NRCS Small Grain Iowa, Minnesota, & Wisconsin Project

We have pushed to enter more data in the calculator this year to refine our estimates of GHG emissions across diversified rotations. Early estimates show lower GHG emissions in small grain cropping rotations compared with corn-bean rotations, across the entire rotation. More data will help us calibrate this relationship further. We've been doing tile monitoring on small grain fields to continue to quantify the effect of small grains and covers on water quality. Together these results will be presented at the Soil and Water Conservation Society's annual meeting in July of 2021.

In 2020 we made a large push to enter more small grain production information, as well as diversified cropping system information into the Calculator. We will be analyzing this data in more detail in the next few months and will be showcasing the results at the Soil and Water Conservation Society annual meeting. Looking at previous data we do see that adding in a small grain to a corn-soybean rotation lowers the average GHG emissions across the rotation. More data will help us quantify this relationship more.

We are using tile monitoring data to capture how small grains improve water quality. Initial observations of the data support our hypothesis that small grains lower nitrate-N concentrations from tile water outlets. These results will be shared with the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Center.

• PFI partnered with the Iowa Soybean Association to monitor tile water from fields with manure applied in summer after a small grain to a cover crop and a comparison field with no cover crop to determine nitrate leaching from the system. From April-November 2022, ISA collected water samples 5 times during the growing season from tile outflows draining a small-grain field that received summer manure and a neighboring comparison field with no cover crop and fall 2021 manure application. On average, the nitrate concentration of the water samples was 15% lower in the small grain field.

As of 2024, this project has been completed as grant funding supporting the funding had ended. Please see the summary of the project below: 

Overall farmer participation for adding small grains and legumes to a corn-soybean rotation over the years of this grant.

2021 - With a goal of 1,000 acres enrolled in our small grains cost share program, we ended 2021 enrollment with a total of 17 farmers on 1,640 acres in the fertilizer reduction program and 24 farmers on 1,759 acres in the small grains program.

2022 - The 2022 small grains cost share program was wildly successful with 212 farmers planting 19,007 acres of small grains and 53 farmers enrolling 4,760 acres in the fertilizer reduction program. This surpasses our goal of 10,000 acres of small grains in Year 2.

2023- Additional company partners provided matching funds to this USA CIG Grant this year to increase the number of farmers and acres. In 2023, a total of 288 farmers have been paid to use cost-share funds for practices 328, 340 and 590, and planted 23,602 acres using these practices. Nineteen (19) farmers, who are delivering wheat to ADM's Mendota facility as part of our supply chain project with PepsiCo, enrolled in the program. Five of those 19 have chosen to enroll in the fertilizer reduction cost-share. Two farmers participated in the Smithfield pilot and one enrolled in the fertilizer reduction program. A total of 113 farmers were paid through matching funds from HSBC and 17 farmers were paid through matching funds to this grant from Oatly. Twenty-six (26) of those farmers who were paid through matched funding also enrolled in the split cost-share, while 25% of participants chose the split cost-share option.  

2024 – Matching funds continued in 2024 with several company partners. In 2024, a total of 303 farmers have been paid to use cost-share funds for practices 328, 340 and 590, and planted 42,629 acres using these practices. Twenty-two farmers, who are delivering wheat to ADM's Mendota facility as part of our supply chain project with PepsiCo, enrolled in the program. Five of those 22 have chosen to enroll in the fertilizer reduction cost-share on 930 acres. A total of 133 farmers were paid through matching funds from HSBC and 102 farmers were paid through matching funds to this grant from PepsiCo. Seventy-one (71) of those farmers who were paid through matched funding also enrolled in the split cost-share, which is roughly 30% of participants.

Once again, we'd appreciate models for small grain crops other than winter and spring wheat. Most of the data we enter are for oats and cereal rye. Many of our farmers also harvest their small grain as forage and there is no silage or forage harvest option for small grains, there is only the option for harvesting them as grain or entering corn silage.

Perhaps more urgently, we'd really appreciate a silage option for small grain crops. Some of our farmers harvest small grains as silage instead of grain, however there is no way to enter yield (as in tons of biomass) for a small grain crop.

• In 2019, PFI completed review of three different tools: Field to Market’s Fieldprint Calculator, Cool Farm Alliance’s Cool Farm Tool and the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s Resource Stewardship Evaluation Tool.  Data from 2017 and 2018 crop years were entered into these tools to provide a partial picture of the environmental benefits of extending a corn-soybean system with a year of small grain and legume cover crop production. Relying on only two years of data for this analysis is inherently a partial picture of a longer three- or four-year rotation; however, within these two years we captured the practices (a) adding more cool season crops to the cropping system (b) cover cropping and (c) input changes to the following crop year such as reducing fertilizers or herbicides. Based on the report PFI suggested the following recommendations for improving usability and accuracy of FPC:
  • Develop better instructions for the crop rotation builder to avoid issues like false fallows and entering appropriate figures when prompted for residue and manure amounts.  
  • Improve ability of the tool to handle diverse systems (alfalfa, multiple small grain crop options, oats and hay in the same year, etc.) by better calibrating average yields or by moving towards more per acre units to avoid the issue of crop by crop variance.  
  • Improve model treatment of winter small grains versus spring small grains as it relates to water quality and soil conservation.  

PFI's suggestions were incorporated into future versions of the Platform and this objective has been completed as of 2023.