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The Christmas and New Year holidays means parties with lots of food. Have you ever been to a party and you just cannot stop eating even though you are full (stuffed is more like it)? Why do we keep eating? It may be because our bodies are looking for certain foods with essential nutrients that are lacking in our diet. That “hidden hunger” often makes us over eat even though we do not need the extra calories. Pregnant women have urges for different foods to fulfill their bodies demand for essential nutrients needed to produce a healthy baby. In third world counties, some women consume soil (clay) to get iron or other micronutrients missing in their diet. Either their food diet is low in some essential nutrient (low nutrient density) or they just do not have access to foods that have the right essential elements. Several decade long studies indicate that the nutrient density of the food we eat today is declining. A key finding is that you would have to eat 2X as much meat, 3X more fruit,

Farmers who want to plant cover crops after corn and soybeans also want to control resistant weeds like marestail, waterhemp, and giant ragweed. Often the residual soil herbicides remain active and have a long residual or half-life that could hurt cover crop establishment. Herbicide half-life is how long it takes for half the herbicide to break down. Good stands of radish and cereal rye also suppress these tough weeds. Since many factors vary from field to field and even certain areas of the field, residual herbicide activity at cover crop establishment is difficult to predict. Herbicides remain biologically active based on soil temperature, rainfall, time of application, organic matter, soil type, and soil pH. Generally, the warmer the soil at planting time, the higher the microbial activity and the faster the herbicide breaks down. Moisture is critical, so dry summers means less or slower breakdown than when moisture is not limiting. The earlier a herbicide is applied allows the herb

Companies are now starting to pay farmers to build and store soil carbon. Starting in 2020, carbon credits will be publicity traded and farmers can sign up to get paid on an annual basis the soil carbon they store. Why are companies willing to pay farmers to put carbon in the soil? First, carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that is regulated as a potential pollutant. It is extremely expensive for companies to reduce their carbon footprint or reduce the emission of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is cheaper for companies to pay someone else to tie up carbon dioxide as soil carbon than it is for them to do it themselves. Carbon trading with verification is required for this transaction to occur. Since farming practices are variable, the payment needs to be verified over time. Soil is a major storehouse for carbon and carbon dioxide. Approximately 2.5 times all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be stored in the soil. Ohio soils originally had 5-6% soil organic matter in the t

Northwest Ohio The Ohio Corn Performance Test have been released for 2019 for both early and full season corn varieties representing 20 companies and totaling 163 corn hybrids. Three tests were conducted in Northwestern region. Due to the excessive wet weather, corn was planted much later than normal in June. The Northwestern test sites at Hoytville, Upper Sandusky, and Van Wert had plenty of rain during the growing season with better than expected yields. The Northwestern region experienced poor drying conditions and late harvest resulting in higher grain moisture and lower test weights. Since Upper Sandusky was planted so late (June 22), harvest data is still not available and the corn was almost mature when a killing frost occurred the first week in November. At the Hoytville (June 4/October 28) and Van Wert Site (June 12/November 18), 52 early maturing corn varieties were planted/harvested. Early maturing corn are varieties with relative maturities of 90 to 100 days (short season c

The H2Ohio Program announced plans to pay farmers 170 million dollars to adopt 10 conservation best management practices (BMPs) to reduce phosphorus, sediment, and harmful algal blooms in streams, rivers, and lakes. These BMPs include the following: 1. soil testing (which soil nutrients are high or lacking), 2. variable-rate fertilizing (apply fertilizer where needed), 3. subsurface nutrient application, 4. manure incorporation, 5. crop rotation, 6. cover crops, 7. drainage water management (controlled drainage), 8. two-stage ditch construction, 9. edge-of-field buffers, and 10. wetlands. The goal is to keep fertilizers, manure, pesticides and other soluble nutrients from leaving a farm field, often caused by water erosion during a rain event. While all the BMPs may be helpful, are these the right BMPs to solve the problem? What is the #1 pollutant, by weight, in most streams? Sediment or topsoil. The average USA soil erosion rate is 7.6 tons of topsoil lost/acre/year or 15,200 pounds.

ECO Farming or ecological farming is a new way of improving our soils, improving nutrient and fertilizer efficiency and ultimately increased crop yields while protecting the environment. Ecological farming is an integrated system of practices that closely mimics and works with natural processes. For years, farmers have increased crop yields by plowing up the soils (using fuel and equipment) and then utilizing fertilizer and crop inputs like herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides to control pests. The upside of this has been higher crops yields but the inputs like fuel, fertilizer, and pesticides are becoming more expensive. Modern agriculture now has to deal with environmental problems including soil erosion, soil compaction, nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, flooding, resistant weeds, insect infestations, and crop diseases. In a nutshell, the goal of ecological farming is to produce profitable high yielding crops that utilizing inputs efficiently while protecting the environment. Skep

Soil quality or soil health is a concept that farmers and gardeners are starting to learn more about. Soil quality/soil health is define by Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS, soils.usda.gov) as “The capacity of a soil…to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health.” What does a healthy soil smell and look like compared to an unhealthy soil? Farmers often call their soil “dirt” but soil is more than dirt! Dirt is the sand, silt and clay you wash off your clothes. Soil contains those elements plus soil organic matter but it is also alive with various microbes and small animals. You can actually smell the difference. Take a scoop of soil from a fence row and compare it to a shovel of soil from a typical field. Fence row soil typically has an earthy smell and will be teaming with microbes and small critters while a bare field generally will have fewer microbes and smell stale. The fence row soil should crumble and be

1. What factors contribute most to soil compaction? Soil compaction is caused by excess weight and poor soil structure. A lot of soil compaction is actually poor soil structure due to excessive tillage. Tillage disrupts the macro-aggregates which give us good soil structure, releasing carbon and nutrients. The glues that form the macro-aggregates comes from plant roots and microbial waste or byproducts. Bacteria wastes are important for cementing soil particles into microaggregates while fungus are important for producing glomalin that cement macro-aggregates together. Both are important however, their needs to be a balance of bacteria and fungus in the soil. tillage promote bacteria populations over fungal populations, reducing glomalin production. These glues in the soil have two major functions, they promote good soil aggregation and they serve as a source of food for the microbes. When you till the soil, farmers increase the oxygen content of the soil, increasing the microbial popu

  A presentation by Ohio State University's Jim Hoorman at the National Conference on Cover Crops and Soil Health. Speakers in this session discussed both local and off-site impacts of using cover crops, including some of the latest information on cover crop impacts on water quality, nitrogen loss from fields in tile lines, phosphorous loss and wildlife considerations. Learn more at http://www.sare.org/covercropconference .

There are several “keystone” or critical soil organisms that are important to human’s survival. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are a type of fungi that infect plant roots root to recycle soil nutrients that increase crop growth, vigor, and yield. About 250 AM fungi species infect 80-90% of all agricultural annual crops. This beneficial (symbiotic) association started over 450 million years ago, when newly evolving plants had few roots and relied on AM fungi to gather soil nutrients like phosphorus (P), sulfur, nitrogen, and many micronutrients. AM fungi form a mycorrhizal network with plant roots, extending out 6-18 inches from a root hair, increasing surface area for soil nutrient extraction by 20X. AM fungi hyphae are 1/10 the size of a root hair, so tiny AM hyphae extract soil nutrients unavailable to plant roots. "There are 1 to 20 meters of AM hyphae in each gram (finger nail size) of soil or maybe 5 miles of AM fungi hyphae in a pound of soil" (Sylvia et al 2005). Th

Farmers often struggle to get corn residue to breakdown. Many environmental and soil conditions can affect residue breakdown including air and soil temperature, moisture, oxygen, biological activity, and farming practices. Tillage and the addition of fall nitrogen after harvest are common practices that farmers use to speed up residue breakdown. Many farmers feel that the GMO (genetically modified) corn residue is also much slower to break down. Integrated Crop Management at Iowa State University (Dr. Madhi Al-Kaisi) conducted a 3-year trial to test these ideas. GMO versus Non-GMO corn with tillage: Researchers used both Bt (Bacteria Thuringiensis) and Non Bt or Non-GMO corn varieties and evaluated three tillage systems: deep tillage, strip till, and no-till systems for three years, in the field and under controlled laboratory conditions. After 12 months in the field, they found no significant differences between Bt and non Bt corn and no differences between tillage system in corn resi

In 2019, Lake Erie had the 5th largest Harmful Algae Bloom (HAB) due to record water runoff and 2-3 feet higher water levels than normal. Lake Erie also had the highest total sediment, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus loads ever recorded, but the extra water diluted the sediment and nutrient concentrations, possibly reducing the impact. Examining the facts and problems may offer some possible solutions. About 60% of phosphorus (P) nutrient loads come from the Maumee River watershed (Johnson, 2018). Roughly 30% of P comes from surface runoff and 70% from subsurface (tile) runoff through preferential flow (soil cracks, crevices) with about 90% of the losses occurring during the most intense rainfall events (Watters & Hoorman, 2018, Fussell et al. 2017). Depending on the soil and landscape, 60 -90% of P come from 10-40% of land, generally on soils located close to or with access for transportation to ditches and streams. Average Ohio P loss is 1-1.2# P/acre with a goal of losing l

James J. Hoorman Hoorman Soil Health Services Fallow, Scour, or Flooded Soil Syndrome (FSFSS) occurs on preventive planted acres without a cover crop or flooded fields with no crop grown for extended periods. Generally, corn and small grains are the most often affected but soybeans can also be hurt. At Dekalb corn plots in Perrysburg, Ohio; FSFSS syndromes were seen this year with corn being 8 to 15 inches shorter and less vigorous. FSFSS occurs because phosphorus (P) and/or zinc (Zn) are not available due to the decline in soil Arbuscular Mycorrhizae Fungus (AMF). The AMF form a hyphae soil network (like a spider web) extending the reach of roots as much as 6-18 inches; absorbing water, macro, and micro-nutrients in exchange for plant root sugars. FSFSS occurs because without live host plants during fallow periods, AMF hyphae have to reestablish and/or reproduce from spores next year. This process can take several months, so P lacking corn symptoms may be visible into July or even lon