Water News Archive

Fall is a great time of the year. Trees develop beautiful fall colors, and then those leaves fall to the ground. Tree leaves are fun to play in as a kid and most everyone loves the crunch sound under your feet as we walk over fallen leaves. However, leaves should not be left on the lawn. This can be damaging to turfgrass and to surface water. It is best to use leaves or remove them. Why Rake

If you raise livestock or poultry, you know it is in your best interest to keep your animals as healthy as possible. Healthy animals grow better. They also produce higher quality products, like meat, milk and eggs, and produce them with greater efficiency when they are healthy. So, along with keeping animals well fed and watered, comfortable, and safe, it is important to keep them healthy by minimizing their exposure to disease-causing organisms.

Groundwater Protection: It’s Up to Everyone  If you think about the water cycle, you begin to realize the water we use every day, is in essence, recycled. There’s no new water, we are drinking some of the same water the dinosaurs drank! Keeping our drinking water sources safe begins with each of us. There are many things everyone can do to assist with groundwater protection whether you live in an urban or rural area.

When a tree fails, it is sometimes difficult to determine the cause.  In many cases, it is due to a failure to spread the roots out in the planting hole or simply planting it too deeply.  Doing so leads to girdling or lack of an adequate amount of oxygen, resulting in death.  Other than the correct planting procedure, lack of good follow-up care is the next most common cause.  Each is very important in ensuring a successful planting.  Just like planting errors, many follow-up procedures can be done improperly or forgotten altogether.

There is still time to plant shade trees this fall, but know that fertilization and the addition of root stimulant products have been shown to have little or no effect on how quickly a tree establishes. However, the unnecessary use of these products could lead to an increase in nutrients in surface water that can impair water ecosystems. Fertilizer and root stimulant products are not recommended unless a soil test indicates they are needed.

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may seem like extra work that can hurt business, but in reality best management practices for reducing GHG emissions can be economical. These practices may also have other benefits such as reducing unpleasant odors. There are two main areas where producers can reduce significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Best management practices to increase production efficiency and reduce methane produced from cattle digestion of feed can be used alongside manure management techniques.

While the North American Manure Expo may not reach bucket level status for your vacation plans, for anyone replacing or upgrading equipment for managing manure, it is the place to be. One emerging theme common at this year’s Manure Expo was “Precision Manure”. This article will share a few observations around my conversations with vendors and manure applicators on “Precision Manure”.

Have you ever been overwhelmed by the amount of manure regulations in Nebraska? Or anywhere? This article simplifies basic manure regulations. Manure rules can be hard to remember, but always remember your Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy representative is a great resource. Don’t be afraid to call them if you have questions. And, as always, the UNL manure team is here to help if called upon.

Manure storage and its application on crop land may contribute a form of environmental contamination: antimicrobial resistant bacteria. These bacteria in manure are perceived to cause diseases in humans through environmental contamination. However, a recent study in University of Nebraska-Lincoln feedlots near Mead, Nebraska concluded that long-term manure storage as static stockpiles has the advantage of inactivating antimicrobial resistant bacteria, and it has potential to reduce antimicrobial resistance genes.

Center pivot irrigation systems have several potential hazards, so personal safety is a priority!

Center pivots operation below or above the designed water pressure can create uniformity issues across the field and/or increase operating expenses.

Animal agriculture often endures criticism from neighbors and consumers relative to sustainability. But when it comes to management of carbon and nutrients, animal agriculture has a positive story to share. Many environmental and sustainability organizations promote the importance of a “circular economy” for increasing sustainability. Those engaged with Nebraska agriculture should help our neighbors and consumers recognize agriculture’s long term practice of implementing this circular economy. This article will help introduce agriculture’s circular economy for nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), carbon (C), and other nutrients and messages you might share with neighbors and consumers about the Nebraska Advantage for sustainability.

With Nebraska’s weather extremes, many of us have spots in our landscapes that need to tolerate periods of wet feet as well as periods of drought… quite a challenge! The type of wet conditions also varies. A wet, poorly drained site is different than a moist site with good drainage. Wet, poorly drained soils have low oxygen content since the pore space is full of water. For most plants good root growth requires a careful balance of moisture and oxygen; and many plants that like moisture cannot handle standing water. Below are some plants that can tolerate moist to wet soil.

Join us on the 11th annual Omaha Green Infrastructure Tour! This year, we invite you to join us for a Maintenance and Management tour.  We will re-visit some of our most interesting tour stops from the past decade and explore the good, bad and ugly of maintaining and managing green infrastructure. Register at go.unl.edu/OmahaGreenInfrastructureTour

Agriculture in the United States provides a contribution to greenhouse gases, accounting for 9% of total emissions (US EPA). Animal agriculture is a large contributor. In beef production, both cow-calf operations and feedlots produce these gases. By implementing simple changes in cattle’s diet, though, there are several ways to reduce the number of these greenhouse gas emissions.

It is important that farmers and agriculturalists to implement practices to reduce the runoff of antibiotics. This article helps recognize existing conservation practices one has already implemented that are limiting these risks and additional options that may be considered.

You see a bright shiny package at the garden center saying that it can help you have the most bountiful garden ever, the greenest lawn in the neighborhood, your plants will have miraculous growth, or it will supply every element on earth to make sure that your plants are living their best life. It’s got what plants crave….It’s got electrolytes! You reach out to grab that package and ……. Woah!  Pump the brakes!  Do you know if your plants even need to be fertilized?  Are you just falling for that shiny marketing, or do your plants really need added fertility to grow?

On a brisk April day, I was traveling with a group of adventurers through the wilds of the Minnesota country side. We came upon a steep embankment and climbed it so that we might see what lay beyond. When I reached the top, and the crowd around me had parted, I thought for a moment I might suddenly have traded places with Samwise Gamgee, hobbit, because I was gazing out onto a field of what reminded me very much of the steaming slag pits of Mordor.  However, rather than an apocalyptic hell-scape I was instead looking at a premier example of sustainable agriculture.

The excess rain this year is a change from many years where we are already worried about drought stress on our landscapes. However, excess moisture is causing problems in our landscapes this year from fungal diseases as well as nutrient deficiencies. Chlorosis

Antimicrobial resistant infections have been recognized worldwide as a significant threat to public health in recent years. As new research continues to help us understand and characterize AMR populations and potential risks associated with them, developing a nationwide capacity for conducting effective scientific outreach and education on this topic has become critical. In summer 2018, a nationwide team of research and extension professionals was assembled to design and deliver extension programming on AMR.