Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Current Competitive Grant

Drainage water quality impacts of current and future agricultural management practices

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

Project ID: XP2011-04

This 1-year grant for $18,898 was awarded in 2011.

Location: Floyd county

The researchers will continue data collection from a previously funded project for one more year to account for additional variability in weather. This is a systems-level study where the overall objectives are to evaluate the drainage water quality impacts of various cropping and nutrient management systems and it includes these comparisons: cropping practices through the use of a winter cover crop, use of swine manure before corn and soybeans or just corn, continuous corn systems with and without stover removal compared to a corn-soybean system, and use of a no-till corn-soybean system.

Matt Helmers

Matt Helmers Matt Helmers is an associate professor of drainage engineering and an extension agricultural engineer in the ISU Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. His work focuses on protecting and enhancing the quality of water resources by providing other researchers, agency personnel/policy makers, producers and the general public with up-to-date data and information on water resource issues. Helmers is the recipient of ISU^'s 2007 Award for Early Achievement in Extension. He is an Iowa native from Sibley, and his family still farms in the area. Ramesh Kanwar is Distinguished Professor and Chair of the ISU Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of water quality, and soil and water management, and erosion and sediment transport at Iowa State University. He conducts research in drainage, irrigation, water quality impacts of agricultural and livestock production systems, hydrologic modeling and natural resource engineering.

Co-Investigator(s):

Ramesh Kanwar, ISU Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering


This competitive grant project is part of the Leopold Center's Cross-Cutting Initiative.

Topics: Water quality, quantity and management