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Virtual Field Day - Smart Agricultural Drainage: Tools to sense tile health and nitrate hot spots

Virtual Field Day Access Instructions:

To participate in the live virtual field day at 1:00 pm CT on December 19, click this URL: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/91411984892.

Iowa Learning Farms, in partnership with Iowa State University and Michigan State University, is hosting a free virtual field day on Thursday, December 19 at 1 p.m. CT.

Join us for a live discussion with Dr. Mike Castellano, ISU William T. Frankenberger Professor of soil science, Dr. Liang Dong, Director of Microelectronics Research Center and Vikram L. Dalal Professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Dr. Xiaobo Tan, MSU Research Foundation Professor & Richard M. Hong Endowed Chair of electrical engineering.

Tile drainage is among the most important land use improvements for agriculture with about 50% of Iowa’s cropland having systems installed. Drained croplands produce a disproportionately large amount of grain compared to total croplands, but also deliver a disproportionately large amount of nitrate to downstream waterways. A new smart agricultural drainage system project is exploring the use of new robotic and sensor technology to inform the need to balance the effects of drainage on productivity, profitability, and environmental quality.

“Many farmers have drainage systems and they don’t know where and when they are losing nutrients from the field,” noted Castellano. “By deploying robots up the drainage system with inexpensive, high accuary, high resolution sensors for nutrients and water flow, we can measure the when, where and how much nutrients are being lost. This will alow famers to better manage their field at a precision scale to improve both productivity and environmental performance of the cropping system.”

Participants are encouraged to ask questions of the presenters. People from all backgrounds and areas of interest are encouraged to join.

Virtual Field Day Access Instructions:

To participate in the live virtual field day at 1:00 pm CT on December 19, click this URL: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/91411984892 or visit https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/events-1.

 Or, join from a dial-in phone line:
Dial: 646-876-9923 or 646-931-3860
Meeting ID: 914 1198 4892

The field day will be recorded and archived on the ILF website so that it can be watched at any time. The archive will be available at https://www.iowalearningfarms.org/virtual-field-day-archive.

Participants may be eligible for a Certified Crop Adviser board-approved continuing education unit. Information about how to apply to receive the CEU will be provided at the end of the event. This virtual field day is supported by U.S. National Science Foundation award 2125484.