Podcast Episode 145

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Putting controlled drainage to the test

Putting controlled drainage to the test

Episode 145 | 43:20 min

With Guests:

Jeppe Kjaersgaard, Research Scientist at Minnesota Department of Agriculture
Trey Allis, Prinsco Application Engineer

Guest host Trey Allis sits down with Jeppe Kjaersgaard, a research scientist studying drainage, nitrogen management, and irrigation. Jeppe traces his journey from the family farm in Denmark to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, shares results from his controlled drainage field study, and makes a compelling case for collaborating with people across the ag industry

Jeppe and Trey talk through the methods and findings of a controlled drainage comparison study in Wilkin County, Minnesota. The project includes two sites: a 160-acre field used to gather data on controlled drainage and a 65-acre plot used to explore the impacts of a saturated buffer. Jeppe shares what he’s learning about how different water management methods impact drainage flow, nitrogen loss, and overall yields.

Trey and Jeppe also discuss the Conservation Drainage Network, an organization made up of researchers, drainage professionals, and interest organizations, as well as federal, state, and local conservation district staff. This group coordinates research, shares information and best practices, and provides an entry point for students and others new to the industry. Jeppe talks about the benefits of such a network and how it can help increase adoption of different conservation drainage practices.

Learn more about the Red River Drainage Water Management Project: https://www.mda.state.mn.us/protecting/cleanwaterfund/onfarmprojects/rrvdwmproject

Check out the Conservation Drainage Network: https://conservationdrainage.net/

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“We're not looking at farming as individual parts separately, it's all a system.”

— Jeppe Kjaersgaard, Research Scientist at Minnesota Department of Agriculture

Guest Bios

Jeppe Kjaersgaard

Jeppe Kjaersgaard is a research scientist with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. He grew up on a family farm in Denmark and has worked on grain and livestock farms in Denmark, New Zealand and the United States. He focuses on water and nutrient management in irrigated or drained crop production systems. Jeppe’s work highlights the benefits of conservation practices, such as saturated buffers. He is the current chair for the Conservation Drainage Network.

Trey Allis

Trey graduated from North Dakota State University with a degree in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. He joined the Prinsco team as an Application Engineer in 2017 and primarily focuses on Agricultural engineering. Growing up on a farm and in the Ag community, Allis has spent a lot of his career focusing on the Flexible Dual Wall product and the value it adds to the industry. He is passionate about education and bridging the gap between research and application.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (00:00):

… That we’re not looking at farming as individual parts separately, but it’s all a system. The drainage piece is really foundational for a lot of other practices. It’s not separate from nutrient management or from soil health, it’s part of the whole picture. We are all seeing the value and the benefit of some of these conservation practices and then are working towards getting more of them on the land.

Trey Allis (00:30):

Welcome back to The Water Table. Today we’re joined by Jeppe Kjaersgaard, research scientist with the Minnesota Department of Ag. Jeppe, thanks for coming in and joining us on The Water Table here today.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (00:39):

Absolutely. Thank you, Trey. I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today.

Trey Allis (00:43):

Yeah, it’s awesome to have this chance to be able to sit down. I know we’ve kind of ran in some similar paths and worked on some projects and whatnot here and at conferences and whatnot too. So good to sit down and catch up on some of the work that you’ve been working on at the Department of Ag as well as some of the other projects, maybe get some updates on some of that work. But first kind of want to start off. I guess first off, your name Jeppe. Also go by Jeff sometimes I’ve seen that restaurants and whatnot. Do you have any other aliases?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (01:12):

No, not really. But it’s a Danish name. I am from Denmark, that’s where I grew up. And you’re right that my name, it’s Jeppe, but it’s just as I often go by Jeppe because it’s like Flinstone’s Yabba Dabba Doo. So that’s kind of one way to remember it. But you’re right, when you’re at a restaurant and they ask for your name that after a few times you try to explain how to pronounce it… Yeah, Jeff is just as easy, so yeah, I’m going to just go by that.

Trey Allis (01:40):

Oh, that’s awesome. But yeah, kind of wanted to get into your background a little bit too. So from Denmark, you have a little bit of an ag background over in Denmark too. I guess fill us in on a little bit of your background there and kind of how you got to the States and a little bit what you’re doing now.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (01:54):

Most certainly, yeah. So I do have a background in agronomy. I grew up on a small crop farm, but in my youth, it was an area with a lot of dairies. So I would be working on neighbors’ dairy farms, milking cows, running equipment, all that good stuff. And then at some point got connected with a soil scientist who was doing soil fertility work. And it was at about the time I was in high school trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and he was sort of very inspirational, had his own little soil testing lab, and he gave me a tour of that, and I just thought that was really interesting what he was doing. And so I moved from thinking I was going to farm myself to thinking, well, maybe a career in agronomy soil sciences would be a good fit. So I went that route and it has been terrific.

Trey Allis (02:50):

Sure. Where’d you go to college for that?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (02:53):

Yeah, it was in Denmark at the… There’s a royal agricultural and veterinary university as it was-

Trey Allis (03:00):

That sounds fancy.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (03:01):

Yeah. Yeah, it was a good school. It since has merged with the University of Copenhagen, but that is where the agronomic degrees are issued in Denmark. But then along the way, when I was in grad school, I thought I would like some international experience, and I had a professor back in Denmark that knew some folks here at the University of Minnesota, and so he helped establish a connection. And so I spent eight months at the University of Minnesota as a visiting student taking classes, working in the summer, and was more exposed to certainly the Midwest agricultural production systems, but also drainage and irrigation and conservation practices more broadly. And I thought that was really, really interesting.

(03:53):

And so that kind of piqued an interest in seeing, well, what other opportunities might there be here in the US. But after University of Minnesota, I did move back to Denmark, graduated, and then later in postgraduate work, I went back and spent some time at Oregon State University out in Corvallis in Oregon, working more with irrigation, that kind of stuff out there. But really liked it. And then also so happened was there was this sweet other young female student across the hallway, and so we eventually got married, and so what really started us was just supposed to be a one-year study in Oregon now has been, was that 17 years now? So everything has worked out really well.

Trey Allis (04:49):

Yeah, that’s awesome. So going from Denmark, a little bit of vague background there, and then in Minnesota, Oregon, back in Minnesota now, do you have any cool takeaways or what’s been biggest maybe eye-opening or maybe not culture shock, but kind of differences that you’ve seen through your early career and are getting into stuff that you’re doing now?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (05:10):

Yeah, that’s a really great question because I think then probably the biggest difference is the scale of things, that farms and operations are larger in Minnesota, especially, but also across the Midwest compared to Denmark. But outside of that, there are also similar issues. Of course, there’s always the profitability, making the farm financially viable. But also, when we talk about commodities, it’s a world market regardless if it’s animal products or crops. And so just the fluctuations in markets, prices, similar in where you are in the world. And also some issues that we are working with as well, so the more environmental challenges in terms of, for example, nutrient management and the like, are also similar. And so even though there are some differences, there certainly are a lot of similarities too.

Trey Allis (06:19):

Yeah, a lot of parallels. And I’m sure getting some of those different experiences, seeing what works where, and then I’m sure it gets into a whole bunch of different policy differences on how to handle, again, some of that profitability, how to handle some of the environmental issues and things like that too. And not that we need to solve all the world’s problems on that front too, but just kind of interesting perspective on some of your background and things that you got to see throughout the world and draw some of those parallels. So kind of getting into, I guess a little bit more now into, I guess, your role as research scientist with Department of Ag, want to give a little background on some of your responsibilities or projects and stuff that you have going on.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (06:56):

Absolutely. Yeah. So I’ve been with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture for a little over 10 years now already, and I think that the three main areas that I work with, one relates to nitrogen management, the use and adoption of nitrogen fertilizer best management practices, but a lot of that ties into the two other things I’m working on. One, it relates to drainage and both I oversee some drainage projects, demonstration projects we have at the Department of Agriculture, I also help oversee grants that we provide mostly to the University of Minnesota for research they do. And then the third thing I work on relates to irrigation. And so they’re same thing that I work on, irrigation projects, demonstration projects, we have at the department ourselves, but also oversee and work with researchers and professors at the University of Minnesota on the research they are doing, helping with making sure that the funding is in place, deliverables are met, and the information is brought into the hands of farmers so that they can use that information and make informed decisions based on science.

Trey Allis (08:26):

Yeah, and I believe one of those main projects that you’re working on was or is a controlled drainage kind of comparison study that’s up in the Red River Valley by the Fargo area. I think that’s probably where I first met you and first ran into you here probably six, seven, eight, nine years ago now. But can you give a little background on, I guess, that project and some of the drainage infrastructure that’s in place here and what you’re looking at?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (08:52):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that is a project, as you say, this in Wilkin County in Minnesota, and this project site itself is located probably about 15 miles from the North Dakota border. It was established at a time where there was a lot of new subsurface drainage systems being installed in Northwest Minnesota, and East and North Dakota, and we thought there was an opportunity, and we were working with some of the local folks, both at some of the conservation districts and farmers and farmer organizations and drainage industry. Everyone came together and said, “We think there is an opportunity to demonstrate some conservation drainage practices, specifically saturated buffers and control drainage in the Red River Basin,” because it was an area that there had been some research taking place, of course, both at NDSU and Fargo and at the University of Minnesota in Crookston.

(09:58):

But what we wanted to do was to set up a demonstration project at a working farm. So at the scale that was relevant and is relevant for farmers. And so we established two project sites at the same farm, one on a 160 acre field where we put in control drainage in a third of that field, and then we had conventional free drainage on another third, and then no subsurface drainage on the remaining third, and then we set that up with the monitoring equipment that we’ve been collecting data at that site since 2016. And then we had a companion site just a couple of miles up the road where we put in a saturated buffer. At this particular farm, there was a spot where there was a natural stream that’s coming through, but at a location that was just really well suited for saturated buffer, and so we thought that would be a great place to look at saturated buffers as well.

(11:00):

And in both cases, the reason we were interested in the Red River Basin, again, was not only because there was a lot of new installations going in, but also because of the cooler climate, that we felt that a lot of other similar projects had taken place in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana in some cases, that tends to be slightly warmer climates. And one difference, and for example, is that, well, while we have our project site, it all freezes up and stays frozen four or five months of the year when nothing is happening, whereas a lot of those other little sites a little further south while they might have tile flow all winter. So it’s a very different sort of environment to work in. And so those were the reasons that we wanted to establish it in that area.

(11:50):

And then again, as I said, we had and still have great collaborators at that site, both, of course, the landowner of the farm we work with, but several drainage industry groups; the contractor that installed the tile; the local watershed district; the local water conservation district; MRCS helped out as well. So it was just a very nice group that came together and said, “We really think we need to collect some data in this part of the world,” and so we established that project.

Trey Allis (12:22):

Yeah, that’s awesome. And that’s kind of like you mentioned, and I know especially at the time, well, probably even earlier than that, with drainage being fairly new up in the Valley and in that part of the Upper Midwest, like I said, opportunity to look at things a little bit different, learn from some of the installations, some of the practices that are kind of further down south and seeing how well that translates up up in the Valley with maybe different cropping rotations. I know something that’s what Dr. Lindsay Pease was on here a couple months ago on the podcast. We got talking into some of that too with some of her plots that are looking at the uniqueness of the Valley and the weather and the climate and the topography and all that stuff too.

(13:00):

So I guess looking into maybe some of the results or what did you learn from those projects or from that project? And like you said, it’s on a pretty good field scale, looking at different drainage options, water quality type stuff as well as far as flow yield, all that stuff. I know it’s kind of a large question, but what were some of the main highlights and takeaways that they learned from that project, or are learning, I guess is probably-

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (13:25):

It’s still going, yeah. Yeah, that’s a great question. And it has been a really good project for us. I think we’ve been able to collect a lot of data, but also that we’ve had a lot of field days groups come through to visit the site. And I think one of the reasons is the location, because one of the outcomes we also want for the site was kind of the educational piece. So we’ve had over, through field days visit and stuff, over 4,000 people stop by the site to see the practices, look at it, how are they working and hear about what are some of the findings we’ve had. And it’s been really helpful because it turned out that even from the Southern Water Conservation Districts or maybe even some of the cities or other public entities up and down the Red River Basin, that there were little less data for them to look at from that part of the world compared to other parts of the world, and I think that’s one of the reasons we had such solid interest in the site.

(14:36):

But in general, if we look at the piece with controlled drainage, and so again, that is a 160 acre field. Well, our third is in controlled drainage, and another third is in conventional drainage where we collect information both about the flow and water quality, and it’s primarily nitrogen and phosphorus we are interested in, that we did find, and this is just as an average for all years that at that site, we averaged just under 23 inches of rainfall of precipitation every year. So a little less than many places in Southern Minnesota-

Trey Allis (15:17):

That’s more around that lower 30s probably is further south than the east that you get.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (15:21):

Yeah, exactly. And so that certainly impacts certainly of course the amount of drainage we are seeing from the site, but what we did average with free drainage a little over four inches of drainage every year, which again, compared to further places down the south is not much, but in that area, we’re talking there, what’s that, about 15% perhaps of annual precip. But we were able to… Well, some of the reasons we wanted to demonstrate with the control drainage was both since this is a part of the world… Again, generally low rainfall, but too much rain in the spring, you can run the short later in the growing season. So part of it was to see, well, if we are able to hold a little bit of water back when you have too much and kind of carry it forward into later in the growing season, if there would be a yield benefit and agronomic benefit that way, and then the other one was to reduce primarily nitrate leaching losses. So those were sort of the main objectives.

(16:35):

And we were also looking at it from the perspective since the Red River Basin is a place that can flood, that if we were in a situation, especially after all the soil thaws in the spring, that if there’s a risk of flooding within the basin, if we could use the controlled drain as a way to hold a little bit of water back maybe a week or two longer than what you normally would to kind of help reduce the amount of flooding. And of course, one field is not going to reduce the flooding in the whole basin, but if something that would be working, that could be another benefit of the practice.

Trey Allis (17:12):

Yeah, essentially having that… We think about the soil profile as a sponge and kind of with that theory of, hey, if we can essentially soak that sponge longer or build out that capacity within that soil profile to hang on to more of that, say, runoff or early spring rains and whatnot, what impact that can have with the whole river system further downstream, right?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (17:35):

That’s exactly right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So what we did find was that we, at that site, that we reduced the drainage flow by about 23% from the site. So that was using control drainage compared to conventional drainage. And we reduced the nitrogen loss by 29%. And all that at the same time now, this particular field has been in a corn soybean rotation ever since. And so we’ve seen the corn yields increase between two and 10% with control drainage. So high yield with control drainage.

Trey Allis (18:16):

Compared to conventional drainage-

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (18:18):

Conventional.

Trey Allis (18:19):

Gotcha.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (18:20):

Yes.

Trey Allis (18:20):

So kind of proving out that theory a little bit more. 2% maybe ain’t that much, but on some of those years that are where you say wetter in the spring, you can hang onto more of that water in some dry falls. That’s actually where you’re going to see that benefit. And again, that’s more so just water management. Again, we’re saying free drainage is taken off across the Valley a lot, but then you can start thinking about it with things like lift stations and thing that are all up there, essentially management techniques that are there to reduce that nitrate loss as well as overall water downstream, but then also have that yield benefit in a lot of those years too, right?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (18:59):

That’s exactly right. Yep, that’s exactly right. And that was really another part of it as well, exactly as you gave the example there of using lift stations, which you can use for control drainage just by managing when you turn it on and off. In our case, we did put in actual control structures-

Trey Allis (19:20):

With free outlets, correct? There wasn’t lift stations on them. It was just the regular water level control structures?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (19:25):

That’s what we used to control the water. It does have a lift station, but we let it run freely, so we didn’t manage that water. So there was a yield benefit, but in the soybean years we didn’t see… I know some years, yes, other years… It was a little… We couldn’t really tell if there really was a yield benefit in the soybean years from controlled drainage. So it looks if it was on the corn side, but we also have to say that the yield increase in the corn in and of itself at this site is probably not enough to pay for the additional…

(20:15):

If you have to put in a control structure and a little bit of extra work that we did when we put it in, whereas if it is put in a way, and as the tiles are, as they’re installed and it’s kind of thought through saying, “Hey, we want to use this for controlled drainage and you’re going to use your lift station to manage it,” well, then there isn’t really that extra expense, and so in those situations that then you can do it in a way it’s kind of financially viable, that there’s a payback from it.

Trey Allis (20:46):

Yeah, essentially kind of staged in or having a plan, I guess is the way that I’m talking about it with farmers and contractors saying, “Yep. Hey, we know we want to tile this field here this year,” but also start think through, hey, what are those options that’s going to be coming up maybe another two, five, 10 years that you don’t want to handcuff yourself with your design and your layout when you install it, say the first time cheaper. Maybe cost works out that way too, but yeah, looking at some of those benefits so you can get some of those yield benefits, like I said, with that controlled drainage, if you think through that on the front end of installing these tile systems, what environmental and agronomic benefits you can have further down the line on that piece of land if you have that plan on the forefront.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (21:31):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I agree 100%. So I think for that controlled drainage, that’s I think some good data and certainly something that is valuable and useful both for farmers and for even some of the conservation district staff and others that talks to farmers and might be able to help provide cost share to some of those conservation practices.

(21:58):

So I think I mentioned also that we did put in a saturated buffer at the site as well, and that one has worked out really well also. So we did establish it. It is sort of along our meandering stream and it’s in a second field that’s 65 acres total, and then a portion of that drains into that saturated buffer. And in that one, we found that now for saturated buffer, there were really two things that we’re looking at. One is to remove nitrogen from the water. The other one is also to slow down the water movement a little bit without sacrificing the amount of water you drain from the field. So it’s really using that buffer a little more as a storage, temporary storage for the water.

Trey Allis (22:53):

That secondary outlet that just moves a little bit slower with that treatment, right?

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (22:56):

Yep. Yeah. Well put. Exactly. And that one has worked really well for us. The main question we had was does it work when it’s in a cold climate as we have up there? But we found that we put it in, it was installed at the same time as the rest of the tile in the field. And so it cost the install, the control structure, which we did get 75% cost share on the control structure, so it cost about 2,500 extra to put in that saturated buffer, but we are finding it’s removing a little over 50% of the nitrate that comes from the field, the total coming from the field.

(23:46):

And so because we do have, depending on… Because we are monitoring how much of the flow that is going into the buffer and how much is going through the bypass, and some years, depending on when you have the flow and if it’s kind of a little bit of a episodal flow or if it’s more like kind of continuous flow, that we have some years where we had all the water went through the saturated buffer, and other years, we had a little less than half run through, but the 52% reduction that is including all water from the field-

Trey Allis (24:23):

Averaged across the last decade or whatever.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (24:25):

Yeah, exactly. Since 2017. And I think from a nitrate removal standpoint, that’s a pretty encouraging number in that, that with a saturated buffer that we installed, other than the initial installation cost, there’s been no maintenance. We set the boards in the control structure and we haven’t changed them since. It’s just sitting and doing its thing. And really, maybe the only work that comes with it has been the farmer has to mow his, like that riparian area there a little more often just because it keeps the grass on that saturated buffer, just greener, more water, probably a little more of nitrogen that it can take up.

Trey Allis (25:13):

Just use not more of that water, nutrient, et cetera, that tile water too.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (25:18):

Yep.

Trey Allis (25:19):

That makes sense.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (25:19):

And it’s pretty good. In this case, he doesn’t have livestock, but you could haze, but in this case, he’ll just mow it, some case he’ll just rake it onto the field to reuse that grass, but that has worked really well. We’ve been really impressed with that.

Trey Allis (25:37):

Yeah. No, that’s a good project. So we’re happy to help out with, like you said, a handful of other companies within the industry to support that project and help answer some of these questions for some of the unique applications and some of the, say, newer territories with some of that too. So that’s kind of what you’re saying is overall it’s kind of proven out some of those benefits. Like I said, it might not be worth all of it every year type thing, but proving out those concepts and whatnot can help make, like you said at the beginning, it’s helped make farmers make informed decisions on what they’re doing with their land and with their operations.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (26:15):

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And we have been able to share this data with both locally, but also at a more regional or even at the national level. And some of the data from the site has gone into some larger data sets that’s been being maintained by the USDA that the NRCS is using to… When they develop new practice standards for EQIP and such, and they like to look at data, so data from this location is part of the data they’re looking at when they update their stats.

Trey Allis (26:52):

That’s that connection too. If somebody’s looking, “All right, cool. Hey, did this project, how does that relate to either… How it works in my operational?” Yeah, you can go to the field days and get educated on some of that, but that’s kind of the main means of it is USDA is looking for the data from projects like these to help make some of those funding and I don’t know exactly how to say it, but the standards for these practices, conservation practices that are out there.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (27:19):

Exactly, exactly. And that’s really what they’re doing and what they need to do is to base their standards on science, on data.

Trey Allis (27:31):

Yeah, not just a cool practice or something that sounds good, but… Need to have that stuff to back it up.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (27:36):

Exactly.

Trey Allis (27:37):

Yeah, that’s cool. Projects like these get to… Want to highlight that connection to what it looks like. It’s not just data for the sake of data.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (27:46):

That’s exactly right.

Trey Allis (27:47):

Cool. I want to get into something else a little bit with, you work with the CDN, the Conservation Drainage Network. I know you’ve been pretty influential through that group a little bit, but want to give a high level on what you do as a chair with that organization.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (28:01):

Absolutely, yeah. So the Conservation Drainage Network is a network of individuals that works with drainage primarily across the Midwest, but we do have members along the Atlantic Seaboard as well, Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere. And that includes researchers from various universities, mostly land grant universities, drainage professionals from drainage industry, federal, state, local conservation district staff, interest organizations, and others that’ll come together to talk about and both coordinate drainage research, but also to increase the adoption of different conservation drainage practices. So learn from each other and also identify, well, what are some of the bottlenecks when it comes to… Is there information we don’t know? Do we need more research looking into a particular practice or can we learn from others saying, “Well, say, in Iowa has some great programs, Illinois has some great programs. Well, can we learn from that elsewhere as well?”

(29:22):

And so that was the Conservation Drainage Network. It has roots back several decades, but as a network itself, it was formed back in 2019 and has been growing ever since. There’s a great website, conservationdrainage.net, that has a lot of information about drainage practices and information about saturated buffers, bioreactors, controlled drainage and other practices. But also we organize an annual meeting that moves around to different locations. The next meeting will be June 2nd to the 4th in East Lansing, Michigan, and we typically have 150 people coming together in person and then another 20, 25 attending online to learn about new drainage research, but certainly also talk about implementing the practices. And for the implementation, discussions include… For example, talk about, well, what funding mechanisms are there, say, for cost share, if that’s necessary. Bring some of that information back to say NRCS who typically participates in that annual meeting too. And so they get some kind of real life feedback on their programs, and if things need to be adjusted, well, then they can go back and look at that. And then also share experience and help train each other.

(31:01):

One thing that we are going to, that’s a bit of an, I guess a push this year is to recognizing that we have many new younger individuals coming, whether recent graduates or otherwise, entering into the field, whether they’re working at county or what is it, conservation districts or various agencies that may not have been exposed as much to drainage, maybe some to agriculture, but not drainage specifically. And so that’s part of a push that we have as well, is to help bring more students in, be engaged within the network, connect with other researchers, connect with agencies, connect with industry to get a better idea of what does that look like, the drainage, the infrastructure, the whole ecosystem around drainage, what that looks like.

(32:03):

Both so they have a better understanding of that, but also as potential, when they are looking for jobs in due time, that they know who to contact if they want to work in, say, industry. Well, then they’ve met some folks from industry there they might contact. If they want to stay in academia, well, they can work with professors they’ve met there. So I think that Conservation Drainage Network is really remarkable and somewhat unique in that, that it is… No, it’s not funded by anyone in particular. So it’s really everyone that participates sees the value of being part of the network, sees value in going to the annual meeting or sitting in or whatever they are, webinars or other things. And we’ve been able to tie into other activities, both many extension programs has drainage schools that we’ve been trying to help coordinate a little bit amongst the different states and tie in with the Ag Drainage Management Coalition and with some of the things that they’re doing.

(33:15):

So I think all in all, that is pretty unique having both… You have both the academics or the researchers and the representatives from industry and interest organizations and the funders all together, we’re working towards the same goal because that’s the unique part of it, that we are all seeing the value and the benefit of some of these conservation practices and then are working towards getting more of them on the land.

Trey Allis (33:43):

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s one of my favorite meetings to go to every year and been going to it for quite a while now, and it’s kind of, like I said, been interesting to see that growth that it’s taken on, like I said, geographically, bringing on more states, more regions that have maybe some similar, say, water issues, quantity and quality, and how can we take stuff from research in Iowa and see what it looks like in Pennsylvania or New York and things like that that are dealing with some similar issues.

(34:11):

And then like I said, probably the biggest piece is that networking drainage network is touching base with a lot of the research, a lot of the agency folks and kind of getting the low down on actually what’s going on with some of the things maybe not behind the scenes, but different perspective on what folks are working on from, say, a policy standpoint or on the research side of things and being able to work with some of the researchers on back and forth of us from industries saying, “Hey, this is what we’re seeing. This is the questions that we’re getting from farmers, contractors, other folks,” and saying, hey, what research says or what is the universities are saying on subsurface irrigation?

(34:49):

That’s usually my first stop is look into, here’s a synthesis study for looking at all the sub-irrigation plots throughout the Midwest that have been researched and kind of compile all that data together and have a pretty decent fact sheet on some of that stuff too. So being able to get those people all in the same group, in the same room, talking about that stuff and providing some of those resources has been pretty valuable. And then saying the other way of here’s, again, the questions that we’re getting, what other research can we be looking into to help solve some of these questions or think about things a little bit differently has been a fun experience to, again, see the growth of that network, that coalition, and being able to work with a lot of those folks too.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (35:30):

Absolutely. And it’s always great to have you there, Trey, and all that from the industry as well, but you in particular. You’re always a very active participant and provide some great perspectives, and I think that’s both from people like me, from an agency, and I know also the researchers, they very much appreciate that. I think another thing that we are seeing as well, more interest from other organizations also. Where that interest is coming from is that when you look at other conservation practices, let’s say if you talk about soil fertility or nutrient management or the right source, that a lot of those practices for them to be effective and provide value for the farmers, you need good drainage. So in many ways, having good drainage is kind of a foundation for a lot of other practices, and it’s not only crop nutrient, it really comes to even soil health practices like cover crops or perennials or no till or reduced till and all those things where you’re trying to build the soils organic matter, making into more of a sponge, able to retain nutrients and water.

(36:42):

Those two, if you don’t have good drainage or adequate drainage, or if your soil is not naturally well-drained, well, you need good drainage for those practices to work, and also from an agronomic perspective that, and the data shows this all the time that with modern farming that we have great, high quality crops, but they are high yield and good quality because farmers manage them well. But it also means that if your fertility or your pest management or something, if there’s just one thing you are missing over the growing season, that can really cost you a lot of yield and maybe even the quality of the product, depending on what it is you’re growing. And drainage is really just a fundamental part of that also, that if you don’t have drainage or have good drainage, adequate drainage, well, then a lot of other agronomy things you’re doing might not work out and your soil health you’re trying to do, your nutrient management and so forth is not in place.

(37:46):

So I think that the drainage piece is really foundational for a lot of other practices. And for that reason, I think that that’s why we start to see more of that interest from industries that we maybe don’t traditionally think of as being interested in drainage because they are maybe more working on fertility. But of course, they very much recognize and have done for a long time that drainage is really important. But now there is… Through this network, there is kind of that the group or that more of an organized effort related to drainage that they can tap into or participate with to start viewing things a little bit of a bigger picture, that we’re not looking at farming as individual parts separately, but it’s all a system. And so I think that has been just awesome to see as well.

Trey Allis (38:42):

Right. With drainage being that puzzle piece that otherwise might not be thought about or forgotten about. And that’s kind of my… When you do start to think about it from that scale of overall fertility, agronomic, soil health, all that stuff, and that’s what my theory, and I think I’m right about it, but with drainage and especially with subsurface drainage on this stuff, it just opens up your options a lot more with that growing season and getting in the field, especially if you’re looking, say… Or organic farming requires more passes across the field. You’re going to need to have the ability to get into the field, traffic across it in order to do your weed management, other tillage things later on in the year and things like that. So to me, that’s, like you said, the foundation for a lot of this stuff is having the moisture in your soil profile in sync with everything else, and it’s good that that’s, again, providing that puzzle piece to this equation.

(39:39):

But then also again, where we’re at within our industry of, say, subsoil water management is, hey, there are these other options out there to do things a little bit different with the control drainage stuff that you’re laying out with some of the water quality edge of field practices that are out there as well. So we know that that is a foundational part of the whole farming system. Can be done a little bit better to help account for some of those other drawbacks, mostly on the environmental side of things and looking at some of the water quality water treatment practices there. So that’s where I see the next step of CDN and what we’re doing with ADMC as well is, again, kind of building in that, hey, we understand that, again, that foundation’s there and that’s what we’re a big proponent of that obviously, but there’s these other practices there to add to it to give you more control over that water to help optimize all those other things that is part of that whole system.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (40:32):

Yep. Yeah. I agree 100%, and I think that’s what we need to remember also in this conversation when we talk about drainage that it’s easy or sometimes you have people focus on some of the challenges, as you mentioned as well with water quality or even hydrology, that we do know that with subsurface drainage, yes, that it is a conduit for nitrate losses particularly, and yes, it does change the hydrology, which is still something that is being vigorously discussed among academics as well, and there are a lot of things going into that. And that’s part of what the Conservation Drainage Network is all about, addressing some of those issues and quantifying some of those issues, but exactly as you’re saying, also looking at it not as drainage as an isolated part, but it is part of the bigger system, and it works… It’s not separate from nutrient management or from soil health. It’s part of the whole picture.

Trey Allis (41:36):

That covers a lot of stuff on here. I know we’ve been talking for 45 minutes, something like that, but I just want to, again, thank you for coming in and being able to discuss a lot of the stuff you’ve been working on and give a little background on some of the projects that we’re involved with that Minnesota Department of Ag and how that relates to the farmer on the end of things, and then also, again, how we work between industry and with agencies as well through this stuff too. So with that, I want to thank you again for coming on and really enjoyed the time, Jeppe.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (42:07):

Yeah, thank you, Trey. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today. And again, from our perspective, again, I had the opportunity to serve as chair as from the Conservation Drainage Network. I did move into the past chair position now, has just been a really good and humbling experience for me as well to serve in that role and get to work with individuals such as yourself has just been an absolute pleasure. There are a lot of just dedicated, great people, including yourself in this space, and it’s just been a pleasure. So thank you for having me here today. I very much appreciate it.

Trey Allis (42:48):

Yeah, awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jeppe.

Jeppe Kjaersgaard (42:54):

Thank you.

Podcast Episode 145

Putting controlled drainage to the test

Episode 145 | 43:20 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Guest Bios

Jeppe Kjaersgaard

Trey Allis

Transcript

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Podcast Episode 145

Putting controlled drainage to the test

Episode 145 | 43:20 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Also Available On

Guest Bios

Jeppe Kjaersgaard

Trey Allis

Transcript

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