Not many years ago, there were only two people allowed to enter a newly planted Midwest cornfield: One was the person applying the side-dress nitrogen, and the other was the person applying the weed control.

“More crop per drop.” This is the mantra of De Jager Farms in Chowchilla, California where water is scarce and conservation is king.

Livestock manure is a highly variable fertilizer. Its composition can vary depending on the age of the animal, feedstuffs consumed and the way it is agitated and removed from storage, just to name a few reasons.

Farmers have been adopting no-till cropping methods to reduce sediment loss. However, tillage has been touted as a way to incorporate manure into soils to minimize nutrient loss.

With agriculture and farming in his DNA, Rick Martens is operating a business from the farm that has been in his family for generations. Located 80 miles north of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the century-old dairy farm is no longer home to cows, but now serves as the home base for Martens Manurigation, a custom manure pumping business.

Nutrient losses from agricultural systems in the Mississippi River basin have contributed to the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2008, in response to this challenge, the EPA’s Hypoxia Task Force released an action plan for a national strategy to reduce, mitigate and control hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico and improve water quality in the Mississippi River basin (Hypoxia Task Force).

Instead of pointing fingers, a group of northeast Wisconsin farmers are raising their hands to acknowledge the local dairy industry’s part in groundwater issues and making a public commitment to solving the problem.