New Cover Crop Management Book Available from SARE!

Research shows that cover crops can improve soil, break pest cycles, reduce input costs and improve yields. But choosing the right cover crops, and managing them successfully, can require careful consideration to identify the right mix of species, timing, and equipment that best serve your farm’s goals. SARE’s newest handbook, Cover Crops: Improving Soil Health, Stewardship and Profitability on the Farm…

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Agroforestry for Ag Professionals – Learning and Collaboration

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Oct. 28, featuring Hannah Hemmelgarn, Ph.D., associate director, University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, and assistant research professor, School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri. Hemmelgarn leads outreach and training programs for the Center for Agroforestry. Her research and teaching are focused on place-based relational approaches to understanding social-ecological systems and networks.

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Mapping Iowa’s Floodplain Restoration Opportunities Through Geospatial Tools

A recent webinar with PhD candidate, Kelsey Karnish of Iowa State University examines how geospatial tools can identify, prioritize, and estimate the costs of potential floodplain easements in Iowa. Agricultural conversion of native prairies, wetlands, and small streams, combined with extensive tile drainage, has altered the state's hydrology and contributed to flooding, nutrient pollution, and habitat loss. Floodplain restoration offers an opportunity to address these challenges by increasing floodwater storage, improving water quality, and restoring wildlife habitat.

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Agriculture World Tour

I’ve been lucky and I’ve been able to see firsthand how people all over the world farm. When I was a student at Iowa State University, I was able to travel to Uganda, Poland, and the Netherlands. What I learned in each country expanded how I view agriculture and concentrated my passion for conservation. I went to Uganda in June 2017, knowing farming would look different from what I was used to.

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Celebrating Iowa’s Beauty and Bounty

Picture yourself out in the middle of an Iowa prairie, surrounded by the rich bubblegum pink of swamp milkweed in full bloom, with grasses and wildflowers blowing in the wind as far as the eye can see, adjacent to stunning oxbow wetlands along the Little Sioux River. The distinct silhouettes of three large birds appear on the horizon, diagonally bisecting the overcast sky on this warm summer evening, on a course to fly right overhead the people-mover you’re riding on—ornithological identities unknown until they get closer.

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Floodplain Restoration Planning Using Geospatial Tools

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Oct. 21, featuring Kelsey Karnish, Ph.D. student, agriculture and environmental science, Iowa State University. Karnish’s research integrates Geographic Information Systems (GIS), resource economics, and agronomic and hydrologic understanding to model land-use alternatives that address environmental challenges on agricultural landscapes. In the webinar, “A Spatially Explicit Approach for Identifying, Prioritizing, and Estimating Costs Associated with Potential Floodplain Easements,” Karnish will highlight how geospatial tools and data are being used to identify, prioritize, and evaluate costs associated with potential flood plain easement locations.

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Turning Cover Crop Variability into Valuable Insight

Cover crops rarely perform the same way across an entire field, and a recent webinar with Lindsay Malone of North Dakota State University focused on that variability and how cover crop performance can influence corn growth and yield. Rather than focusing on small-plot research, the highlighted research focused on real-world farm fields and asked an important question: Is cover crop variability simply another source of field variability, or can it become a valuable management tool?

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Considering Spatial Variability in Cover Crop Success – A Beyond the Basics Cover Crop Webinar

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Oct. 14, featuring Lindsay Malone, Ph.D., assistant professor of conservation agronomy, North Dakota State University. Malone’s research program focuses on conservation agronomy, which includes cover crops, soil health, livestock integration, and more. She originally hails from New York State, where she grew up on a Jersey dairy farm, and studied plant sciences at Cornell University.

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What to Know About Farmland Markets

Iowa is home to some of the best soils in the world, which result in land worth roughly double the national average. Affecting these prices are a variety of factors that often reflect the state of the agricultural industry. In last week’s webinar, Rabail Chandio, assistant professor with the Department of Economics at Iowa State University took a deeper dive, discussing, …

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Full Slate of Fall Field Days Coming Your Way!

With favorable weather forecasted to get Harvest 2026 underway this week, we hope you mark your calendars to join us for one of our eight upcoming field days this fall! Each no-cost event includes a complimentary meal, so help us ensure we have adequate space and food by RSVPing today. Cover Crop and Manure Field DayTuesday, Nov. 3 | 12:00-2:00pm…

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Midwest Farmland Market Values and Outlook

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Oct. 7, featuring Rabail Chandio, assistant professor, Department of Economics, Iowa State University. Chandio’s research focuses on agricultural land markets, land values, conservation policy, and farmland ownership, with an emphasis on how policy and market forces shape rural economies. She also holds the position of faculty affiliate of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD).

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Can Prairie Strips Prevent Flooding?

Prairie Strips are a fantastic conservation practice. Not only do they reduce nitrogen (84%), decrease sediment loss (90%), and reduce phosphorus loss (89%) they also mitigate flooding! And don’t forget about the wildlife habitat they provide. Learn more about how prairie strips reduce flooding in our most recent webinar with Betret Eustace, Assessing the Flood Mitigation Potential of Prairie Strips…

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Dig Deeper into Cover Crops with New Beyond the Basics Infographics

Iowa Learning Farms is excited to announce the release of four new infographics in our Beyond the Basics: Advanced Cover Crops Series. Joining Minimizing Corn Seedling Disease, the new infographics cover the impacts of the C:N ratio on nutrient cycling, weed suppression, grazing, and soil health. All are free to download and share on our website.

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Examining Flood Mitigation Potential of Prairie Strips

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Sept. 30, featuring Betret Eustace, CFM, Ph.D. candidate in civil engineering, Iowa State University. Eustace’s research applies integrated surface-subsurface modeling to nature-based flood mitigation (native prairie strips), aquifer recharge (low-head dams) and flood plain hydrodynamics. In the webinar, “Assessing the Flood Mitigation Potential of Prairie Strips,”

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Conservation Practices That Work for Water Quality and Wildlife

What if the same conservation practices helping keep Iowa's water clean are also helping wildlife return to the landscape? From breeding trumpeter swans to thriving tree frogs, research is revealing that investments in water quality may be delivering far more benefits than we once realized. That was the focus of last week's recent webinar with Mic Rohde, Ph.D. candidate in wildlife ecology at Iowa State University, where he is exploring how water quality practices can provide important habitat for wildlife across Iowa.

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Embracing Challenges for a Brighter Future

Challenges to agriculture may deter some farmers, but for Iowa Learning Farms farmer partner Trent Thiele, these challenges offer an opportunity for improvement. Raising corn and soybeans, along with cattle and pigs, Trent’s diverse operation is matched by his diverse efforts to take steps to maintain a healthy landscape for future generations. In addition to well-known conservation practices like no-till and cover crops, Trent has expanded his conservation efforts to include relay intercropping.

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Calling All Farmers: Share Your Thoughts on Cover Crops

Harvest is a busy time of year, but it's also when farming is front and center. Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) would love to hear from the farmers who know it best! Are you a farmer? Have 10 minutes to share your thoughts? Five participants will be selected to win a $200 gift card. Know a farmer who'd have thoughts?

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Water-Quality Conservation Practices: A Plus for Wildlife

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Sept. 23, featuring Mic Rohde, Ph.D. candidate in wildlife ecology, Iowa State University. Rohde’s research uses long-term wildlife monitoring data and spatial models to examine how land-cover changes associated with state and federally funded water quality conservation programs could affect wildlife across Iowa. In the webinar, “

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Keys to Meeting Cover Crop Goals

Adding cover crops into a corn-soybean system requires some trial and error. Despite challenges in implementing cover crops, they offer important benefits to both soil and water resources. In last week’s webinar, Liz Stahl and Anna Cates with the University of Minnesota shared their knowledge on, “Figuring Out What Works for Cover Crops in the Upper Midwest.” Understanding how to make cover crops work for you is the first step in making them a key part of your operation.

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Mapping What’s Possible for Conservation

Sara McMillan | Iowa State University ProfessorBryce Bearson | Iowa State University Graduate Student Across Iowa, farmers, conservation professionals, watershed groups and other partners are working together to put conservation into practice. New digital tools combined with more and better data have created a window of opportunity for us to accelerate the adoption of a wider range of practices across the landscape while making each new investment as useful as possible.

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Future Benefits from Fall Time Decisions

For many people across Iowa, fall is one of the busiest times of the year. As we move through September and into October, more and more farmers are getting in the field. Fall field operations are more involved than just getting the grain into the bin. Despite it being the end of this cropping season, that isn’t stopping farmers from thinking of the year ahead.

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Timely Virtual Field Day: Nitrogen Management in the Face of Super El Niño

Iowa Learning Farms (ILF) will host a timely virtual field day on Wednesday, Sep. 23, at 1 p.m. CT. The event, which is available at no cost, will feature a live discussion with Mike Castellano, William T. Frankenberger Professor of soil science at Iowa State University, and Justin Glisan, State Climatologist of Iowa, moderated by Matt Helmers, Iowa Nutrient Research Center Director.

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Maximizing Benefits This Year – A Beyond the Basics Cover Crop Webinar

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Sep. 16, featuring Liz Stahl, extension educator – crops, and Anna Cates, associate professor and extension specialist, University of Minnesota. Stahl’s education and research efforts include corn and soybean management with a focus on weed management, pesticide safety, integrated pest management and cover crops. Cates’ research focuses on soil organic matter and cropping systems, as well as environmental and agronomic outcomes of conservation.

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Modeling Bioreactor Performance

The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy calls for a 45% reduction in nitrogen (263 million pounds) to shrink the size of the deadzone in the gulf. In the most recent ILF webinar, Chris Hay poses the question, "What if we estimate nitrogen reduction in pounds?".  By looking at bioreactors' ability to remove nitrogen (N) by pounds we can answer site-level questions. Like, which installations are underperforming?

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Fresh Ideas for a Sustainable Future

Nicole Vernon has been a part of her family’s Jones County operation all of her life. When the opportunity arose for her to purchase her own farm in 2016, she jumped at the chance. Alongside her parents, Jeff and Shielly Monck, and her husband, Jon, Nicole has since taken strides to expand her operation while improving the quality of Iowa’s natural resources.

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The Relay Intercropping Rye Results Are In

As we conclude the third year of our relay intercropping demonstration project, cereal rye grain production continued to show variability across sites, reinforcing the importance of multi-year evaluations to better understand crop performance under diverse environmental conditions. Data collected from six farmer partners across the state provide insight into rye yield trends in a relay intercropping system from 2024 through 2026 and illustrate the influence of weather and site-specific conditions on grain production.

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Pounds Removed: A Better Estimation of Bioreactor Performance

Please join us for the Iowa Learning Farms webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, Sep. 9, featuring Chris Hay, owner and principal of Hay Water Solutions. Hay’s work focuses on agricultural subsurface drainage and water quality. With more than three decades of cross-sector experience, he helps move conservation drainage practices – such as bioreactors, saturated buffers, controlled drainage and drainage water recycling – from research into tools that farmers and practitioners can actually use.

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New Research Reveals the Complex Climate Benefits of Iowa’s Restored Wetlands

Our latest webinar featured Jonathan D. Norton, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental science at Iowa State University, who shared exciting research on the role restored wetlands play in both nutrient reduction and greenhouse gas dynamics. While wetlands are widely recognized for their ability to remove nitrate from agricultural water through denitrification, Jonathan highlighted an important challenge: when denitrification is incomplete, it can produce nitrous oxide (N₂O), a potent greenhouse gas.

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On Farm Forestry Field Guide – Request a Copy Today!

Hot off the presses! We have published the On-Farm Forestry Field Guide for Iowa, which is available at no cost. The guide covers tree-centric topics and provides detailed advice on approaches to forest management. It also highlights on-farm benefits ranging from windbreaks and erosion control to crop trees and high-value timber production. Billy Beck, assistant professor and extension forestry specialist at Iowa State, collaborated with Iowa Learning Farms to prepare the guide for use by farmers and landowners.

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New ISU demonstration site to put public spotlight on water-quality best practices

With help from a $1 million federal grant, Iowa State University, in collaboration with Iowa Learning Farms, is developing the Watershed Innovation Farm – a demonstration site for showcasing nature-based water-quality measures such as saturated buffers, bioreactors and wetlands. This exciting new project was recently highlighted by ISU News and Iowa Capitol Dispatch, as the Watershed Innovation Farm aims to appeal to a variety of audiences, from farmers and industry leaders to teachers and conservation officials.

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