Water News Archive

Farmers and ranchers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of soil quality/health to the productivity and sustainability of their agricultural system. Research and field observations have demonstrated that carefully managed manure applications can contribute to improved soil quality with limited environmental and social risks. However, a comprehensive assemblage of outputs and conclusions from research studies, field trials, soil labs databases, and other sources has never been developed.

With ground opening up for manure application following wheat harvest, this is a good time to ask about the fit for manure with wheat? There are some good opportunities to use manure following wheat harvest.

In your lawn is overly shaded and/or has poor drainage, moss may be a problem.  Moss is a fast growing, shallow rooted plant that covers the ground, smothers grass and exhausts food reserves from the soil. When moss appears in a lawn, it is usually because growing conditions for turfgrasses and landscape plants are adverse, usually too little light and air circulation.  Other conditions favorable for moss invasion include soil with poor aeration and percolation, compaction, low fertility and high acidity or alkalinity.

Managing aquatic plants in a pond or lake can be like walking a tight rope, especially in shallow lakes.  When lakes receive excess nutrients, primarily phosphorus in Nebraska, the result can be a dense growth of aquatic plants.  But when too many aquatic plants are removed, water clarity and algae problems may follow.

A value-added market for woody biomass (wood chips) generated during management of Eastern Red Cedar and native trees in riparian forests and rangeland is critical to offset the cost to landowners of managing forested areas for fire prevention, invasive plant species control, improving wildlife habitat and ecological preservation. Utilization of wood chips alone and co-mingled with livestock manure or nitrogen fertilizer is being investigated (since 2015) as a land treatment practice on local landowner crop fields with research focused on evaluating impacts on soil moisture holding capacity, temperature, biology, & other properties that impact crop productivity.

When a swine lagoon is abandoned, the owner has the choice of decommissioning the lagoon or maintaining the integrity of the lagoon. Decommissioning means dewatering the lagoon and land applying the sludge at the bottom. One cannot just fill in the hole. The process of removing the water and the sludge is time consuming and takes resources and planning to complete properly. One aspect of the process does have some cost recovery and that is utilizing the sludge in a beneficial way.

Simple checks you can preform on your center pivots to make sure they are ready for the irrigation season.

This article is Part 1 of a two-part discussion on the value of manure. Part 2 focuses on soil quality benefits provided by manure and appeared in the March 6, 2017 CropWatch.

Nebraska Extension, the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, and Game and Parks again have partnered to offer a series of pond and lake management introductory workshops.  These workshops are free and open to everyone who makes decisions for and about lakes and ponds or anyone who wants to learn more about protecting them.  If you’ve ever had an algae bloom, fish kill, murky water, or just want to know what’s going on in the lake, this workshop is for you.  All 2017 workshops are focused on sandpit lakes.

The 2017 Spring Stormwater Symposium brought together professionals from both public and private sectors to learn from local, regional and national experts. The symposium will focused on examples of stormwater program funding and management, and took an in-depth look into the life cycle of a successful stormwater management project.