A City Girl’s Day On The Farm

I learned so much just by visiting the Red Cedar Demonstration Farm last week. One thing is learning about conservation agriculture through a textbook and another is seeing it right before your eyes. I thought I knew what no-till farming was until I saw what no-till farming really is. I was in awe. I never thought about how even if a field had been converted into no-till for a couple of years’ the soil still showed signs of compaction. It was still so compacted that even after 10 minutes of water sitting on top of it, it would not percolate down.  John Sippl, the district conversationalist, shoveled out 7-inches of soil and we all were able to see the layers of compaction. I was under the impression that no-till would have fixed this but John explained how no-till is used to mitigate erosion. No till serves as a method to grow crops without disturbing the soil thus decreasing erosion but in order to decrease this compaction, John explained how cover crops roots adds complexity to the soil structure which leads water to percolate into the soil easily as well as lessen erosion too.

Stop P[ing] in the Lake

There are a lot of things I am learning about this summer, but all of them come down to one pesky, little letter. P. It is the symbol for the element phosphorous. Phosphorous is usually a good thing. It is used to make ATP, which powers cells, and it is used to make DNA, which powers life. However, the phosphorous in the Red Cedar Watershed is a perfect illustration of the phrase “too much of a good thing.” The huge amount of phosphorous in the lake is what leads to the toxic blooms of cyanobacteria every summer. This phosphorous gets into the lake because of people.

'Til the Cows Come Home: Experiential Learning At Its Finest

This past week has been quite the fruitful continuation of an introduction to the world of academic research. After a week of gathering sources and reading through a plethora of literature regarding water quality policies, I got my hands dirty and worked with real data for the first time in my academic career (unless you count FRED data downloads for problem sets...). This week's appetizer came in the form of water quality data from the National Water Quality Monitoring Council, which proved to a delectable selection of information that will serve as the backbone for the remaining components of this project's particular approach. Once that data had been spruced up and made into workable sets, the entree awaited: data from the 2002-2012 USDA Agricultural Census, specifically farm counts and total acreage. And why stop at one dish? Throughout the week I was also making steady progress on a second plate of brain food: a literature review encompassing last week's readings, and representing a key component of this summer's research.

Lesson #2: Never Trust a Cabbage

Lesson #2: Never Trust a Cabbage

Team Biology has wasted no time in beginning an experiment to biogeochemically remediate lake Menomin. Toxic conditions at this lake have been accredited to Microcystis aeruginosa, a freshwater cyanobacteria, who fully takes advantage of the overabundance of phosphorus in the lake. Our plan is to introduce a plant species who will uptake the phosphorus before the Microcystis can. Preparation for this experiment has been long and labor intensive as our team has worked tirelessly shedding blood*, sweat, and tears in the name of science. The plants will sit atop rafts constructed from 2X4s, chicken wire, and pool noodles. We will be using collard greens in this experiment considering they are known to uptake a considerable amount of nutrients and are fairly hardy plants.

Manure Economics

This summer I’ll be looking at the effects of manure use on water pollution. Manure is often used as a substitute for commercial fertilizer, but its impact on water phosphorus levels is somewhat unclear. In the literature on the subject thus far, manure use and relevant regulations have been shown both to increase and decrease pollution (depending on the assumptions and conditions of the study). Many are case-studies, meaning the results of which are of limited generalizability. To my knowledge, the project I’m undertaking will be the first empirical analysis of manure use’s relationship to water phosphorus levels using data from the U.S. Midwest.

      After looking at these effects, I will run some policy simulations to try to determine the optimal regulations for manure use in the area. The hope is for this paper to be published and noticed by policymakers who will use these results to make an informed decision on how to improve the quality of our water.

Curiosity and Questions: A Methodology for Accessing Our Greatest Resource

How do you transform a problem into solutions? This is what I want to know. But if a straightforward answer existed I feel like more of us would be screaming it from the rooftops and making spending every living moment doing it and the world would be a happier, cleaner, safer place. But that doesn’t exist. The answer is elusive, complex and specific for different issues. So where does one even begin?

Building a Sociological Atlas: Interviews and Surveys

           After a week of learning everything ranging from how to analyze data using statistical software to how to conduct interviews with farmers to get the most authentic responses, it seems as if my head is practically bursting with unexpected knowledge of all sorts.  That being said, the most startling of all these developing new insights seems to be concentrated in the form of maps.  By “maps”, not only do I mean as in physical roadmaps of land (as there has been plenty of that in the past few days with Sadie partnering with me to navigate through multiple Wisconsin counties in order to survey farmers), but also “maps” of all the interconnected pieces that are building my own growing knowledge about farmers’ livelihoods and the daily realities they face.