Red Top Farm research field is a ninety-acre site located in the upland region of SMC Watershed. Operated by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, in cooperation with smaller local entities, Red Top Farm is devoted to studying the quantity and quality of water and agricultural chemicals moving through the tile drainage system. The goal of the project is to demonstrate effective practices for maximizing yield and profit margin while reducing fertilizer inputs and nitrogen loss. The site hosts numerous agricultural field days and has proven to be an effective educational resource for farmers, agricultural professional, and the non-agricultural community.
Strips of differing nitrogen application rates.
More is not always better...
With extremely high fertlizer prices and already minimal profit margins, farmers stand to benefit from the research conducted at Red Top. Subsequently, water quailty in the watershed stands to benefit equally. Many farmers overapply nitrates to their fields in an attempt to ensure high yielding crops, but Red Top has shown that their is a cost-effective limit to the amount of nitrogen applied relative to yield returns. The picture above illustrates the methods used at Red Top Farm's research fields to investigate efficient nitrogen application rates. The colored bars represent strips of different applications of nitrate. The graph below is the result of application cost versus yield analysis from such a field. The x-axis shows nitrate applied, in pounds per acre, and the y-axis is profit, in dollars per acre. The orange line represents a market price of $2.20/bushel and the blue only $2.00/bushel. A farmer should strive to achieve an application consistent with the highest peak of the graph, because he will only make less money per acre by applying more, or less, nitrogen.
Red Top has determined that an application rate of about 90 pounds per acre is ideal, yet there are plots within the watershed that have upwards of 200 pounds dumped on each acre. This excess nitrate not only respesents a monetary loss to the farmer, but it will contribute to the degradation of water quality in SMC Watershed. As we will see, nitrate not consumed by plants will leach into the ground or be washed off the soil and enter into the water supply. Since adopting conservation practices, Red Top Farms has documented 40-60% reductions in levels of nitrate observed in tile waters beneath research fields, accompanied by no yield decline.