As long as we are doing sports related takes on nitrogen, it's a good time for me to roll out is my concept for nitrogen regulations based on sports salary caps. You may not like my 200 lbs/acre cap figure (I never recommend that much), but there are many farmers applying way more than that.
Premise: A farm should only be allowed to apply a finite amount of nitrogen per year, based on crop uptake and all nutrient sources. I am proposing a hard cap, not based on yield, but on a reasonable number like maybe 200 lbs/acre, maybe more stringent in areas where there are documented issues with nitrates in the groundwater.
If a farm chooses to or is forced to apply its manure or commercial fertilizer in a manner where it is more prone to being lost from volatilization, leaching, or de-nitrification from saturated soils before it is taken up by the crop being grown, it does not have the option of applying more nitrogen. The farm will have to take the yield hit from not having enough nitrogen available to grow the crop.
This will encourage farms to utilize practices to preserve/conserve nitrogen. Fall manure or anhydrous ammonia will be a lot less likely to be applied if a farm cannot add more nitrogen in the spring or in-season to make up for the amount that is lost once it has been applied. The same decisions will also have to be applied to spring liquid manure. If a farm wants to inject 12,000 gallons of liquid manure in the spring to supply 180 units of N to his corn crop, he can. However, if we have a wet spring and/or summer and Adapt N says that x amount of nitrogen was lost, the farm doesn’t get to side-dress more nitrogen, it already used its quota on that land. If volatilization of ammonia from manure into the atmosphere is a concern, the farm doesn’t get the opportunity to discount nitrogen lost in that manner, it still goes into his allocation.
A farmer can take a number of strategies with his manure or commercial fertilizer under these rules. He can reduce his manure applications per acre and plan on side-dressing, thus putting less nitrogen at risk to a loss. He can apply stabilizers on his commercial nitrogen applied pre-plant, or just plan on side-dressing the majority of it. I am not convinced that stabilizers work on manure, but maybe if there is a regulation enforced need for it, some entrepreneur will develop an effective product. There may be more cover crops to help conserve fall or winter applied manure.
A farm could always decide to keep doing what he is currently doing. He will just get less yields in years where he loses his nitrogen due to poor conservation practices because he won’t have the option of applying more. Will this increase the cost of forage and grain crops? Will some dairy farms have to have more acres to dispose of their manure? Probably, but it will likely reduce the amount of nitrogen being applied per acre in a “risky” fashion.
If you want to equate nitrogen to player salaries in sports, I picture a hard-cap like the NFL , instead of a soft cap with a luxury tax like the NBA or MLB. If you spend x amount of dollars on your Nick Foles, aka spring incorporated manure, and he/it doesn’t deliver, you don’t get to spend more on another player/N. If it was like MLB you could just keep spending on players and pay a luxury tax. I don’t think we would want that. Come to think of it, trading carbon credits is also kind of like that.
Without some cap on nitrogen applications, as long as we have “cheap” fertilizer, the only thing Adapt N does for most farms is encourage them to apply more nitrogen in a wet year.
And yes, we would have to make money available for enforcement, probably through some sort of reporting and auditing process. This really pains me to say because I hate red tape.
The criminal justice system is built around serving "justice" . 1 person, one lifer. But, if there's money to be made "justice" evaporates. Troy and Naig... can lie, the farmer can fudge and the public turns a blind eye. We vote people in that serve industry over our neighbors.
None of this would be possible if enough people stood behind you Chris and everyone else trying to speak truth to deaf ears.
What inspires people to rally around Trump. What about water quality issues, cancer rates in Iowa doesn't inspire people to run for office or vote differently.
Great synopsis of nitrate. Like Dr John sang,"Oh, but if I don't do it you know somebody else will."
There are many in Ag who recognize better. Our responsibility is to support better. An Organic flat barn egg may not be best, but it is better. Buy that. Char your brush if you have any. Drive less. Anything.
Jeez, how many Troy's did or do I know? A lot, an awful lot. How many people do I know who have been affected by cancer, including my family, a lot. But good ol' blissfully ignorant Troy is buying beers at happy hour Friday night at the local tavern, cheers.
Add to this nitrogen burden all of the other toxic contaminants of the air and water -- the unaccounted leakage of toxic capital into the neighborhood, the tradeoff for "feeding the world" -- and multiply this on such vast scales and what we have here is a load unfathomable. The least we could ask of our corn-king captors is they lighten the toxic load by half by say 2035. But I guess they'd be seeing that as $20,000 per acre stranded. The irony is that the cost of growing corn is gonna get so sky high that only the tourists, flying to Cancun, high over the carbon pipelines, will be able to afford to burn it, deluded they are saving the earth.
Chris,
As long as we are doing sports related takes on nitrogen, it's a good time for me to roll out is my concept for nitrogen regulations based on sports salary caps. You may not like my 200 lbs/acre cap figure (I never recommend that much), but there are many farmers applying way more than that.
Premise: A farm should only be allowed to apply a finite amount of nitrogen per year, based on crop uptake and all nutrient sources. I am proposing a hard cap, not based on yield, but on a reasonable number like maybe 200 lbs/acre, maybe more stringent in areas where there are documented issues with nitrates in the groundwater.
If a farm chooses to or is forced to apply its manure or commercial fertilizer in a manner where it is more prone to being lost from volatilization, leaching, or de-nitrification from saturated soils before it is taken up by the crop being grown, it does not have the option of applying more nitrogen. The farm will have to take the yield hit from not having enough nitrogen available to grow the crop.
This will encourage farms to utilize practices to preserve/conserve nitrogen. Fall manure or anhydrous ammonia will be a lot less likely to be applied if a farm cannot add more nitrogen in the spring or in-season to make up for the amount that is lost once it has been applied. The same decisions will also have to be applied to spring liquid manure. If a farm wants to inject 12,000 gallons of liquid manure in the spring to supply 180 units of N to his corn crop, he can. However, if we have a wet spring and/or summer and Adapt N says that x amount of nitrogen was lost, the farm doesn’t get to side-dress more nitrogen, it already used its quota on that land. If volatilization of ammonia from manure into the atmosphere is a concern, the farm doesn’t get the opportunity to discount nitrogen lost in that manner, it still goes into his allocation.
A farmer can take a number of strategies with his manure or commercial fertilizer under these rules. He can reduce his manure applications per acre and plan on side-dressing, thus putting less nitrogen at risk to a loss. He can apply stabilizers on his commercial nitrogen applied pre-plant, or just plan on side-dressing the majority of it. I am not convinced that stabilizers work on manure, but maybe if there is a regulation enforced need for it, some entrepreneur will develop an effective product. There may be more cover crops to help conserve fall or winter applied manure.
A farm could always decide to keep doing what he is currently doing. He will just get less yields in years where he loses his nitrogen due to poor conservation practices because he won’t have the option of applying more. Will this increase the cost of forage and grain crops? Will some dairy farms have to have more acres to dispose of their manure? Probably, but it will likely reduce the amount of nitrogen being applied per acre in a “risky” fashion.
If you want to equate nitrogen to player salaries in sports, I picture a hard-cap like the NFL , instead of a soft cap with a luxury tax like the NBA or MLB. If you spend x amount of dollars on your Nick Foles, aka spring incorporated manure, and he/it doesn’t deliver, you don’t get to spend more on another player/N. If it was like MLB you could just keep spending on players and pay a luxury tax. I don’t think we would want that. Come to think of it, trading carbon credits is also kind of like that.
Without some cap on nitrogen applications, as long as we have “cheap” fertilizer, the only thing Adapt N does for most farms is encourage them to apply more nitrogen in a wet year.
And yes, we would have to make money available for enforcement, probably through some sort of reporting and auditing process. This really pains me to say because I hate red tape.
Thoughts are appreciated.
The criminal justice system is built around serving "justice" . 1 person, one lifer. But, if there's money to be made "justice" evaporates. Troy and Naig... can lie, the farmer can fudge and the public turns a blind eye. We vote people in that serve industry over our neighbors.
None of this would be possible if enough people stood behind you Chris and everyone else trying to speak truth to deaf ears.
What inspires people to rally around Trump. What about water quality issues, cancer rates in Iowa doesn't inspire people to run for office or vote differently.
Great synopsis of nitrate. Like Dr John sang,"Oh, but if I don't do it you know somebody else will."
There are many in Ag who recognize better. Our responsibility is to support better. An Organic flat barn egg may not be best, but it is better. Buy that. Char your brush if you have any. Drive less. Anything.
Jeez, how many Troy's did or do I know? A lot, an awful lot. How many people do I know who have been affected by cancer, including my family, a lot. But good ol' blissfully ignorant Troy is buying beers at happy hour Friday night at the local tavern, cheers.
Maybe capitalism could help solve the dead zone problem, if the price of N increased by 10x???
Another great post. Thanks!
Add to this nitrogen burden all of the other toxic contaminants of the air and water -- the unaccounted leakage of toxic capital into the neighborhood, the tradeoff for "feeding the world" -- and multiply this on such vast scales and what we have here is a load unfathomable. The least we could ask of our corn-king captors is they lighten the toxic load by half by say 2035. But I guess they'd be seeing that as $20,000 per acre stranded. The irony is that the cost of growing corn is gonna get so sky high that only the tourists, flying to Cancun, high over the carbon pipelines, will be able to afford to burn it, deluded they are saving the earth.