Will Fulwider 0:01
Well, this is field notes.

Michael Geissinger 0:03
Yes, it is.

Will Fulwider 0:05
We’re in a bar. The Mt. Vernon Tap.

Michael Geissinger 0:08
Yes we are.

Will Fulwider 0:10
Who’s talking with us, Michael?

Michael Geissinger 0:13
We have Chelsea Zegler with us who is the Ag Water Quality specialist and then you have a farmer here from your region.

Will Fulwider 0:20
Yeah. Mark Keller from Kellercrest Dairy, Kellercrest Dairy, right?

Mark Keller 0:24
Kellercrest Holsteins.

Will Fulwider 0:25
Kellercrest Holsteins, excuse me and we’re here to talk about soil test phosphorus and a project that Mark was invovled in trying to draw, working with farmers giving a flexible program for farmers to work on drawing phosphorus from their watersheds.

Chelsea Zegler 0:53
All right, so in Wisconsin, Phosphorus is a pollutant in a sense to our freshwater systems, because it’s just a limiting nutrient. We don’t have that much of it. So when we add all this additional phosphorus through, you know, importing a feed, it really causes a big spike in growth in these aquatic ecosystems that kind of makes them go crazy and has some negative water quality impacts. So when you asked me to do this podcast, it’s not very fun to have a farmer farmer’s don’t want to talk about phosphorus that often. But I’m

Mark Keller 1:27
Phosphorus is a pollutant when it’s not used correctly.

Chelsea Zegler 1:29
Right. Right. Right. When it when it leaves the farm.

Mark Keller 1:32
Yes, used correctly, it’s a necessity to grow crops,

Chelsea Zegler 1:35
Right. Absolutely. And it is a natural, you know, element in our systems. I was excited to have mark here because two things I always think about this project, because Mark talks about the drawdown of soil tests phosphorus, and that really sticks in my mind, because it’s an important risk factor of every field’s contribution to water quality. And because whenever I read about the project, it Mark’s cute corgis on the farm. And that makes me smile, too. So in Wisconsin, we lose phosphorus through two major pathways: through erosion, which is what we conventionally think about, a lot of our conservation practices have been about controlling erosion and Mark is in the Driftless. So he knows a lot about that. And the other less talked about one is dissolved phosphorous, which as the water quality science has evolved, we’ve learned is more of a problem. So that’s when you have water leaving the field without soil, but can still contain phosphorus. So even when you see clean water, you know, clear water running to feel running out the field. That doesn’t mean there’s no phosphorus in it. And kind of similar to that impact in urban ecosystems with leaves the same thing can happen in agricultural fields. So soil test phosphorus is related to both of those, because if you’re losing the soil particle, the amount of phosphorus sorbed to it would would impact that. And then dissolved phosphorus is more common in frozen ground when the ground is frozen. So it’s hard to have soil erosion. But that soil and that residue, and any fertility on the surface can release a little bit of that dissolved phosphorus. So drawing down, you know, that bank that we just talked about, is an important management strategy.

Will Fulwider 3:16
Well do you want to dive into it, and then talk with Mark a little bit about the project that you’re involved in Mark and how it went and the history of it and why you got involved.

Yeah, the project basically goes back I think it was 2007. Dane County extension first came to us talking about we’re one of the higher phosphorus soil test farms in Dane County. And that’s from the years of spreading manure, buying commercial fertilizer, just trying to grow good crops during the common practices that were done on farms. And typically, it was close to the buildings since that’s when you put the manure. Farther away, it was always lower. But they wanted to work with farmers that dairy farmers particular that had the higher phosphorus levels. And a big part of that was what they call the Pleasant Valley watershed project, which ended up being a coalition of a number of different organizations including the Nature Conservancy. So we got to know Steve Richtor with The Nature Conservancy quite well, but DNR, EPA, county state feds are all involved in this. But it is kind of the program that predated all the farmer led watershed groups that are going on today. And a big part of it was trying to find 10 different organizations working together with farmers that try to combat higher phosphorus and hopefully get some different practices in place to try to control the runoff primarily to Gordon Creek which is part of the Pectonica creek river system that they were trying to turn. Then there is a control group that was born in Iowa. So you had your check. In Iowa County, that actual project was in southwest Dane County, which is part of the driftless area, which is also an area that is a trout stream. So we set up a testing station, not too far from a farm, it was down downstream, and they were able to test everything and find out what their base levels were. And over a number of years, were able to see what were the numbers in the river. Farms like us we were always contour farming. So we have conservation already placed on a farm. But could we find some ways to enhance that with other things. One of the things I came up with based off of watching some other people, some early inventors, early adaptors used winter rye as a cover crop and using it for a full time for forage for feeding heifers. So for us it actually worked as a benefit for feeding cows since we’re short acres and needed all the feed we could. Right. So we adapted for the winter rye. In the meantime, we also bought a corn planter we’re doing a lot of that time was like 38 inch rows with a four row planter Yeah, we would double up the planting so we could get more like 19 inch row corn trying to optimize tonnage for corn silage. The new planter we bought was actually a six row so it’s already set up for a fifteen inch row corn or you could do the standard 30 inch right that’s save a lot of time but it was also set up as a no till heavy duty planter so we could adapt more no till practices into our operation. So with the Pleasant Valley project we did adpat the no till planting corn as much as we could, along would use a winter rye as a cover crop and feeding the cattle

Before this year doing conventional tillage?

A lot of conventional tillage chisel plow in the fall worked the ground in the spring. Now the nice thing about what we were doing with chisel plowing and everything’s still done on a contour. Yeah, we were wanting to first farms in Dane County 60 years ago to do contour farming.

Okay, so there’s this long history of conservation.

So my whole life I always knew what contour farming was working everything on the contour of the land, not up and down. So we’re just trying to find ways to enhance the good things we were doing already. And we have I think we did succeeded.

Chelsea Zegler 8:12
So I’m curious like what surprised you when they walked through the inventory with you? Or what was that process like? Because I think they show you know, they walked through each field in your farm or how did that work?

Will Fulwider 8:24
No, it wasn’t walking through every field is more or less what are our practices and the whole project I mean, they brought into the university people talk about the economics. You want to drive a farmer and you tell them what’s gonna save money in their checking. Because we’re all trying to save money we’re all trying to utilize everything the best we can Yeah. I mean, they have economists that would talk about how do we do things that actually save money that was not the approach of just telling all you need to do that but let’s try to find some common ground where we can work well.

Michael Geissinger 9:00
You talked about a few different practices you started adopting when kind of all this is happening. I’m curious, is there any practice that stands out to you that you think he does the most for take mitigating soil phosphorus losses or one that stands out is a better return on investment than others? I know you talked about contour farming, you’ve always done that but

Will Fulwider 9:21
Contour farming that’s always part of it. I don’t care how you plant you need to plant on a contour. Even the no till guys you got to plant on a contour. The ones that drive up and down a hill or something like that, that drives me nuts. And there’s still people that do that. Because you’re always gonna have the water wash right down. But probably the biggest thing that probably impacted us this is probably the winter rye as a cover crop. That soil is not going anywhere. You’re holding a soil place. I could remember as a kid seeing some fields where the building was washed out. I don’t see that anymore.

Michael Geissinger 10:01
And are you just planting the winter rye after corn silage?

Mark Keller 10:04
Typically, it’s after corn silage. Now, last couple of years we’ve also enhanced more things with spring barley as a cover crop, I only need about 50 acres so the other acres we haven’t enahnced more things out over the last few years Partially with our work with farmers for the upper sugar river we as a farmer members of that so utilizing some spring barley is another straight up cover crop.

Will Fulwider 10:33
You’re not taking that for forage?

Mark Keller 10:36
That I actually die out over the winter so the purpose is just to try to hold the soil in place over the wintertime. So springtime comes I just no till right into it without disturbing the soil. So no till it’s kind of a separate thing, I think. Yeah, yeah, enahnce things a lot. Third thing we did phosphorus because of soil tests were high. We stopped buying phosphorus went cold turkey on it. I think it was 2009 I’m gonna say milk prices crashed, big time. The checkbook sucked. Yeah, you didn’t have the extra money. So what can we do to save money? Let’s try eliminating the phosphorus. Didn’t see any yield drops. Basically switch to more of a urea potash mix, to the least concentrating on making sure you get the nitrogen and potash is the other thing because we do a lot of alfalfa that gets drawn down. Phosphorus, we still have manure as our source for phosphorus. Nice thing about it at the time we went to a tank, we got cab tractors, we could get to every corner of the farm now. Not like the old days where you had an open trackers, 30 below zero or windchills. You’re trying to get out back as quick as possible because you’re in an open tractor freezing you butt off.

Will Fulwider 12:04
And it was those fields closest to the barn.

Mark Keller 12:06
That’s why you have the phosphorus at higher levels, closer the buildings over history of time. You’re 50 years ago, there’s no such thing as cab trackers, you might have had a tracker that had a windbreak and that’s it. Yeah,

Chelsea Zegler 12:20
Yeah. I’m gonna get myself a hot water because Michael is a nutrient management planning specialist. But right. So in your fields, or in excessively high categories or even high, you’re very unlikely to see a yield response to additional phosphorus. Right?

Michael Geissinger 12:35
Yeah. Typically, when you get in that excessively high range, you’re thinking more about drawing soil phosphorus down. So phosphorus in Wisconsin typically isn’t something that we think about as a real limiting nutrient because of the history of livestock and dairy in Wisconsin and having that manure applied on fields.

Chelsea Zegler 12:56
I wanted to hit on the rye a little bit, right? It’s it’s providing physical protection of the soil and erosion. And then by removing that forage, you’re removing more phosphorus from those fields. And you mentioned that changed how you bought fertility, did it change how you spread manure? Or I guess I’m curious, like, what that that helped with your nutrient management planning? Were you scared? Like, what would you tell people about that process,

Mark Keller 13:24
We’ve been daily haul for manure. So we do not have storage for manure on the farm. Yeah, by doing what we get to actually kind of open up some different windows spread year round. In wider windows, the neat thing was where we had to rise some of that we did to the plant very quick. Some of it we would delay because what we’re doing is utilizing the rye as long as we could for fields that we would delay planting and that would be our late corn silage. And when we actually chop two different times, once normal process, but then we’d have some later stuff or you refill would be our transition corn silage for the cattle.

Will Fulwider 14:05
It also helps to spread out the labor so you’re not rushing all at once.

Mark Keller 14:09
Spreads out the labor spreads out a timetable when you can do things. Because when you daily haul manure and it’s got to go every day, right? It doesn’t matter what the weather is. And there’s there are advantages to doing that. There’s disadvantages too. The one main advantages on daily haul is even in the middle of the wintertime you’re spreading. There is freezing thawing actually going on you are getting that manure adhered to soil particles to some of your phosphorus, yes, it can run off. What you’re not going to ever have that big plume. Where you get the problem where you got to empty out a manure pit and the heavy rain it comes right afterwards. You’re not going to see those kinds of things. You’re always gonna have a little go and nature can tolerate a certain amount within reason of course.

Michael Geissinger 14:59
Did you do it anything like I know you’re removing phosphorus with the rye. Did you place corn silage rotations where there were higher soil soil test phosphorus to draw it down also?

Mark Keller 15:10
Traditionally, in the top phosphorus is one of the farms that we end up renting a number of years ago was five on phosphorus. That’s not, that’s me that needs phosphorus. So we’re able to concentrate more manure over in those directions. So they pull away from the real high fields. Traditionally, the corn silage, we were concentrating close to the barn where the phosphorus was high to try to pull down and the neat thing is, the first time we soil samples after doing this a number of years really didn’t change a lot. But the next cycle three, four years later, when we did, it had a nice drop. By time the third time we did a soil test, we actually saw about a 40% decrease on the three main farms that were extremely high on phosphorus, which was also the 40% decrease we had is what they found with the pleasant valley project with the phosphorus in a pleasant valley project.

Will Fulwider 16:10
In the water source?

Mark Keller 16:12
yes, so the river itself had a 40% decrease.

Will Fulwider 16:17
Yeah, I mean, it’s just kind of a testament to the fact that you’re not gonna see results immediately. Like when folks try cover crops the person expected, they’re gonna get an immediate boost, organic matter, whatever.

Mark Keller 16:28
Well, we did a soil test that first time afterwards. I’ve been doing this for about four years, and it really didn’t change much. So I was kind of questioning why aren’t I pulling that down real fast, you’re pulling great crops off, right? So you know, you got to be pulling it down. But different people told me the phoshporus was still probably gonna be the last thing you’re gonna see drop.

Will Fulwider 16:50
It’s so well so tightly bound.

Chelsea Zegler 16:51
and it’s just like the soil has an incredible buffer capacity to replenish the phosphorus that’s going to be plant available so soil that’s phosphorus is only a portion of the soils total phosphorus. And I think it’s something like a corn silage heavy a high yield crop like corn silage, alfalfa only removes like four ppm of phosphorus a year something, so it takes a while to drop down.

Will Fulwider 17:16
So that success of cropping and harvesting really helps to draw that down even more.

Chelsea Zegler 17:20
Faster.

Will Fulwider 17:22
So I’m curious about if your the way that you manage winter rye is changed in interim since you started this project started putting it in and the seeding rate has changed or if your general approach has shifted at all.

Mark Keller 17:34
Seeding rates pretty much stayed consistent. Were basically 100 pounds to 110 pounds per acre.

Will Fulwider 17:39
Pretty heavy.

Mark Keller 17:40
That’s what you want when you’re using it forage. Right, yeah. If you’re just using it as a straight cover cop, you probably gonna do half that. So we’re actually after as much tonnage as we can make it worth the time for one thing. Yeah. But you’re trying you’re trying to make tonnage off the feed you have. Yeah. Since then, since we started originally, we’re just doing it for heifers. Since then the UW did some research on okay, you’re at 100 pounds of milk how do you get that next pound of milk? Yeah, without totally changing things. A lot of times because we have real high quality alfalfa, we’re actually throwing in some wheat straw in the diet and try to slow things down. Okay. We switched from buying wheat straw for utilizing the winter rye as a feed for lactating cows. And it’s fairly recently we’ve been up to 110 pounds a cow so I think it’s been successful utilizing now I don’t have enough winter rye to last the full year. So part of the idea of utilize some straw Yeah, right. But what I am feeling winter rye, I do see a production increase. The nice thing about where to ride, it does have the NDF factors that you’re looking forward to help slow down things in the passage. But it’s very digestible. Wheat straw has the high NDF but it’s that digestible for the cow. So you really can’t utilize nutrients of it.

Will Fulwider 19:10
So you mentioned that you that you don’t have enough winter rye to go around for feeding and that you’re doing some spring barley so why don’t you plant more winter rye?

Mark Keller 19:19
A lot of it is storage. Yeah, okay. You’re trying to utilize the bunkers for different things. I mean, there’s a lot of this you gotta plan so much ahead, where are you going with manure? Right? People say why do you not have manure on that field all winter or something like that. It’s closer to the road when it gets springtime when you get those big rains and it pools. I have software that heavy residue close to the road, so I’m not disturbing soil. It’s all planned ahead of time. Yeah.

Chelsea Zegler 19:49
I’m curious do you typically apply manure before planting rye or after have you experimented with that like on top of? okay

Mark Keller 19:59
Typically I tried to do before planting once, once get it planted and it’s not germinated because I want to use for forage. I don’t want to disturb it. The barley spring barley and stuff like that once you get that establish, go ahead, throw some out. So you have different fields, you could do different things. Once we harvest the winter rye before I plant corn in double crop, yes, I tried to get another coat out there because I still have a couple of weeks or even a month, month and a half timeframe where I can get some manure on those acres and try to replenish nutrients. Statistically wise, if you just do corn on a winter rye double crop, your tonnage is down. Doing our system a lot of times by example, this year, my late corn silage is probably going to be so fo my best corn.

Will Fulwider 20:52
Really?

Mark Keller 20:53
Because of the timing of the rains in the last 30 acres we did to fill the refill the bunker, that corn absolutely looks gorgeous right now.

Will Fulwider 21:02
And that was my question. Like I don’t want to shift gears too much away from phosphorus because that’s what I’m talking about today. But a lot of people when they do winter rye or winter cereal take a course they see a dip in their corn silage yields afterwards just because that you know, N tie up that you see you know, you’re taking a lot of as forage but there’s still those roots decomposing, that can take up some of the N. Have you seen that in your experience?

Mark Keller 21:26
So depends on the time and when you do it. A lot of this is basically delayed on the last 30 acres that’s probably almost a month and a half after that was harvested.

Will Fulwider 21:36
Really wow.

Mark Keller 21:37
Okay, so I didn’t replant back to late June. Partially it was drier. Why even bother planeting not going to germinate until you got some rain. Yeah. So towards the end of June calling for a little shot rain coming, so I went out planted, it sprayed. Got a half an inch rain gotta germinated in the fifth of July actually got another inch. We’re off and going now. So the rest of the summer up until just recently, we actually have some fairly steady, good timing rains. Actually, straight on very well.

Michael Geissinger 22:13
You mentioned some of the outcomes of like quality and like having extra forage and things like that. But if you ever put like numbers on the economic outcomes, or some of the practice changes, and after we would need those numbers which is like, yeah, like ballpark. So like what that has meant for your farm?

Mark Keller 22:31
I think in original time you read some articles that were written up on the phosphorus. Initially we were figuring we were saving about $18,000 a year on purchasing fertilizer. Just on the phosphorus, today’s economic classes as of last few years, that is one of the most expensive fertilizers to buy you can easily double that number. So right now we’re probably in excess saving about $40,000 Just of not purchasing phosphorus.

Michael Geissinger 23:03
And you typically would you say you reinvested that money back into your farm or just use it to increase profit?

Mark Keller 23:10
Economics of dairy farming I mean everything is very tight. Yeah. Yeah, we just came through July milk prices that were prices that go back to 1983. 1983 was $13 something for milk price, which wasn’t bad money in 1983. Yeah. In 2023 it sucks.

Will Fulwider 23:33
That’s not gonna, it’s not gonna cut it.

Mark Keller 23:35
When your breakeven price for right now most dairy farms in Wisconsin is between 21 to $22 per hundredweight, now, it’s considered breakeven. And the base price is $13.80 for July. So you need to try to find ways to save money in the phosphorus was was a good way for us. Yeah, absolutely. That money basically reinvested in the farm, saving, so you could spend that money on other things.

Will Fulwider 24:08
I think we’ll switch gears a little bit and dive a little bit more into, we’ve heard about Mark’s story and involvement in the Pleasant Valley project and kind of the application of drawing phosphorus down in our soils but you know, there’s also the background knowledge and pathways in which we lose phosphorus that you know, it’s not just soil loss as we mentioned earlier, but there’s certain times of the years that we lose morew dissolved P than particulate P. And you know, who better to talk about that than Chelsea?

Chelsea Zegler 24:42
Yeah, my bread and butter,

Will Fulwider 24:43
Your bread and butter. Let’s hear the spiel.

Chelsea Zegler 24:45
Great. Okay, so we typically lose the majority of our phosphorus in the winter and spring, right no surprise. We don’t have a growing crop actively taking out phosphorus a lot of the time. So we’re in kind of a vulnerable situations. So discovery farms edge of field monitoring and edge field monitoring from other states have really indicated we lose most of our particulate phosphorus, so right, that’s erosion a little bit later than I think people normally think of May and June is when that really peaks and that has to do with maybe we’ve prepped our soil for seeding, and we’ve loosened things up. We’re also getting heavier thunderstorms before we have crop canopy. So making sure we have cover crop residue or, or other crop residue to last until May and June is vital for that soil erosion. About 50% of the phosphorus losses in the dissolved form. And that kind of peaks in February and March. And that’s typically when we have snow melts, and rain on snow, which can cause a lot of water movements and our soils are still frozen. So they’re kind of held steady. But we’re still seeing water pick up any fall fertility we applied, it can even react with the crop residue or some winter killed cover crops to, you know, to move some of that dissolved phosphorus around. So each field has kind of an individual, you know, maybe a slope field is more likely to lose the phosphorus through soil erosion, and maybe like a flat, heavier clay soil that holds a lot of P is more likely to lose it in the dissolved form. But we can kind of I think we’re ready in Wisconsin to take some next steps on these really minor losses that are that are still contributing.

Michael Geissinger 26:32
Yeah, absolutely. Everything you’re talking about too, it’s just really the principles and reasoning behind what comes up in a nutrient management plan when you actually sit down with your soil tests and your field data, that and you recognize some of these layers that exist like fields that are sloped, you know, 6% or greater and why those are more winter manure restricted than like a flat area. So just paying attention to those things like, yes, like you mentioned should snow melt events, rainfall events, especially if you don’t have any cover out there. And if you, you know, added manure to that frozen soil in any way that makes it really high risk for phosphorus losses, which is why that’s reflected in a nutrient management plan, then when you make that plan, those restrictions show up. Where you could be targeting your manure that would mitigate any of those losses, especially winter manure applications can be a difficult thing. But

Chelsea Zegler 27:36
Yeah, I’ll just embarrass myself how nerdy was I was like, looking at the P phosphorus index equations today. I’m I’m a Snap Plus website. But like, that’s why I get really jazzed about stuff that’s phosphorus is because it’s already a tool we use agronomically, so most farmers know the value. And it goes into a lot of the phosphorus index equation. So there are other things of course, like slope and weather and soil type it those are much more difficult to change. And I think sometimes we envision, you know, conservation as these like really lofty, big changes you have to make, but I feel like maybe soil tests phosphorus drawdown is a little more digestible.

Michael Geissinger 28:15
Yeah. And I think about too, like, talking about phosphorus loss, I think a lot of people turn off right away, especially, you know, if you hear that conservation word, it’s kind of a buzzword sometimes where it’s like, you know, yes, it’s about protecting things like surface water quality, and, you know, all of that stuff. But is there a way too that we can reframe this kind of like Mark was talking on his farm, where, yes, it’s about all those things. But sustainability is also about economics and profitability where when we’re putting that manure application out there, or when you’re putting the commercial phosphorus fertilizer application out there, we’re investing in something that should be helping us to grow better crops on the farm. Yeah, and it wouldn’t make sense to, for example, put cash into a leaky bank account, even though I mean, people that are in relationships and things like that might recognize what that feels like. But on a field scale, it doesn’t really make sense where you’re putting this investment, which is often a massive investment for farms. And then if you’re, you know, setting it up for loss,

Mark Keller 29:21
You know, a lot of stories lately what is the value of manure. Yeah. Actually, it’s economics, its value. There’s a lot of value to it.

Michael Geissinger 29:29
it’s huge.

Will Fulwider 29:30
So when it does go down a river that is money, you’re losing, and I don’t want to lose anything. Right. Because of the economics is so tight. Your ability to make money farming is tight tighter today than it ever was and so you need to be smart about it. And none of us want to see money going down the river.

Michael Geissinger 29:49
Yeah. And it’s it’s a farm profitability issue. If it does go down the river, in Wisconsin, phosphorus, typically, not always, but typically would be the most limiting nutrients for things like algae blooms and things like that. And that’s kind of what affects the surface water quality thing. But one of the important things to always remember I think it’s think about that phosphorus sort of as $1 bill when it’s going out.

Chelsea Zegler 30:14
Yeah I really like that financial analogy. You know I think in the past there’s been a lot of outreach even from Extension on like keep it if you make sure it’s in contact with your soil, it’s safe in the bank, and we just know that’s not as much the case anymore. So, we talked a lot about phosphorus, if you are listening and you are interested in looking at phoshporus on your farm, the Ag Water program is having a soil test phosphorus survey where we’llsample, soil sample three fields on your farm to 0-6 inches which is the routine and 0-1 inch because that 1 inch is what is interacting with the water the most to look at the different phosphorus levels and look how management practices are impacting that, so if you’re interested and want to collaborate check out the link.

Will Fulwider 31:11
Alrighty, well phosphorus is a nuanced topic and we didn’t cover it all, but I think we got a nice start on it. Thanks Mark for sharing his story with us in his experience trying to drawdown phosphorus on his farm and the economic success he’s had there, and Chelsea with her vast knowledge of the different pathways of loss we see with phosphorus. Thank you to Rene at the Mt. Vernon Tap for providing us with AA batteries for the microphones so we could cut down on some of the noise here, but it is boisterous and loud here at the Mt. Vernon Tap, but thanks for joining us and thanks for spending some time with us. Check please!

Will Fulwider 31:56
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. And I was joined by my co host Michael Geissinger outreach specialists in Northwest Wisconsin for the nutrient and pest management program of UW Madison. A big thank you to Joe Ryan for creating our theme music and Abby Wilkymacky for our logo. If you have any questions about anything you’ve heard today, about your farming practices in general, reach out to the extension agriculture educators serving your region.