Water News Archive

Our “instant” culture gravitates to testimonials about how to rapidly increase soil organic matter by 1% within 1 to 3 years. Conversations with lenders and landlords regarding rewards on manure applications and multi-species cover crops investments would likely be easier if financial rewards or measured soil physical properties came quickly.

Water conservation is important in home and business landscapes. While leaving automatic irrigation systems turned off, and only turning them on when plants need water, is a much needed practice change in many residential and business landscapes, selecting drought tolerant plants is also important. This article focuses on drought tolerant shrubs for different functions. While listed as drought tolerant, keep in mind plants need established roots to develop tolerance to dry sites. It is often a deep or extensive root system that makes a plant drought tolerant.

Manure is a valuable source of nutrients offering agronomic and soil health value. Most manure nutrients (e.g. phosphorus) can be managed successfully with traditional soil analysis. However, nitrogen in manure requires some simple advance planning to insure that it is given proper credit for offsetting commercial fertilizer inputs.

Storm drains in some towns have markers that read “No dumping. Drains to waterways”.  These markers are part of the public education communities are doing to help protect surface water from urban run-off pollution. Most residential areas are designed for rainwater to flow into the street and then into a storm drain. From there, it flows almost directly to a stream, river or lake, taking along what it picks up from surfaces it flows across.

Using high-tech instruments suspended from helicopters, Nebraska’s Natural Resources Districts are getting a new look at what lies below. Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys use principles of electromagnetic induction to generate images of the subsurface. In the past ten years, more than 18,000 miles of AEM surveys were completed in the State: about 6,600 miles were flown in 2018 alone.

Abandoned manure storages present a risk to the environment by accidental overflow or leakage due to lack of management. It is in the best interest of the environment and the property owner, who is liable for any environmental damage resulting from any discharge, whether leakage or overflow, to properly close any unused manure storage structure.

Discolored water. A strange odor. Stained ceramic fixtures such as tubs, sinks and toilets. Discolored clothes, towels and dishes. Reduced water pressure.  These are all some of the potential impacts from high levels of iron and manganese in your water supply. 

While we can’t ever control or even predict the weather, it is important to have a plan on how to deliver water to our home gardens during the hot, dry months of the summer. While Nebraska may be the capitol of crop irrigation systems, many home gardeners don’t give quite as much thought about water management and delivery in their home vegetable gardens or landscapes. Aside from reducing water need through some good management practices, delivering water in an efficient and sustainable way is important when planning and planting our home gardens. 

Nebraska Extension, the Ogallala Water Project and the Nebraska Water Balance Alliance will host a water and crops field day on Aug. 23 at the West Central Research and Extension Center, 402 W. State Farm Road, North Platte.

Roughly half of all neighbor complaints of livestock odors originate from land application of manure. A weather forecast and a little knowledge of odor dilution can be a powerful tool for keeping your neighbors happy, or at least avoiding those irate phone calls. Picking the right weather conditions for land applying manure, may not improve your popularity in the community, but it can go along way with improving your community’s acceptance of livestock systems.

Management is the key to keeping dust under control. By using some basic dust control techniques, open feedlots can prevent or minimize the problem.

Rain gardens are an aesthetic feature of your residential landscape that also has a hydrologic function. Hydrologic means related to water. A properly designed and constructed rain garden for a residential landscape (no underground drainage system) is designed like a bathtub to hold water and let it slowly seep into the soil beneath the garden. This water is available for plant growth, and this water is removed from runoff that leaves your yard and does not contribute to downstream flooding or pollution.  How well does your rain garden serve its hydrologic function?

Do you know how much water your crop is using on a daily basis?  When I ask this question most guys tell me somewhere between 0.20 - 0.40 inches per day.  Sometimes they are close but wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure?  It is rather simple to figure out if you have the right tools.  An atmometer, such as the ETgage®, is what you need to calculate reference ET.  ET stands for evapotranspiration.  This is the amount of water evaporated from the soil and plant surface and transpired through the plant.

Because of a growing concern about manure irrigation, the University of Wisconsin Extension assembled a workgroup to research the concerns. The workgroup included scientists, public health specialists, state agency experts, farmers, conservationists and others. Over the course of two years, the group gathered and studied the science of manure irrigation, which culminated in a report that contains findings, responses and recommendations. This article will review a few of their findings related to bacterial transport as well as highlight some of the reasons why a farmer might opt to apply manure via irrigation rather than other ways.

When designed properly, runoff holding ponds, lagoons, and other earthen manure storage structures are sized to contain manure, process wastewater, and storm water that drain into or fall on them throughout their designed storage period. Excess precipitation, particularly chronic wet weather, can lead to concerns about storages overflowing even when they have been managed correctly.

The arrival of spring, warm weather and sunshine brings a flurry of activity around your acreage. Annual plantings are done, mulch is purchased, spring cleaning is completed and the mowing season begins.  All of those things are done annually to maintain homes and yards.

In the overall “holiday” turf fertilization schedule, where Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and Halloween are indicators of good timing for applications to cool season turfgrasses (Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass), early summer is a key timeframe for encouraging healthy growth.  When growing warm season turf species such as buffalograss and zoysiagrass, Memorial Day is perhaps the most important time to apply fertilizer, perhaps followed by a light 4th of July application if a lawn is thin or in need of recovery.

With spring weather finally in the forecast, I get excited thinking about my gardening activities for the summer. One of the things that is always on the front of my mind is watering. Will this be another dry year, a normal year (if Nebraska even has normal), or a wet year.

National Drinking Water Week is held in May each year to bring attention to important water quantity and quality issues and their relationship to drinking water supplies.  The attention to drinking water during that week provides an opportunity to learn more water resources in general and also serves a reminder to think about where your water comes from.

Winter cereal rye planted as a cover crop has been shown effective in capturing nitrate before it leaches from the root zone. We conducted on-farm trials in central and southern Minnesota to determine if a rye cover crop would capture significant root-zone nitrate in the fall and spring but release it in time to maintain yield in the subsequent corn crop.