Dubuque County Watersheds is receiving national attention for its “batch and grow” model, which is on track to reach 40,000 acres this year.
What it is: It’s a program that takes on all the work and cost of cover crops for local farmers.
Why it matters: Cover crops keep living roots in the ground that prevent erosion and nutrient loss. Farmers often cite barriers like cost and time as a reason not to try cover crops. This program eliminates those barriers.
How it works:
Farmers enroll in the program to get acres seeded. They choose from multiple cover crop species.
Dubuque County Watersheds handles all the paperwork, financing, and planning.
Acres are batched by area, and local drone or drill operators take care of seeding.
Sand County Foundation has played a major role in making the model work.
Taking note: Because of economies of scale, batching this process has resulted in savings between 3% and 56% (compared to EQIP rates), depending on the seed mix.
What’s next: American Farmland Trust has created a roadmap to help others learn and use this model.
Moooo-ve over, row crop acres! We're making way for pasture! (Allow us one dad joke per newsletter, okay? 🤷♀️)
Iowa's Agriculture Secretary, Mike Naig, announced that they are expanding a popular cattle and conservation program to include 22 counties in the Greater Des Moines Watershed.
What it is: Farmers can get incentives for converting underperforming or highly erodible acres of row crops into pasture and hay ground.
Why it matters: Bringing cattle back to the land does several things:
Puts living roots in the ground via year-round pasture land.
Improves soil health. 💩
Improves rural economies through both the beef sales and related expenses.
Increases the US beef herd to help lower beef prices.
That makes it a program we can support 'til the cows come home. 🤓
Wait, there's more! Greene County and Calhoun County will get two new program coordinators, which is critical to success, given current conservation staffing issues at the federal level.
The background: This program began as a pilot program in Taylor County in 2016. It was so successful that it expanded to seven more counties. (Erin Ogle won an Iowa Watershed Award for her role in its success!) The latest expansion means it's now available in 30 counties in Iowa. Talk about taking the bull by the horns! 🐮
Zooming in: Producers can get one-time payments of either $290/acre for conversion to hay production or $1,000 per acre to establish pasture in exchange for a 5-year commitment.
Zooming out: The money for this program comes from a larger bipartisan "Farm to Faucet" bill passed by the Iowa Legislature last year, which commits $320 million to improving water quality over 12 years.
We know we sound like a broken record on USDA staffing issues, but we don’t make the news, we just write about it. 🤷♀️
The New York Times did a deep dive on how a depleted Agriculture Department is affecting farmers across the US, from conservation to banking and beginning farmer resources.
A few examples
A family business absorbed an additional $200,000 in private loan interest because FSA paperwork took too long to get a low-interest ag loan.
An anti-hunger charity’s new pantry construction costs ballooned to $600,000 from $475,000 because of delays in funding
A Nebraska farmer loses half a day in driving just to get NRCS paperwork done now that the two counties share a technician.
What’s driving the news: More than 20,000 workers out of more than 110,000 left the Agriculture Department through the first half of 2025, according to Times reporting.
The Agriculture Department said after hiring more workers this year that it believes staffing levels are adequate as “services and supports have become more targeted and efficient.”
What’s next: President Trump’s latest budget proposal for the next fiscal year proposes a nearly $5 billion cut to the Agriculture Department, essentially eliminating some programs for beginning farmers, conservation, and rural aid, according to Times reporting.
4. What’s more unpredictable: N uptake or hormonal teenagers? 👦
Four out of five fields got too much nitrogen in 2025, according to the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative, which analyzed almost 800 on-farm fertilizer trials from 2023 to 2025.
But it’s not because farmers applied more fertilizer (in fact, the data show they applied less); It’s because the soil had an unusual amount of natural nitrogen production in late June and July of that year.
Zooming out: The analysis looked at how farmer-applied nitrogen rates stacked up against the economic optimum (EONR) – the amount that maximizes profit. They found significant year-to-year variability.
By the numbers:
In 2023, 41% of fields didn’t get enough nitrogen
In 2024, 47% of fields didn’t get enough nitrogen
In 2025, 83% of fields got more than enough nitrogen, despite farmers applying the least of the three years.
The bottom line: The data didn’t show a systemic pattern of over- or under-fertilization. Instead, it showed year-to-year variability driven by weather and soil mineralization.
Why it matters: When farmers get closer to their economic optimum fertilizer rate, they save money and improve water quality, but weather and other factors can make that optimum number harder to predict.
That’s why the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative is working to build data-driven tools to better predict optimum nitrogen rates.
Side note: Soil testing can help farmers get closer to economic optimums. Get free soil sampling from the new pilot program by the Iowa Department of Ag and INREC!
5. Reverse Ozempic for plants 🌱
Researchers say they’ve pinpointed the molecular regulators that make plants feel “full” when they’ve had enough nitrogen.
Why it matters: Unused nitrogen can flow downstream, but if we can improve the plant’s nitrogen uptake, we can make sure there aren’t any leftovers.
How it works
Plants trigger a special protein when enough raw nitrogen has been converted into organic nutrients.
That tells the roots to stop absorbing more.
Scientists say this knowledge could help them engineer a “gluttonous” plant that absorbs more.
Cover crop adoption and disadoption: two steps forward, 1 step back
Long-term Iowa survey data show that a huge share of farmers who try cover crops or no-till don't stick with them. For every 10 farmers who newly adopt cover crops in a given period, roughly 6–8 who'd previously adopted quit, according to an analysis of data from 2013 to 2017. Read more from Iowa State University.
Surf’s up on the Des Moines River
Get ready to shred, bruh. The swell is pumping. No, really - we’re serious. Water recreation engineers got their first chance to ride the waves on the Des Moines River just east of downtown’s Scott Avenue bridge this month. It’s one of the ICON Water Trails sites. They tested out surfing and kayaking on the new “waveshaper”. Read more from DSM Magazine.
Planning continues to restore Smith Lake in Northern Iowa’s Kossuth County
The lake is on the state’s list of impaired waters due to high levels of algae. To restore the lake, crews will need to drain it in September of 2027. Four retention bays will be dug out to catch sediment. The cost will be nearly $6 million. Read more from Radio Iowa.
Yale researchers developing cheaper way to remove ‘forever’ chemicals from farms that used sewage sludge
In some areas of the US, farms have PFAS contamination from using sewage sludge. Cleaning it up would cost $8 trillion under current methods. A Yale team led by a farmers’ son has discovered a cheaper method that also removes carbon dioxide. Read more from Yale University
Bipartisan sponsors introduce legislation to increase grazing land
Sen. Mike Rounds and Sen. Amy Kobuchar introduced the RANCH Act (Rebuilding America’s National Cow Heard). It would incentivize farmers to convert marginal cropland into grazing land. It has a long way to go before it could be passed, but conservation advocates are hopeful it could bring a needed boost to rural conservation efforts. Read more on Drovers.
