Nutrient management & Water quality

Ohio agriculture responds to proposed water quality rules

By Matt Reese The comment period closed earlier this month for the proposed regulations for nutrient management in an effort to improve water quality in Ohio. Of course, agriculture is a key stakeholder in this debate and there were a wide variety of comments from Ohio’s agricultural organizations. One common theme running through the responses [...]

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Federal, state and local officials take advantage of water quality training

Ohio’s local soil and water conservation representatives received the tools and information they needed to inform Ohio farmers and landowners through a new training opportunity offered by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). The Nutrients and Water Quality class is a new component of ODNR’s Technician Development Program being offered through the ODNR Division [...]

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Water quality rules proposed for Ohio

By Matt Reese Experts have been talking for years now about impending and increasing regulation on agricultural nutrients in an effort to address the notorious toxic algal blooms plaguing the state’s water. As of March 7, those regulations have been proposed for Ohio. “There are essentially two components to this. One component deals with the [...]

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Have water quality regulations gone too far?

By Matt Reese Thus far, lawmakers in Ohio are making a concerted effort to prioritize reality, and not political perception, in the regulatory debate about water quality. This has often not been the case, particularly in watersheds in Florida and in the Chesapeake Bay that have received the most federal attention. There has been speculation [...]

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Communication is crucial in water quality debate

By Matt Reese As Ohio faces mounting water quality concerns with agriculture as culprit on the “to blame” list, there will be an inevitable debate over the balance of political perceptions and actual edge-of-field reality in terms of how to address the problem. The green, toxic scum in Lake Erie and other Ohio bodies of [...]

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Changing your farm in a changing climate

By Matt Reese The climate is changing. Are farms changing with it? “Climate changes all the time and I am not sure that it is something that we need to get too excited about, but we do have to adapt to it,” said Jim Hoorman, with Ohio State University Extension in Putnam County. “We are [...]

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Dean recognized for work with no-till

By Matt Reese Allen Dean was recently recognized as the No-Till Farmer of the Year by the Ohio No-Till Council for his dedication to the lack of tillage on his Williams County soybean and wheat farm. Dean’s parents did not farm, but he learned to love working on the land at a young age and [...]

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Cover crops boosting soils and profits

By Matt Reese Like a kid on Christmas morning, Allen Dean can hardly wait to dig into his soil test results from the fields on his Williams County soybean and wheat farm. He excitedly looks to see how his soil nutrient holding has improved each year —something that has been happening consistently since he combined [...]

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Cover crop seeder turning heads in Williams County

By Matt Reese Allen Dean’s wife Shelly has been talking about building a new house for years. But, unfortunately, the house will have to wait a bit longer. The dream house project has been temporarily shelved due to a new cover crop seeder designed to facilitate the booming interest on the farm and in the [...]

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Controlled drainage paid off in 2012

By Matt Reese The 100-bushel soybean yields at Louie Rehm’s Wayne County farm have been getting quite a bit of attention this fall for their performance above the ground, but that is largely due to what was happening below the ground. The big yields were boosted by the installation of a controlled drainage system this spring [...]

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