Water News Archive

The Soil Health Nexus is excited to debut two new resources on the Soil Health Toolbox! Two Soil Health Nexus members, Francisco Arriaga, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Anna Cates, Assistant Professor and State Soil Health Specialist at the University of Minnesota, recently published a long-awaited whitepaper exploring the connection between soil health and water quality.

The public is becoming increasingly concerned about the harmful effects of pesticides on the environment. Protecting water and the environment is a key element of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP). It is essential that pesticide applicators understand all aspects of the pesticides they use in order to properly manage them. Whether you want to learn more about protecting human health, the environment, becoming certified and licensed, or improving your bottom line UNL Extension PSEP can help!

Videos and resources on vegetative treatment areas, wetlands, low water stream crossings, and water quality projects.

The Water Optimizer tool evaluates single fields for several crop options. Irrigated crops include: corn, soybeans, sorghum, wheat, alfalfa, edible beans, sunflowers, and sugar beets. Dryland crops include: corn, soybeans, sorghum, sunflowers, alfalfa and wheat in continuous, summer fallow and eco-fallow rotations.

As crops come out of the field, manure application equipment typically begins going in. While knowing the nutrient concentrations in your manure, the nutrient levels in the soil, and the nutrient needs of future crop needs are important, another critical component of the manure application process is using the right manure spreader setting, speed, and lane spacing during application. Combining all of these factors to optimize application efficiency is called calibrating the manure spreader.

Water quality can be degraded by contaminants contained in manure, from water used at milking centers, from silage leachate, and from open lot runoff. These potential pollutants typically follow one or more possible pathways to water.

National Septic Smart week is Sept. 17–21, 2018. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses a week in September each year to focus on improved awareness of proper operation and maintenance of septic systems across the U.S.  The wastewater of approximately 25 percent of the population of the U.S. is treated by on-site or individual wastewater systems. In Nebraska, that statistic holds consistent with approximately 25 percent of our state’s population served by onsite wastewater systems on farms, acreages, suburbs and even some small communities.