Podcast Episode 83

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On the Road... Iowa LICA Farm Field Days

Saturated Buffers: Stepping Up to the Plate… On the Road

Saturated Buffers: Stepping Up to the Plate… On the Road

Episode 83 | 33 min

With Guests:

Dr. Matt Helmers of Iowa State University, Director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center
Chalrie Schafer, President of Agri Drain Corporation

Saturated buffers– do they really work? How are researchers working with the boots on the ground to figure things out? Or is it all just a big guessing game? Guest host Trey Allis catches up with Dr. Matt Helmers and Charlie Schafer to answer these questions and more in this episode of the The Water Table Podcast on the road at the Iowa LICA Farm.

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I’m encouraged by the fact we’re seeing more people focus on a systems approach. They’re looking at the overall entire watershed and how it affects crop production, water quality, and sustainability– the ability to farm and make a profit.

— Charlie Schafer

Guest Bios

Dr. Matt Helmers

Dr. Matt Helmers is the Director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, the Dean’s Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State University, where he has been on the faculty since 2003. Dr. Helmers’ research areas include studies on the impact of nutrient management, cropping practices, drainage design and management, and strategic placement of buffer systems on nutrient export from agricultural landscapes.

Chalrie Schafer

Charlie is the president and owner of Agri Drain Corporation, which he founded with his brothers in 1976. He has served on multiple boards associated with water management and is currently the Vice Chair for the National Land Improvement Contractors of America (LICA) Board and the Chairman of the Board for the Agriculture Drainage Management Coalition (ADMC). Charlie is also the founder and CEO of Ecosystem Services Exchange (ESE). He was inducted into the International Drainage Hall of Fame in 2022.

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is The Water Table.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
A chance to hear the agricultural side of these issues.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
A place for people to go find information and education.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Water management is just going to become even more critical into the future.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
How misunderstood what we do is.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I would encourage people to open their minds and listen to this dialogue.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
This week we’re taking The Water Table podcast on the road to Melbourne, Iowa. We will be visiting the Iowa Leica Farm and the Iowa Leica Field Day. Join us, as we interview some great guests.

Trey Allis (00:49):
Well, welcome to The Water Table podcast. My name’s Trey Allis, agricultural application engineer with Prinsco, and here today at the Iowa LICA Field Day, down in Melbourne, Iowa with Matt Helmers and Charlie Schafer. Matt’s the director at the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, has been working at Iowa State for a while within the AG and biosystems engineering side. So Matt, you want to introduce yourself? I know you’ve been on the podcast a couple of times, but give us a little background on yourself.

Matt Helmers (01:17):
Yeah. Thanks, Trey. And yeah, it’s great to be back on The Water Table podcast. Anybody listening might not feel the same way, but it’s great to be here. Actually, next week, it’ll be 20 years at Iowa State. I’m a native Iowan from Northwest Iowa. I kind of joke, maybe I said this before, but I learned the importance of drainage at a young age, but didn’t realize it, but have a picture in my office of my grandfather having his plow and two other tractors stuck on a side hill seep. But it’s great to be here at the LICA farm. I’ve been coming out here for a number of years. It’s amazing the improvements they’ve made to the farm here with a wetland and ponds, and today we got to talk about saturated buffers with some contractors and the demo of installation of a saturated buffer, so look forward to talking about that.

Trey Allis (02:08):
Yeah, and we’ll dive into that, but we’re also here joined with Charlie Schafer with Agri Drain, and I don’t think I have enough room on my paper to go over all the other stuff that you’re involved in, so maybe I’ll turn it over to you, Charlie. What brings you here?

Charlie Schafer (02:21):
Well, Trey, it’s a pleasure to be here with you and Matt. I really appreciate the opportunity. It’s fun. I did get to do an earlier recording or two with Jamie, and that’s always fun, because we had so much history back and forth with our experiences in the industry. I grew up in a small farm in Guthrie County, 160 acres, and five brothers, mom, and dad.

(02:42):
So we had 40 acres was timber pasture ground, and we had a diverse row crop system, and got to see agriculture and the type of water issues you’re talking about, Matt, with the wet spots, side hill seeps, and waterways that cut out, erosion that was going on, all the time. Big rainstorms before we’d adequately protect those slopes. It’s fun to be here at the LICA Field Day. We’ve been on this farm now about 20 years. It’s, for me, rewarding to see us match up, not just the construction activities and moving dirt, but also the science behind it that Matt and his colleagues can bring to the table, and help us think in maybe a little bit of a larger vision about what we’re trying to accomplish out here for ag and the environment.

Trey Allis (03:31):
And thanks, both, for sitting down here and taking the time to talk through some of this stuff. I know, since I started at Prinsco here a handful of years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and chat with each of you a handful of times and always appreciate the opportunity, and great people to learn from and been very appreciative from that. But yeah, like you said, Matt, we’re here at the LICA Field Day, and had a chance to cover some of what a saturated buffer is, as well as start the installation of it, but would you want to give a little background from your engineering background for what is a saturated buffer and what’s its purpose?

Matt Helmers (04:07):
Yeah. Great question, and really the genesis of it comes from some colleagues, Dan Janes, that was at the USDARS at that time, and Tom Eisenhart. Tom had spent a better part of his career looking at buffers, and then he and Dan thought, “Well, a lot of that nitrate that we see is going in a tile line right below that buffer. Can we do something better?” And start to think about can we intercept that with a control structure, a lot of agri drain control structure, so that’s where it’s been great too, that partnership between the academics that have some idea and then to ask Charlie, and Charlie’s always willing. “Yeah. We’ll try something.” I think that’s, yeah, you’re willing to try things.

Charlie Schafer (04:54):
You could fairly add that what we tried doesn’t always work.

Matt Helmers (04:58):
Exactly, but that’s what we learned, right?

Charlie Schafer (04:58):
Right. Exactly.

Matt Helmers (05:00):
I think it is a two-way street, because we learned that something you guys did, not a great idea, you thought of in the ivory tower. So can we do something better? Can we run that, divert a portion of that water that’s coming down the tile line, out laterally in a tile, and have it flow through shallow groundwater flow below that buffer? The first was, what happens to that water? And so Tom and Dan did work, and found, “Wow. We get tremendous nitrate removal.” They had graduate students like Tyler Grow and Morgan Davis that did a lot of research to understand the mechanisms of removal, and it’s really built from there, where this is really a success story, because 10 years ago that was just a thought like, “Can we do this?” and now it’s gone from research at one site, to research at multiple sites, to a practice that is really trying to be scaled up in Iowa through various programs.

Trey Allis (05:57):
And you mentioned that, with a water control structure, and I guess I’ve never had the opportunity to ask, but Charlie, with Agri Drain, you are one of the leaders in those structures. How did you come up with it? What led to that design and invention of kind of damming up your tile lines to divert some of that water?

Charlie Schafer (06:16):
Well, years ago, there was an effort undertaken by both ADS and Hancor to focus on the ability to provide sub irrigation to some of these crops, and this was 35 years ago, I would imagine. They each had their approach. We worked with ADS at the time to develop some float-operated, automatic water level control structures that could be used to manipulate water tables, flow rates, and add water back into the system. At that time, it worked. It was fine, but there was no true automation that made it easy for the producers, and the economics were different. The value of corn was less. The value of land was significantly less at that time. If I recall correctly, you could buy land for around $1000, $1500 an acre, and it would cost at least that much to put this system in, and so the producers made the right economic decision to buy more land, which was appropriate.

(07:17):
Also, weather patterns were different back then. We had more normalized rainfall rates and timing, and so we didn’t have those environmental concerns of climate related or weather related concerns. There certainly was no concern about water quality because we hadn’t really discussed the nitrate and dissolved phosphorus issue associated with subsurface drainage. And so we really started to develop these products for surface water application primarily, and there were ponds and wetlands, and people wanted to be able to manipulate those. Then, we started, of course, adding in the subsurface water management thing, and it’s gone from there, and there’s been a greater focus on it due to the fact that the water quality issues are significant. So there’s been public funding available because downstream folks are impacted.

Matt Helmers (08:08):
I guess one thing, not to add on the structures, but I think that we’re kind of, I mentioned I think that I’ve been at Iowa State 20 years, we’re just a little past 20 years of a real partnership between the academics, the industry, and agencies with what started as the ag drainage management systems task force and the Ag Drainage Management Coalition, now the Conservation Drainage Network. But for the last 20 plus years, at least once or in the early years, four times a year, these people got together to talk about the water quality side of drainage, and really, it kind of started around controlled drainage, drainage, water management in a lot of the early years.

(08:56):
It’s really broadened beyond that. Certainly, that is still a really primary focus in a lot of areas, and Charlie and his colleagues are doing great work with some of the automated structures, but through the work of that group has really led to things like the saturated buffers, the bioreactors, wetlands for nitrate removal, and even the drainage water recycling that I would say is an emerging practice. So I think it’s really a success story. We have so much work left to do, but I think it’s a real success story of how we can all work together in this and learn from one another because, as Charlie said, sometimes we come up with something that doesn’t work very well, and we have to go back and change it. That’s what research is about, and that’s what having a good partner in the industry is about as well.

Charlie Schafer (09:44):
I think it’s very true. If I could add to it, what we did in conjunction with the task force members, and the land grant system, was to work with ADMC, the AG Drainage Management Coalition, and applied for a conservation innovation grant. First, we did it on drainage water management alone, and secondly, we did one on saturated buffers. And so we developed, I believe it was 16 sites through 5 states, and we intentionally selected some sites that we thought would not perform well, and we were right; they didn’t, and so we got a chance to see what worked and what didn’t work as we went through this study.

(10:23):
In addition to just doing the demonstration and testing, so we put the distribution lines in the field at least 50 feet upstream from the ditch bank, and then we drill monitor wells at 15 feet downstream, 15,30, and 45 feet and test the water quality, and found really great results, as you mentioned, with this thing that a lot of the nitrate levels got below detention or the ability to detect it, and so that was really exciting to do that. In conjunction with that conservation innovation grant, we also worked with Laura Christianson at the University of Illinois to do some type of scale up to say, “Well, what is the potential for this practice throughout the upper Mississippi River basin?” If I recall correctly, in Iowa alone, there is an opportunity to cite something around 120,000 of these practices. When you think about that, that’s really remarkable, man. It’s a lot of practices out there. It’s a lot of outlets we can treat.

Matt Helmers (11:28):
I think you’re right. I don’t mean to cut you off, but I get excited when I think of it that way, because we talk a lot about rural economic development. If we’re going to put in hundreds of thousands of these practices, which I think we need to do as we think about bioreactor, saturated buffers, wetlands, drainage, water management, and drainage water recycling, that’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of rural economic development for small businesses in these rural communities to put these in.

(11:54):
These are going to be where we are today. The land improvement contractors are going to be doing that work, small engineering companies, ecosystem service exchange. Some of this other smaller engineering companies are going to be the ones to design this. Prinsco’s going to be involved with helping to see these things go forward. I’m not considered, nobody accused me of being an optimist, but as I think about this, I think we have a real opportunity, and there’s some really exciting things as we think about scaling up these practices and rural economic opportunities for our small businesses in these communities.

Trey Allis (12:30):
Right, exactly. And that’s kind of like what you’ve been saying before on, over the last 20 years we’ve been researching some of these practices, been thinking about it for a while, and that kind of brings us to today where we’re at here. I think we’re at opportunity within the industry, as scaling up some of these practices. I think about a lot of agriculture, specifically. It always leads to more precision, more control on what you have on your land. One thing that seems to get forgot about or maybe misplayed or downplayed is the water that you have on your land. That’s when you were talking about that, Charlie, with these structures, with drainage water management, that gives you the opportunity to control that resource, that water that you have on your land. That’s where I see as kind of the next step within agriculture, but specifically within the ag water management industry too.

Charlie Schafer (13:20):
I couldn’t agree more, and I’m encouraged by the fact that we’re seeing more people focus on a systems approach. They’re looking at the overall entire watershed and how it affects crop production and water quality, but also sustainability, the ability to farm, make a profit out of it, reducing erosion, and downstream impact from flood mitigation to water treatment and purification. If we really approach this market correctly, I think, with a long-term vision of what these working ag lands can look like and how we can manage that water for retention, storage, and strategic shedding, we can do things in the drainage area that have been contrary to traditional methods here for the last 120, 130 years.

(14:14):
It’s kind of crazy to think about taking a resource like water, as dry as we are in many areas today, and just allow it to run 24/7, when you can look out in the field and see corn crops curling up from drought stress, and it’s kind of ridiculous actually. And recognize that the nutrients, that we bought and paid for and put on that land, are flowing out of that tile and with the water as well. It’s wild, so we can do better, and we, as an industry, need to work with research, education, and engineering folks, and really step up to the plate and advance the cause.

Matt Helmers (14:48):
One thing I guess I mentioned about talking out in the field today about the saturated buffers, this was an opportunity. A lot of times we have field days and there’s farmers there, but this was great to have contractors there and to hear some of the interest, that the interest from the contractors is growing. I had a couple of contractors come up afterwards and say, “This is something we need to be thinking about this fall. We’re going to be putting some systems in. On each one of those, we need to be thinking, ‘Can we put a bioreactor or a saturated buffer in there?’ We need to be doing that while we’re out there at that time,” and that’s where we have to get, is that this just becomes kind of business as usual, that we think about this practice when we’re putting that new drainage system in, so I think that that was my exciting moment for the day, I guess.

Trey Allis (15:38):
Right, yeah. And from my perspective, with a lot of this too, from the engineering side is, say, a saturated buffer, which we looked at today, it’s a pretty simple practice. All it really is putting in some perforated tile lines, parallel to a ditch bank to a wetland, and allowing that, the media, that soil in between the field, the stream, and the water to filter out the nitrates, so divert some of that water through there and that treats it in the process.

(16:04):
That is encouraging to hear that there is more buy-in, more people thinking about that of, “Hey, if I’m here doing some tiling or doing some other water management within this location, and I know I have an outlet coming in here right on a ditch that has a buffer in it, it doesn’t take a whole lot.” Again, in theory. We can talk a little bit later in a different episode about some of the funding mechanisms and some of that stuff that’s available for it, but from a pure tactical standpoint is you’re just damming up your water a little bit, allowing that water to be filtered out into the stream and, in the process, get treated that way without affecting a whole lot that’s going on the field itself.

Matt Helmers (16:43):
That’s exactly right, yeah.

Charlie Schafer (16:45):
I think the funding is an important element of this as well, and the point was made today by [inaudible 00:16:51] that these practices are fully funded by state and federal dollars, that the state of Iowa is leveraging federal NRCS, USDA dollars with the EQUIP program, RCPP, and others to get this on working ag land at no cost to the landowner, because the primary benefits are downstream.

Matt Helmers (17:12):
Yeah, and I think that we talked about it a little bit there, but kind of thinking about this a one-off approach when you talk about how many thousands of potential sites, we need to think about new delivery mechanisms, and so I think that’s also exciting. Not only in the last 10 years have we learned more about the research on some of these practices, but there’s kind of a adaptive management of how do we best go about getting more of these practices on the land.

(17:41):
And so there’s batch-and-build efforts in place. In Iowa, there’s turnkey, up in Minnesota. And so I think really thinking about how do we efficiently get these out there, make it easy for the landowner so that they’ve reduced that hassle factor of having to do this and make it easier for the contractor so that it’s not just one-off jobs all the time on some of these edge-of-field practices? So that’s been exciting to see how there’s been some innovation in that space. What’s worked in the delivery mechanism for the last 30, 40, 50 years is kind of being changed to try to scale up the adoption of these practices, and that’s pretty exciting.

Trey Allis (18:23):
Yeah. And even better, like you mentioned, if you’re designing that or when you’re installing or designing your tile system from the start with that in mind, of being able to implement some of this stuff, get that ball rolling earlier on in the process, that’s kind of the overall goal and eventual goal and something if we keep going that way. I think that’s one of the main purposes of this podcast, is to help educate the public, but then also the contractors, like you mentioned a lot of people that are here today, on how simple some of these practices are, how effective they are, and it’s kind of the next step in the industry, I believe.

Matt Helmers (18:59):
Yeah. You’re exactly right. I think that we talk about this in a lot of our educational events. I still remember back to some ADMC training on controlled drainage, drainage, water management. It is better to design for these things in mind, even if you’re not going to put them in place right now. Even if you’re not going to do controlled drainage right now, lay that field out as if you would, because it is a lot more of a challenge to come in and retrofit those systems. If you’re thinking, “Okay. Well, maybe I’d put a bioreactor in,” and you might normally design your system with a couple outlets to the stream.

(19:35):
Or same with saturated buffer; now let’s design it so that we can get it maybe all to one main and be able to treat that, so I think that, even if it’s not something, that you have everything in place to put that practice, design it as if that’s going to go in the future, because it sure will make it easier, I think, for that contractor to come in and retrofit if they’ve designed with that in mind, rather than design as maybe we’ve done for the last 30 or 40 years, and then we want to retrofit it.

Charlie Schafer (20:07):
I couldn’t agree more, and we probably have a historic opportunity here in Iowa. As we look at the [inaudible 00:20:15], there’s almost 10 million acres there, that it was kind of squashed down, flattened down by the glacier that came in and receded about 12,000 years ago. It’s been drained, but much of it has been targeted to random drainage. A lot of it’s undersized for the types of weather conditions we have today and the farming practices we employ. And so as we see those systems age out and become replaced, it’d be a missed opportunity if we don’t take advantage of designing those correctly, so even you’re right, Matt, if we don’t manage them today, we’re in a position to manage them. Our CSS dollars are available at the initial phase and/or at retrofit, but it’s certainly much easier and more efficient to do it in real time, as you’re designing and installing these things.

Trey Allis (21:00):
And the way I think about it, the way that you design them for subrogation is similar to controlled drainage, but then every subjugation system also has controlled drainage. Every controlled drainage system also has that aspect of free drainage when you need it too. When you are designing it in that way, you’re not really out anything compared to how you would on a conventional drainage system.

Matt Helmers (21:24):
You’re exactly right. That’s exactly right. We can still do the things that we normally do, but it provides us opportunity to enhance our system in the future.

Charlie Schafer (21:35):
That’s right, and if we can utilize that drainage water management or sub irrigation system to reduce about 50% ballpark of the volume of water and the nutrients that come out that field over the course of a year, and then we can route that 50% of the water through edge-of-field practices, like saturated, buffered, and bioreactors, take another 50% off, we’re down to 25%, dramatically impacted the outcome.

Trey Allis (21:59):
And you want to talk a little bit, Matt, you mentioned it here earlier today, on the effectiveness of some of these practices? I’m thinking specifically the saturated buffers and bioreactors.

Matt Helmers (22:08):
Yeah. That’s a good question. I’m not sure I’ll have my numbers exactly correct, but we’re somewhere in that 30 to 50% removal of the water that would’ve otherwise been discharged downstream. In the saturated buffer, that water that goes out to the lateral and then moves below ground to the stream, we almost get complete denitrification or nitrate removal, as Charlie mentioned. It’s just that we bypass some of that water flow, so even when we account for that bypassing, we’re in that 30 to 50%. Kind of in the same range for bioreactors and similar for wetlands as well.

(22:46):
And so they all function really quite well. We’re in that probably 50% for controlled drainage as well, so they all perform really well. What I say or think about is that not each farm is going to be suited for a saturated buffer, a bioreactor, or a wetland, but each farm may have a practice that works, and it’s trying to find what practice works for that specific farm if you have drainage. If we’re in the non-trained area, that’s a topic for a different podcast. Maybe not the water table, but if we’re in the drain landscape, I think each farm has the potential for one of these edge-of=field practices to treat that water before it’s exported downstream, and it’s kind of looking at what fits into your specific farm and farming operation.

Charlie Schafer (23:37):
Yeah. We see folks occasionally now, as you mentioned, capturing the drainage water that’s coming off of these things. We did the transforming drainage project, 5 years, $5 million, sponsored by the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, a big success, and really demonstrated how we could design these systems and manage them in an effort to really control almost every aspect. Then, when you take that drain water that comes off the field or out of the drainage system, you recycle that back through as a sub irrigation system, and put those nutrients back in the field, you really increase your outcomes.

Matt Helmers (24:11):
Yeah. Now you’re going to get me excited, because that’s the practice that we’ve talked about.

Charlie Schafer (24:16):
[inaudible 00:24:16].

Matt Helmers (24:15):
Yeah, that’s right. We talked about these other practices, and they all have, in my mind, the benefit is that water quality, that downstream user, but there’s not a direct benefit to the farmer. The holy grail would be, do we have a practice that not only benefits water quality, but could provide benefit to the farmer on some of these? And so, one that we’re looking at colleagues in other states is this drainage water recycling. Can we capture some of that drainage water and use that for supplemental irrigation, either sub irrigation or overhead irrigation? I think that we are then taking that water and the nutrients in that water, that would’ve otherwise gone downstream, and we’re putting it to use out in the field.

(25:01):
Certainly, as we think about some of the changing climate with wetter springs and drier summers, having a few inches of water this time of year, late July and into August, really could help us reduce yield variability in our fields and maybe enhance that yield, and so we’re starting to look at that at three sites in Iowa. We’re excited about that, and we’ve seen over 5, 6 years about 30 to 40 bushel yield benefit on average for corn. Now, a lot of that was influenced by one year where we had 100 bushel yield benefit, but I think we still need work to look at the economics of that system under kind of different scenarios of how we place that storage and so forth, but really excited that this is a way, kind of a full scale water management system that we can reduce that downstream water flow and enhance crop production out in our fields.

Trey Allis (26:00):
So yeah, we covered just about everything, I think, with water management on the ag side, and I appreciate it. I always have a good time talking with you guys about this stuff, but hitting on saturated buffers and drainage water management, subjugation, bioreactors, all of this stuff. That’s a lot of stuff that we have been working on for a while, but what else do you guys see coming down the road, as far as within this realm? Is it just more scaling up of these practices, or from a research side, I know Charlie, you’re really innovative? What do you see coming down?

Charlie Schafer (26:32):
Well, we’re seeing good opportunities in automation. As we can drive sensors, valves, and monitor the conditions in the field, we look forward to improvements there. It makes it easier for the farmer to be really aggressive in their management, active management. We’re looking at trying to do a better job of prescribing the right management style for them, and even get a little bit forward-thinking in looking at forecasts, weather forecasts. Do we drain if we’re irrigating? Do we wait to irrigate it if we’ve got a rainfall event coming towards us or a high likelihood of that? We can save the money that it would otherwise cost to drain. We believe that, as we can better monitor and quantify nutrient reductions, we’ll see these environmental markets mature and give these producers more reason and more incentives to participate in these markets.

(27:29):
That’s exciting. There’s a lot of work being done on phosphorus too. We talk a lot about nitrogen, but phosphorus is a big driver in a lot of watersheds, and there are traps and containment chambers for those. We’re looking at even how can we blend that type of technology into a saturated buffer at an affordable rate? And so there’s lots of fun stuff going on there as well. This is a tremendous opportunity, and a lot of financing available now. We look at greenhouse gas reduction. Matt, you know a lot better than I about how drainage water management can impact that, but climate smart ag with the Inflation Reduction Act funding, going to NRCS now, is a neat opportunity, and it really presents us with a funding mechanism that is significant, and we can take advantage of some of these opportunities.

Matt Helmers (28:14):
Yeah. It’s a good question, Trey. And so I look at it from, as a director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, there’s a lot of research still yet to be done, but that should not prevent us from scaling up. We know enough to really scale up. So I think we will be looking at new practices or new ways we can implement practices. We have a project that we funded through the Nutrient Research Center, looking at, “Can we design grass waterways a little different to maybe implement some of this saturated buffer concept and use some of these grass waterway areas as opportunities for denitrification?” So this is a case where maybe it will work, maybe it won’t, but I think we need to be looking at that, because there may be some unique opportunities.

(29:01):
I also think that I’m hopeful for the future on the research side to be able to document that we can have a watershed scale water quality impact from implementing these practices at the scale, because I think that’s a way we can show citizens of our various states that, yes, when we implement these practices, like we want to do, that we can see the results that we expect. I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunities on the research side to do some of that. Then, thinking about continually adapting how we scale this up, how do we adapt, so that we can get the most practices out there in the best locations and kind of the least hassle for the farmers. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to do that, and I wish I knew now what new practice is going to come about, because 10 years ago we didn’t have saturated buffers. Somebody more creative than me will probably come up with some new practice. 10 years from now, we’ll be saying, “Wow. Look at how that practice has helped us.”

Trey Allis (30:03):
We covered a lot here, and there is a lot of information that’s out there and, like I said, decades worth of research and experience from all this stuff. There is tools available from an educational standpoint. That’s one of the reasons that we came out with the Water Table, not only the podcast, but we also built out watertable.ag to house some information on the practices, on the research, on some of that stuff too. Also, the Conservation Drainage Network, there’s a handful of extensions for land grant universities. There is a bunch of this information that is out there.

(30:35):
Then, also, I think we’re all open for questions on all that stuff independently and being able to talk through it, so it’s been a fun opportunity here chatting with you guys, being out here with some of the contractors and with some of the LICA folks to keep spreading the word and keep educating people on what’s all to come, what has been happening, and show off a lot of your guys’ work and a lot of what we have going on in the industry. So with that, I guess, do you guys have any final words, any takeaways?

Charlie Schafer (31:04):
I just appreciate what Frinsco and you’re doing, Trey, you, Jamie, Kent, and the gang, I think to get the word out, not just to our industry, but beyond that, to tell a story. I think it’s an exciting opportunity and do appreciate your efforts to promote it.

Matt Helmers (31:20):
Yeah. I certainly echo that, and to highlight, I think there are a lot of resources out there. We do some work within ISU extension and outreach with the Iowa Learning Farms program. We do a weekly webinar. If you go back and look at those archives, there’s multiple webinars on bioreactors and saturated buffers. In fact, you could go back maybe 10 years ago with Laura Christianson on a bioreactor.

(31:43):
We all looked a little younger then, but those are all archived. We also have some virtual field days, so sometimes it’s tough for contractors or others to get out to see one of these practices being put in place. This is where COVID, we learned something from that. We can take some of these to people, and so doing some video recording, so you can go look at the virtual field days there as well on some of these practices on the Iowa Learning Farms website or YouTube page.

Trey Allis (32:12):
Awesome. Well, thanks again for your time here today and also for all your work that you’ve been doing throughout the industry. It was a pleasure to have you on and pleasure to stay in contact with you guys.

Matt Helmers (32:20):
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Thanks, again, Trey.

Charlie Schafer (32:22):
Thanks, Trey.

Jamie Duininck (32:24):
Well, thanks for listening to this episode. I have so much fun recording these. I hope you have as much fun listening as I do recording. These episodes are available on all major podcast platforms, as well as YouTube, so find them and download them when you can. Thanks for joining us.

Podcast Episode 83

Saturated Buffers: Stepping Up to the Plate… On the Road

Episode 83 | 33 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Guest Bios

Dr. Matt Helmers

Chalrie Schafer

Transcript

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Podcast Episode 83

Saturated Buffers: Stepping Up to the Plate… On the Road

Episode 83 | 33 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Also Available On

Guest Bios

Dr. Matt Helmers

Chalrie Schafer

Transcript

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