Soil nitrate fate and water quality in tile-drained and sustainable cropping systems
2021
- Department of Agronomy, Purdue University
Project Media
The goals of a Sustainably Intensified Agriculture (SIA) system are to
maximize agronomic production, while minimizing environmental degradation. Thus,
fulfilling and aligning with all four pillars of sustainability, human, social, economic, and
environmental. The demand for increased agriculture production due a growing human
population is a reality within the state and globally. On the same scale, there is a need to
develop row crop sustainable agricultural systems that can meet the production demand,
while not violating the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainability is also
pressing and critical. Tile-drained row crop agriculture has been identified as a major
contributor of nitrogen (N) from the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) to the
hypoxic zone of the Gulf of Mexico. Cover cropping has been identified as the most
effective in-field conservation strategy that can be adopted on a large scale to achieve the
non-point nutrient loss reduction goals.