Will Fulwider 0:01
Welcome to field notes. This time, we got a special series coming to you. Ooh, something new from the nutrient and pest management team at UW Extension. Call it the greatest hits of nutrient management planning, or a back to basics, depending on your tilt, chatting with us on the series of some of the experts on nutrient management planning from around the state, from the Department of Ag, UW Extension, NRCS and clean Wisconsin here to chat more about what this series holds is Landon Baumgartner, who’s the Southwest Regional outreach specialist for the NPM team at UW Extension. Landon, take it away.

Landon Baumgartner 0:39
Thanks for having me will. It’s nice to finally get this topic brought into the pie. Brought into the podcast space by launching this, what I would call the BMPs of nmps, or the best management practices in nutrient management planning. We have a few great episodes that we’ve been able to pull together because of some experts from very different perspectives, but from all very adequate backgrounds to kind of bring a lot of these topics to the forefront. So thanks for helping us get this word out and getting nutrient management brought to the forefront to this new audience. So in this series, we’re going to be looking at nutrient management planning from a breadth of different topics related to, you know, this singular subject that we’re looking at across six episodes, all the way from those very beginnings of addressing the one on ones of nutrient management, specifically how nutrient applications on fields interacts with like your soil health, and how those metrics both complement nutrient management, but how they may not be exactly the same. We’re gonna be looking at like how these different land restrictions that we encounter around a pretty diverse state geologically, interacts with how we plan our nutrients, depending on the soils you have, whether you’re out in the middle of nowhere or maybe you’re very close to town, where you’re near other structures, maybe you’re shallow at a water table, you know, shallow to bed rock. Maybe you don’t have much soil there, so you got to take really good care of it. All those things will be touching on, as well as the 590 standard itself, what’s kind of coming up really soon for that, and what that means for farmers today and for years way into the future, as we continue to use this nutrient management tool as a broader conservation management aspect for the entire state, and a sharing of my own experiences with implementation of this practice in the driftless area of Wisconsin. So we’ve got a whole bunch of different stuff we’re going to be talking about through the rest of 2025 on this series.

Will Fulwider 2:32
Excellent. Well, thanks for helping us bring it out here. Landon, looking forward to tuning in myself, and without further ado, the first episode of this BMPs of nmps series from field notes from UW Madison extension.

Landon Baumgartner 2:55
Okay, well, I want to welcome in Andrea topper from datcap, the Department of Ag Trade and Consumer Protection. Andrea is the nutrient management outreach specialist for that department, joining us on Introduction to nutrient management planning today for this field notes podcast, as well as Chris Clark. Chris is joining us today from farm tech days 2025 over the phone today. And Chris is the Northeast Regional outreach specialist for the nutrient and pest management program under the UW Madison division of extension. So thank you both for being here today to talk in to talk nutrient management basics. I think it’s really important to revisit these basics. We kind of get lost in the weeds sometimes when it comes to developing soil science and doing in depth research on sort of the latest and greatest, but I think it’s helpful to have sort of that recentering sometimes when it comes to like, why are we doing this, and what are the guiding philosophies for us as you know, producers of crops in Wisconsin. So I want to start with kind of a basic question. A lot of people who are listening to this podcast right now, are likely familiar with at least the concept of nutrient management its existence, and maybe even have a plan themselves. It’s still very much so worth, worth asking for Wisconsin farmers specifically, what are the surface level and underlying goals of nutrient management?

Andrea Topper 4:17
It’s a good question, and it is super important to get back to the basics, because here in Wisconsin, we do have a pretty in depth, 590 nutrient management standard where we do dive into a lot of specifics. So taking that step back and really identifying what are our main goals of nutrient management, it’s a good thing to do. And there’s two things that immediately come to mind when I think of nutrient management, when I’m working with a farmer and I need to explain. Why are you here? What’s the purpose of this? It’s that we’re trying to make the best, economic and environmentally sound decisions for your farm specifically. There’s a lot of different things that we can be doing from operation to operation, but this nutrient management plan is going to be specific to your own operation. And we. Want to make sure that we’re taking into consideration what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. What are some conservation practices that you have wanted to try, or what are some things that you have found that don’t work? What are some other things that we can push or suggest to you? So just really identifying that these things are specific to each individual farm, and there’s going to be things that work for some and some that don’t work for others. And really just kind of making sure that we’re looking at both that economic side as well as that environmental side, piece of making sure that we’re not putting out too much nutrients and making sure that we’re putting out the right amount and we’re feeding the crop what it needs.

Landon Baumgartner 5:39
I always like that concept, where it’s a really good place to start the conversation of the conservation conversation. Yes, always get those two mixed up. Chris, I wanted your take on this next one we talked about, sort of the main goals, and so we know what we’re doing with these plans. Now I kind of want to get into that deeper question of why. So what are the underlying philosophies that guide us in deciding how we’re going to interpret, you know, the research data as it comes out and employ it in this nutrient management implementation?

Chris Clark 6:12
Yeah, that’s a really good question Landon, and probably not one that we expect our farmers to chat about over coffee in the morning, but they can be assured that this, these philosophies have been worked into the Wisconsin’s nutrient management software of SNAP plus, and it also includes the University of Wisconsin recommendations and how those philosophies are built into it. So one of them is just the build and maintain approach. And all of those, again, kind of overlap with what Andrea said it’s environmentally has an aspect of the build and approach for our nutrients that we’re applying both nitrogen and phosphorus, the ones that are a little bit sensitive to the environment. And it also has the economic portion of that too. And when we’re looking at that, we want to make sure that we’re putting in our whole crop rotation, because then we want to make sure that we have and are keeping our soil test ranges in optimal throughout that whole crop rotation. And then the cool thing about SNAP plus is it helps you identify fields that maybe are starting to get a little bit high in levels, as well as on the flip side, low on levels. And then I would say the next best approach, and Andrea, again, hinted toward it is just the four Rs is putting those nutrients in the in the right place, at the right time, we’re going to choose the right source, so if we have manure, we’re going to use up the manure first on our farm and then making sure that we have the right rate. So this is all a very science based approach, and all of that information coming out of our university soil fertility nutrient management guidelines, and we call that A2809

Landon Baumgartner 7:56
Yeah, I really like I’ve gotten to learn a little bit how the approaches toward nutrient management are taken between some different states. And I got to say, out of all of them, I really like kind of the guiding principles here in Wisconsin best. Out of all of them, I got to say, I’m a little biased there. So in general, for folks in Wisconsin who needs to employ a nutrient management plan on their farm, and who can help get plans written for these farms, and that can start with either of you.

Andrea Topper 8:25
Yeah. So there’s a lot of different reasons why you might have a nutrient management plan. Some of the big ones are what I would call our heavy hitters. Would be the CAFO program through the DNR, so confined animal feeding operations farms that have greater than 1000 animal units are required to have a WPDES permit to operate, and a part of that permit is having a compliant nutrient management plan. So any acre that potentially could be receiving CAFO manure is going to be under a CAFO nutrient management plan. Additionally, we have the farmland preservation tax credit program. This is a program that is available statewide, but it can be county dependent, and it can also be town dependent. But with that tax program, it’s a requirement that you meet conservation compliance. And in order to receive that tax credit, you have to meet conservation compliance. And in one of those requirements is again, having a nutrient management plan, you’re kind of catching a trend here that that nutrient management plan tends to be that little tidbit piece to kind of grant you additional access to some cost share. And that trend will continue. Datcap has a soil and water resource management fund program where we can offer cost share funding to County Land Conservation Departments. A lot of times again, that key to access to cost share is going to be having a nutrient management plan first and foremost. So if you have that nutrient management plan, but now all of a sudden, you’re interested in trying cover crops, or you’d like to try no till, or you’re interested in harvestable buffers, all of those are things that we can cost share if you have a nutrient management plan in place. So alongside of it just being a good practice to have a nutrient management plan, there’s also a lot of really neat incentive programs out there to follow up with that, though, is who can write nutrient management plans in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is pretty unique. We call out specific groups entities that are deemed certified to write nutrient management plans, those groups or entities are certified crop advisors, registered soil scientists as well as certified professional crop consultants. Those people are deemed automatically eligible to be writing nutrient management plans in the state of Wisconsin based on their certifications. Additionally, though, a really neat program that we have is that farmers are allowed to write their own nutrient management plan as well, as long as they attend a datcap approved course and come back once every four years for recertification, they are deemed eligible to be writing their own nutrient management plan. And I know Chris has seen this as well as you Landon, but being out working with farmers and helping them write their own nutrient management plans is one of the most rewarding, rewarding things of my job is to be able to see them kind of take that additional control of their farm and see where they can make better decisions, whether that be we don’t actually need to be buying this phosphorus because of the manure that I’m putting out is giving me the phosphorus that I need, and they can make different decisions to maybe move some of that money that they would be using to buy phosphorus fertilizer to purchasing potash, where they might not have prioritized potash before.

Landon Baumgartner 11:35
Sort of that knowledge is power concept, where taking, you know, control of your own inputs can really go a long way for you as the manager of your own operation. So in our last minute or so, Chris, you had mentioned leading up to this podcast that you had some case studies that you reference when you think about, you know, nutrient management. What is the one, I guess, that you would want to leave our audience with today from your background,

Chris Clark 12:00
Yeah, one that I’ll talk about is they started utilizing cover crops with manure. And I think that’s, you know, very proactive. I think it’s something that it gave them more opportunities to spread manure than they thought that they had before. So this was just like a cash crop rotation, and so they worked with a neighbor to bring manure onto their fields. They were it helped them build up a little bit of soil fertility through manure sources and not necessarily have to purchase as much commercial fertilizer. And they plan this all out ahead of time in their nutrient management plan. That’s one of the cool things about it, is we’re trying to look forward. That’s why we call it a nutrient management plan. And they strategically applied the manure in some of the fields that were a little bit lower testing. And I thought that was a great relationship that got, got created between this cash cropper and a neighboring farm, and then it helped to improve, specifically, their phosphorus and some of their potash in their fields without ever exceeding any of the thresholds, and because they were applying that to cover crops that they were planting after soybeans, it just reduced overall runoff. And it was very, a very positive experience for that farmer. And, yeah, it was, it was cool for them to also see how, how, what it takes to put manure into a nutrient management plan instead of just commercial fertilizer. So that was a really neat one that I had the chance to work with a farmer on this past winter.

Landon Baumgartner 13:40
Yeah, one of those positive like Win Win Win situations that come out of a nutrient management interaction. Awesome. Well, thank you Andrea and Chris for joining us today, for introducing us to nutrient management planning on this field notes podcast. We’ll have you back for future ones.

Andrea Topper 13:54
Thanks, Landon.

Chris Clark 13:56
Yeah. Thank you, Landon.

Will Fulwider 14:02
Thanks for listening. This has been field notes from UW Madison extension. My name is Will Fulwider regional crops, educator for Dane and Dodge counties. A big thank you to Joe Ryan for creating our theme music and to Abby Wilkimacky for our logo. If you have any questions about anything you’ve heard today or about your farming practices in general, reach out to the extension agriculture educators serving your region.