Following initial funding in August, during the fall semester, the project team developed two interview protocol guides: one for farmers who continued using cover crops between 2020 and 2022; and one for farmers who discontinued cover crops during this time. The investigators applied for ISU Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, which was granted in December. The investigators then developed a participant recruitment protocol using the Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll. Read more about Incentivizing Conservation: Understanding Opportunities and Barriers That Influence Iowa Farmers’ Decisions to Adopt Nutrient Management Conservation Practices Over Time Jan 2025

FINAL REPORT

The research findings which occurred as a result of this grant include ongoing efforts to develop a statewide nutrient budget, evaluation of the effectiveness of edge-of-field practices at a small watershed level, evaluation of new nutrient reduction practices and development of new cyberinfrastructure techniques to improve data management and communication. These areas are described in more detail in the publications listed below. Read more about IIHR water quality research plan Dec 2024

We completed a first analysis and presentation of Objective 1 and presented the findings at the national meeting of The Wildlife Society. We focused the analysis on regional Species of Greatest Conservation need identified by midwestern states involved in the Midwestern Landscape Initiative. This list includes species with widespread concern across the region. Our analysis classified these species into habitat guilds, which indicated that 70% of vertebrates stand to benefit from agri-environmental conservation schemes. Read more about Quantifying co-benefits of water quality conservation practices for wildlife of greatest conservation need in Iowa Dec 2024

For our ecological simulation, we built on Cao et al. (2023, citation provided at the end), we have conducted some additional simulations to examine the N loading reduction potential under alternative management practices (e.g., reduced fertilizer use, chemical fertilizer replaced with manure, etc.) We have  some preliminary results. Read more about Spatially delineated carbon credit potential and implied nutrient reduction co-benefit: An assessment with integrated ecological and economic modeling framework Jul 2024