Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Current Special Project

Impacts to the land-water-human system of rural Iowa from high intensity continuous maize production

NOTE: Work on this grant project has been completed and is awaiting a final report.

Project ID: EPSP2008-01

This 4-year grant for $24,800 was awarded in 2008.

Location: Allamakee county

The project objectives are to develop physically-grounded, user-friendly indices to evaluate the impacts on the land-water-human system of shifting from corn and soybean rotation to continuous corn rotation. This information will help develop a sound strategy of management practices for short and long term predictions on water and soil quality in Iowa. The project includes simulated rainfall events at test plots in the Clear Creek watershed, and the coupling of computer models to evaluate water and soil quality, and predict issues that would arise from different management plans.

C. Lee Burras

[Contact lead investigator]

Co-Investigator(s):

Thanos Papanicolaou, University of Iowa (lead investigator for year 1 of project)


This special project is part of the Leopold Center's Ecology, Policy Initiative.

Topics: Corn-soybean cropping systems, Farming systems