Jesup FFA chapter aiding Lime Creek watershed producers

Left to right: Bruce Bearinger, FFA advisor, and FFA chapter members Ryan Boies, Chelsea Bearbower, Alex Brown, Jacob Zuck, and Michael Corkery.

Brandon, Iowa – For the second year, Jesup High School FFA students are helping Lime Creek watershed producers by gathering short samples of cornstalks.

Ten of the chapter’s 30 students are traveling gravel roads of the 24-square mile watershed with FFA advisor Bruce Bearinger, making stops at participating farms to walk into corn fields, select individual plants and cut an eight-inch section from the stalk near the base.  Fifteen eight-inch stalk sections make up a sample; most participating producers have two to four samples taken.  Once the samples are collected, they are cleaned of leaves, packaged and sent to an Iowa testing lab for analysis.  The results are returned to the FFA chapter, which collates the results for the Lime Creek watershed council and cooperating producers.

Senior Chelsea Bearbower is chairing the chapter’s cornstalk sampling program, contacting participating producers to locate the field to be sampled.  The chapter secretary, she became involved in 2009 and was the only officer this year with experience so volunteered for the job.

This year the chapter will gather 36 samples, about three times the number taken last year.  The chapter is reimbursed by the watershed council on per-farm basis and uses the project as a fund-raiser.

“My students and I find the program very valuable to all our FFA members,” says Bearinger, who also was involved with the watershed prior to becoming the FFA advisor.  “It has been a bit hectic this year with many more samples and an early harvest, but we see this as a good sign as the farmers in the watershed are seeing the value of the program.”

The end-of-season cornstalk nitrate test measures how well corn plants have used nitrogen (N) and can be an excellent way to determine if a corn crop had adequate N late in the growing season.  The test measures nitrate concentrations in the lower portion of cornstalks at the end of the growing season.

As producers plan for the fall harvest and for next year, they can use the end-of-season cornstalk nitrate test to help make crop management decisions as well as analyze their financial bottom line.

The basis of the test is that a corn plant suffering from inadequate N availability removes N from the lower cornstalk and leaves during grain filling.  If the plant has more N than needed for maximum yield, nitrate accumulates in the lower stalks at the end of the season.

In terms of the stalk analysis, low stalk nitrate N levels are indicated by less than 250 parts per million (ppm); the marginal range of 250-700 ppm indicates a level close to the minimal amount needed by the crop but grain yield may not be reduced.  The optimum rate of 700-2,000 ppm indicates that N availability was close to the rate needed by the plant while levels in excess of 2,000 ppm indicate a high probability that there was more N than needed.

Lime Creek is a subwatershed of the Cedar River in southwestern Buchanan County.  The headwaters of the creek are between Independence and Jesup and the creek enters the Cedar River in Benton County near Brandon.

Lime Creek watershed in northeast Iowa.

The Lime Creek watershed council is now in its fifth year.  A three-year Iowa Watershed Improvement Board grant to the council ran out last year but the council is using Iowa Corn Growers funds for cornstalk nitrate testing.