Resources

All of our resources are available from this page. You can also visit the specific pages for individual topics to get focused information on those areas.

Conservation

Conservation encompasses many areas - soil, water, and crop considerations all play a part. We offer a variety of practical resources to help you find the answers to your questions.

"How resilient are our lands here in the Midwest? What is our ability to retain productivity if we have another long drought or continual flooding? Will people still be farming in Iowa 1,500 years from now? Or even 200 years from now? The decisions we make today about our natural resources will affect agricultural production 50 years from now."
--from the video "The Work of Our Hands"

Conservation Resources

Cover Crops

Cover crops are a great way to improve soil health. Many Iowa farmers are adding cover crops to their crop rotations so soil stays covered when the fields are not growing other crops. Cover crops also improve soil organic matter and slow water runoff.

Farmers have many questions about incorporating cover crops. Most asked questions include: what kinds of plants can be used, when and how to seed and when and how to terminate. With field days and workshops, Iowa Learning Farms strives to help farmers, and other interested people, find the answers to these questions and more.

Cover Crop Resources

Edge of Field

Edge-of-field practices play a crucial role in meeting the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy goals of improving water quality through reducing nitrogen and phosphorus in Iowa's water bodies. Edge-of-field practices involve drainage water management, bioreactors, buffers, saturated buffers, denitrifying wetlands, terraces and sediment control.

Edge of Field Resources

Relay Intercropping

Relay intercropping is a multi-year, multi-species cropping system that allows for 3 harvestable crops (small grain, soybean, corn) in 2 years.

View recent webinars, blogs and publications from ongoing research farm and on-farm demonstrations.

Relay Intercropping

Field Day Toolkit

This Field Day Toolkit is the product of Iowa Learning Farms’ many years of planning and hosting field day events across the state of Iowa. While ILF utilizes many different outreach approaches, the importance of farmer-to-farmer interactions cannot be overstated. Field days do matter!

Field Day Toolkit

Recent Resources

Posts tagged emerging-farmers-project

Talking With Your Tenant Series

Talking With Your Tenant Series

Discussing a new conservation practice with your tenant can be challenging. To help begin the conversation, we created a new publication series with talking points and relevant research findings about specific conservation practices.

Conservation, Edge of Field, Cover CropsLiz RipleyJuly 6, 2022emerging-farmers-project, tenant, talking with your tenant

Talking With Your Landlord Series

Talking With Your Landlord Series

Discussing a new conservation practice with your landlord can be challenging. To help begin the conversation, we created a new publication series with talking points and relevant research findings about specific conservation practices.

ConservationLiz RipleyJuly 1, 2022emerging-farmers-project, talking-with-your-landlord, tenant, landlord

Sustainable Business Templates

A business model will help you stand out as a strong emerging farmer to potential landlords, lenders, and customers. It will also give you a pathway as you start your farming journey.

ConservationLiz RipleyJuly 1, 2022emerging-farmers-project, sheep, crp, business model