Small check-off investment leads to big phosphorus study grant
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
One of the goals of Minnesota Corn’s Innovation Grant program is to take great ideas born from on-farm research and attract major scientific institutional funding.
“Assistant Prof. Lindsay Pease has leveraged her dataset from her Innovation Grant study of phosphorous movement and won a major four-year grant,” said Maciej Kazula, research director of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA). “We are very pleased. This outcome is one of the things we designed the Innovation Grant program to do.”
In 2020, the Innovation Grants funded nine studies conducted right on the farm. Often, it is the farmers themselves who generate the ideas and want to pursue scientific findings. But a share of these grants also go to academic researchers like Pease, an assistant professor of soil science at the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) and University of Minnesota Extension. She works from the Northwest Research and Outreach Center in Crookston.
“I am super excited, and very happy that the Corn Growers gave me a chance with start-up funds, which has led to this,” Pease said.
[More: Read about research funded by Minnesota Corn in 2021]
The four-year grant comes from the 4R Research Fund of the Foundation for Agronomic Research, an organization that works with the Fertilizer Institute and private industry to help fill in the gaps in nutrient-management science.
Pease is looking at phosphorous in the Red River basin, because the nutrient can adversely impact freshwater bodies. Phosphorous is a vital nutrient for crops because of its role in the creation of DNA, which governs metabolism, growth and reproduction. Unfortunately, when excess amounts of phosphorous enter the environment beyond the farm, it can lead to algae growth that harms natural ecosystems.
“We’re still in process of getting this new project off the ground, but we are going to be able to look at phosphorous placement, fertility strategy and monitoring surface runoff and tile drainage discharge to see what nutrient-management methods lead to the greatest reduction in nutrient loss,” Pease said.
[More: Read about past innovation grant recipients]
2020 and 2021 are a study of contrasts in the Red River basin. Last year was one of the wettest on record, and this year is one of the driest. Pease’s work generated a robust dataset about nutrient flows that suggests a baseline for phosphorous loss. This year, due to drought, fewer nutrients are moving. The concern becomes, according to Pease, that fertilizer rates geared to normal weather can leave a surcharge of nutrients in a year like this when plant biomass and grain yield may be reduced. That extra phosphorus is likely to flush from the soil when it gets wet again.
“You can do so much when it comes to good nutrient management,” Pease said. “And then there are the things you need to put on top of that, like cover crops and field-edge filter systems, which are more expensive solutions. All of these things are on the long list of what I am interested in researching.”
To learn about Minnesota Corn-funded research, visit mncorn.org/research.
