COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences is ramping up its efforts to improve Ohio’s water quality through a new fertilizer applicator certification training program that’s designed to help growers increase crop yields using less fertilizer more efficiently, thus reducing the potential for phosphorus runoff into the state’s watersheds.

Introduced last fall as part of Ohio’s new agricultural fertilization law, the program has already trained 3,211 Ohio growers who farm more than a million acres of farmland statewide, said Greg LaBarge, an Ohio State University Extension field specialist and one of the leaders of Ohio State’s Agronomic Crops Team. OSU Extension is the outreach arm of the college.

Offering the certification training program is part of the college’s goal to improve the state’s water quality by informing growers how to lessen the use of phosphorus and keep more of it on the field, while increasing crop yields and boosting farm profits, LaBarge said.

“The training covers water quality and crop production best management practices, including encouraging growers to adhere to the principles of applying the right fertilizer at the right rate at the right time and in the right place,” he said. “By advocating the continued improvement in nutrient use and efficiencies, the training can help growers boost farm profits by using just enough nutrients to maximize yield, which reduces the potential for water quality impact offsite.

“The training benefits farmers and Ohioans by reducing the water quality issues that we have in the state.”

Experts say soluble phosphorus runoff from farms is an important source of harmful algal blooms plaguing Lake Erie and other lakes in recent years. In August, a toxic bloom in western Lake Erie led to a two-day drinking water ban in Toledo.

The training, which is offered by OSU Extension agronomists in partnership with the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA), fulfills the education requirements of the state’s new agricultural nutrients law, which requires farmers who apply fertilizer to more than 50 acres of farmland to become certified with ODA.

According to the new law, the deadline for growers and chemical nutrient applicators to complete the certification process is Sept. 30, 2017. The certification is valid for three years, at which point the applicator will require recertification.

The training offers guidance on:

• Nutrient Management Certification Program.
• The Link between Phosphorus, Harmful Algal Blooms and Agriculture.
• Soil Testing for Confidence and Adaptive Management.
• Best Management Practices for Phosphorus.
• Yield and Water Quality Impacts.
• Best Management Practices for Nitrogen, Yield and Water Quality Impacts.

An overwhelming majority of participants who have completed the OSU Extension program, 89 percent, say the training improved their knowledge about nutrient management, LaBarge said.

Additionally, 77 percent of farmers in attendance agreed that “Farm field phosphorus loss is a significant problem to Ohio water resources,” he said.

A majority of those participating in the first training classes, which were held in Fulton, Hancock and Paulding counties last month, farm in the Maumee River watershed area that drains into Lake Erie.

In fact, most farmers in that area are willing to take at least one additional action to reduce nutrient loss on their farm if they feel like the action will both benefit their farms as well as water quality, according to new research from Robyn Wilson, a CFAES associate professor of risk analysis and decision science.

“Most farmers are willing to adopt a new conservation practice if they believe that nutrient loss from their fields will have a negative financial impact on their crop production and if they believe that if they put best management practices in place on their farms, the techniques will work,” Wilson said.

More training dates for farmers and nutrient applicators to obtain the educational requirement for the Agricultural Fertilizer Applicator Certification will be offered by OSU Extension, with sessions likely to be offered in December and in the early months of 2015, LaBarge said.

As sessions are scheduled, details will be posted online at pested.osu.edu/NutrientEducation/.

Participants will be required to preregister for these meetings.

For more information, contact LaBarge at 740-223-4040 or labarge.1@osu.edu.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers have determined that precipitation and temperature variations over the past 20 years have suppressed the U.S. average soybean yield gain — how much it improves every year — by around 30 percent, contributing to an industry loss of $11 billion nationwide.

In Ohio alone, that soybean yield suppression is estimated to have cost some $2.9 billion during the past 20 years, according to a new study co-authored by a field crops expert in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.

Global annual temperatures have increased by 0.4 C (0.72 F) since 1980, with several regions exhibiting even greater increases, said Laura Lindsey, a soybean and small grains specialist with Ohio State University Extension and a co-author of the study. OSU Extension is the college’s outreach arm.

And for every 1 C (1.8 F) rise in temperature during the growing season, soybean yields fell by about 2.4 percent, the study found.

In Ohio, that translates into about a third of a bushel per acre per year yield loss, Lindsey said.

“During the past 20 years, temperature and precipitation have been changing, and that change is associated with yield reductions and economic loss that is region-specific,” she said. “States including Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa and North Dakota have experienced negative impacts on yield due to weather variables.

“Missouri suffered the most negative impact with an estimated loss of $5 billion during the past 20 years, while Ohio had the next highest loss, at $2.9 billion.”

The study, which appears in the February 2015 journal Nature Plants, was co-authored by James E. Specht, researcher with the University of Nebraska; and Spyridon Mourtzinis, Francisco J. Arriaga and Shawn P. Conley, all researchers with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The study is based on data gleaned from 12 states, including data from Ohio State researchers’ Ohio Soybean Performance Trials, which document temperatures, changes in cultural practices, soybean varieties and technology in soybean production from 1970 to the present, Lindsey said.

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest soybean exporters, with some 80 percent of its soybeans being grown in the upper Midwest. Since most of that production is not irrigated, soybean production in the region is highly affected by weather conditions during the growing season, according to the study.

While more state-specific research is needed to help mitigate some of the weather variability, according to the study, some crop management strategies could help limit the potential negative impacts of weather variations on crop yields.

“Strategies include the development of new cultivars and hybrids, the use of altered maturity groups, changes in planting dates, the use of cover crops, and greater management of crop residues from the previous year,” Lindsey said. “If we don’t develop strategies to mitigate weather variability, it could have a long-term impact on soybean farmers, the soybean industry, trade policy, consumer food prices, food security and the economy.”

The study’s other contributors and co-authors include William J. Wiebold, University of Missouri; Jeremy Ross, University of Arkansas; Emerson D. Nafziger, University of Illinois; Herman J. Kandel, North Dakota State University; Nathan Mueller, South Dakota State University; and Philip L. Devillez, with Purdue University.