March 29-30, 2016
Purdue University, Stewart Center
More than 75 people met at Purdue University to discuss drainage management innovations. A theme this year was moving from demonstration projects towards firm implementation criteria that can be used to identify the most suitable sites for innovative practices.
- For denitrifying bioreactors, the meta-analysis presented by Laura Christianson identified characteristics that most strongly affect bioreactor performance. Larry Geohring presented findings from New York on operational and sizing parameters impacting performance.
- For saturated buffers, Dan Jaynes presented findings from the regional CIG that led to suitability criteria suggestions. The draft NRCS standard has been posted and the comment period closed April 4. Rob Sampson reported that more than 25 comments were received in the Federal Register Process. NRCS is responding to them and merging the public comment with the comments generated internally and will finalize the standard by the end of July. This will move this practice closer towards implementation more broadly.
- For drainage water recycling (the practice of capturing and storing drainage water in a pond and recycling it back onto the crops through any type of irrigation), awareness was raised of potential ways that NRCS could provide support and also of the need for research to demonstrate the water quantity and quality impacts from this practice.
Many other presentations highlighted current research and implementation, and links to the recordings of many of these are below.
Tuesday, March 29
| Drainage Research (NCERA-217) | |
| Topic | Speaker(s) |
| Welcome & Introductions | Jeppe Kjaersgaard, MN Dept of Agriculture |
| Overview of Iowa Soybean Association 2015 Tile Monitoring (Slides Only) | Chris Hay, Iowa Soybean Association |
| The Red River Valley Drainage Water Management Project (Recording – 15:08; Note – Echo ends @ 2:08) | Jeppe Kjaersgaard |
| Challenges on optimal drainage water managements in the Red River Valley (Recording – 19:15) | Xinhua Jia, North Dakota State University |
| Field to small watershed scale drainage water management practices in Indiana (Recording – 19:22) | Laura Bowling, Purdue University |
| Missouri Drainage Update (Recording – 17:31) | Kelly Nelson, U Missouri |
| Drainage research at NLAE (Recording – 14:09) | Dan Jaynes, ARS Iowa |
| Denitrifying Bioreactor Performance in New York (Recording – 23:22) | Larry Goehring, Cornell |
| Denitrifying Bioreactors for Nitrate Removal: A Meta-Analysis of Controlling Factors (Recording – 18:33) | Laura Christianson, U of Illinois |
| NRCS drainage activities | Rob Sampson, NRCS HQ |
| Saturated Buffers: Presentation of results of CIG project (Slides Only) | Dan Jaynes, ARS |
| ADMC Update (Recording – 12:28) | Charlie Schafer, Agridrain, others |
| Drainage water management:
Northwest Ohio DWM implementation (Slides Only) Drainage water management – operation recommendations (Slides Only) Crop susceptibility to excess water stress (Slides Only) |
Justin McBride and Mark Seger, Ohio Dept of Ag
Norm Fausey, ARS Ohio Ramesh Kanwar, IA State |
| Northwest Ohio Crop Yield Benefits with Agricultural Water Recycling and Subirrigation Based on Future Climate Scenarios (Recording – 18:31) | Barry Allred, ARS Ohio |
| Drainage water recycling (ponds) – Can they be supported by Farm Bill programs? | Anna Bramblett, Bruce Atherton, Beth Clarizia, Ruth Book, NRCS |
| US EPA update | Katie Flahive, USEPA |
| Transforming Drainage project and collaboration opportunities (Recording – 14:20)
International Drainage Symposium, other topics (Slides Only) |
Jane Frankenberger, Chris Hay
Gary Sands |
| Next meeting and follow-up needed | |
| Reception and Poster Session | |
Wednesday, March 30
| Matching Practices with Sites | |
| Topic | Speaker(s) |
| Registration, NCERA-217 Business Meeting | |
| Session Goal: To agree on sites characteristics needed for the success of each of the practices (saturated buffers, controlled drainage, drainage water recycling) | |
| Matching Practices to Sites: Developing suitability criteria for drainage management practices | Jane Frankenberger |
| Saturated buffers site suitability (Recording – 22:48) | Dan Jaynes |
| Controlled drainage site suitability (Recording – 29:43) | Matt Helmers, Jeff Strock, Laurent Ahiablame, Laura Bowling |
| Drainage water recycling site suitability (Recording – 41:24) | Kelly Nelson, Xinhua Jia, Jeppe Kjaersgaard, Jeff Strock, Charlie Schafer, Ben Reinhart |
| Discussion of how to incorporate suitability criteria in implementation and next steps | |
| Tools for Transforming Drainage | |
| Session Goal: To agree on gaps and opportunities for tools that can be used to make decisions about designing, managing, and investing in drainage storage practices. | |
| Identifying opportunities related to tools for transforming drainage | Jane Frankenberger and Linda Prokopy |
| Other existing drainage and irrigation tools to support investment decisions, design, management, and determining conservation effects (Recording – 37:06) | Melissa Widhalm, Molly Van Dop, Chris Hay, Kelsey Kolars |
| Discussion of opportunities for tools to incorporate drainage storage practices and transform drainage | Linda Prokopy, facilitator |
Posters
| Name | Title |
| Ashik Sahani | Impacts of Drainage Water Management on field-scale hydrology and water quality in Eastern South Dakota. |
| Charlotte Lee | Modeling Cornbelt Drainage: Regional Controls on Volume, Timing, and Variability |
| Chris Hay | Overview of Iowa Soybean Association 2015 Tile Monitoring |
| Corey Lacey | The effect of cover crops on surface water quality: A paired watershed experiment in the Lake Bloomington watershed |
| Giorgi Chighladze | Transforming Drainage Research Network: Site Characteristics |
| Gwen White | Mississippi Basin / Gulf Hypoxia Initiative: Seven LCCs design a landscape to meet large-scale agricultural conservation challenges from grassland birds to Gulf coast shrimp |
| Lori Abendroth | Transforming Drainage Research Data: Management and Tools |
| Norm Fausey | Field performance of AgriDrain Watergate valves |
| Robert N. Wesslak | Subirrigated Corn Grain Yield Variability Associated with Drain Tile Spacing |
| Samaneh Saadat | Subsurface drain flow estimation using water table observations |
| Shailendra Singh | Modeling Tile Drainage for Predicting Drainage Flow and Nitrate-N Loads under Conservation Practices in a Corn-Soybean Production System. |
| Shalamar Armstrong | A Field Scale Comparison of Nitrogen Efficiency within Conventional and Alternative Nitrogen Management Systems |
