an easy-to-digest format, blend examples from the field with insights from INREC leaders and farmers, researchers and representatives from the Iowa Nutrient Research Center and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.
Find them at: Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy Videos - Iowa Nutrient Research + Education Council.
Research continues to increase the effectiveness of best management practices (BMPs) for improving water quality, while seeking to make practices cheaper and easier for landowners to install, say researchers Tom Isenhart and Michelle Soupir at Iowa State University.
The 2025 Innovation at Work series illustrates why Iowa State University is a trusted partner. Through research, teaching, service and extension, Iowa State has a long history of providing proactive and innovative solutions. This work is happening in labs across campus, in Iowa farm fields and in collaboration with business and industry. This article highlights farmers Kellie and A.J. Blair and their collaborations with partners at Iowa State, including with INRC Director Matthew Helmers on drainage water recycling.
This is the third and final article in an INRC series highlighting partnerships that help advance water quality research.
Last year, Matt Helmers was a featured speaker for a Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research webinar highlighting the benefits of collaboration. Helmers, director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, has considerable experience with partnerships at state, regional and national levels.
"Collaboration takes time and sometimes other investments, and it doesn't always work out," he said. "But when it does, it has so much potential to expand the reach and impacts of our research."
Helmers especially values several impactful partnerships he has been – and continues to be – involved in, including the Iowa Learning Farms, the SERA-46 Committee that works on Gulf Hypoxia and FFAR.
The Iowa Nutrient Research Center is accepting new proposals through May 2, 2025, for research projects designed to reduce nitrate and phosphorus in Iowa’s water. The center invites proposals for water quality projects that will benefit farmers, landowners, agribusinesses, policy makers and communities. Potential applicants are encouraged to review the full 2025 request for proposals (PDF) for complete details about the priority topics and application instructions. Proposals are due by May 2, 2025, for projects that would begin in August. Award decisions will be made in July.
Iowa’s new water quality measurement coordinator, Elizabeth Schwab, is looking forward to combining her expertise in water quality and management of big data sets to support the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy. Schwab is coordinating the ongoing effort to make data representing the status of the Nutrient Reduction Strategy available online in accurate and engaging ways. She started the position in January.
The amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed to maximize the profitability of corn production in the Midwest has been increasing by about 1.2% per year for the past three decades, according to new Iowa State University research. Data-based confirmation of corn’s climbing nitrogen needs reiterates the importance of continuously improving the efficiency of fertilizer use, which is essential to limit the impact on water quality and greenhouse gas emissions.
Stay warm and settle in for an engaging set of seminars on trends in nutrients in surface and groundwater across the U.S. Review recordings from the Iowa Nutrient Research Center’s Fall 2024 seminar series, highlighting the status of nutrients and water quality in watersheds across the country.
“INRC’s fall 2024 seminars were the center’s most popular to date,” said Matt Helmers, INRC director. “The series encompassed a lot of important data about watersheds recognized as important locally and nationally, presented by some leading researchers. So it seems worthwhile to remind people that the seminar recordings are available free on our website.”
Click here to view the INRC Fall 2024 seminar talks.
The spring 2025 Iowa Nutrient Research Center seminar series will showcase “Insights from Next Gen Water Researchers” with presentations by current and recent Iowa State University graduate students. They will discuss studies they are or have been involved in and how water quality research is helping inform their careers. The presentations will take place the second Wednesday of each month, Feb. 12, March 12, April 9 and May 14, from 3:10-4 p.m. The hybrid seminars will be presented online and in-person at 1306 Elings Hall, 605 Bissell Road, on the Iowa State campus. Register here to participate online.
Strips of native plants on as little as 10% of farmland can reduce soil erosion by up to 95%
Article in The Guardian, by Rachel Cramer
Water quality research is a 'team sport’: NGOs can play important roles to expand capacity, outreach
INRC Assistant Director Kay C. Stefanik was one of the presenters at the recent Cedar Rapids Cedar River Source Water Partnership Partner Appreciation Day, on the panel, Advancing Conservation Practice Adoption: Emerging Research and Trends.
This is the first article in an INRC series highlighting partnerships that help advance water quality research.
Read the others:
AMES, Iowa – The Iowa Nutrient Research Center seminar series for Fall 2024 wil
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