Loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services from agricultural lands remain important challenges in the United States despite decades of spending on natural resource management. To date, conservation investment has emphasized engineering practices or vegetative strategies centered on monocultural plantings of nonnative plants, largely excluding native species from cropland. In a catchment-scale experiment, we quantified the multiple effects of integrating strips of native prairie species amid corn and soybean crops, with prairie strips arranged to arrest run-off on slopes. Replacing 10% of cropland with prairie strips increased biodiversity and ecosystem services with minimal impacts on crop production. Compared with catchments containing only crops, integrating prairie strips into cropland led to greater catchment-level insect taxa richness (2.6-fold), pollinator abundance (3.5-fold), native bird species richness (2.1-fold), and abundance of bird species of greatest conservation need (2.1-fold). Use of prairie strips also reduced total water runoff from catchments by 37%, resulting in retention of 20 times more soil and 4.3 times more phosphorus. Corn and soybean yields for catchments with prairie strips decreased only by the amount of the area taken out of crop production. Social survey results indicated demand among both farming and nonfarming populations for the environmental outcomes produced by prairie strips. If federal and state policies were aligned to promote prairie strips, the practice would be applicable to 3.9 million ha of cropland in Iowa alone.

Over the past century, agricultural landscapes worldwide have increasingly been managed for the primary purpose of producing food, while other diverse ecosystem services potentially available from these landscapes have often been undervalued and diminished. The incorporation of relatively small amounts of perennial vegetation in strategic locations within agricultural landscapes dominated by annual crops-or perennialization-creates an opportunity for enhancing the provision of a wide range of goods and services to society, such as water purification, hydrologic regulation, pollination services, control of pest and pathogen populations, diverse food and fuel products, and greater resilience to climate change and extreme disturbances, while at the same time improving the sustainability of food production. This paper synthesizes the current scientific theory and evidence for the role of perennial plants in balancing conservation with agricultural production, focusing on the Midwestern USA as a model system, while also drawing comparisons with other climatically diverse regions of the world. Particular emphasis is given to identifying promising opportunities for advancement and critical gaps in our knowledge related to purposefully integrating perennial vegetation into agroecosystems as a management tool for maximizing multiple benefits to society. AbstractOver the past century, agricultural landscapes worldwide have increasingly been managed for the primary purpose of producing food, while other diverse ecosystem services potentially available from these landscapes have often been undervalued and diminished. The incorporation of relatively small amounts of perennial vegetation in strategic locations within agricultural landscapes dominated by annual crops-or perennialization-creates an opportunity for enhancing the provision of a wide range of goods and services to society, such as water purification, hydrologic regulation, pollination services, control of pest and pathogen populations, diverse food and fuel products, and greater resilience to climate change and extreme disturbances, while at the same time improving the sustainability of food production. This paper synthesizes the current scientific theory and evidence for the role of perennial plants in balancing conservation with agricultural production, focusing on the Midwestern USA as a model system, while also drawing comparisons with other climatically diverse regions of the world. Particular emphasis is given to identifying promising opportunities for advancement and critical gaps in our knowledge related to purposefully integrating perennial vegetation into agroecosystems as a management tool for maximizing multiple benefits to society.

Recently, interest in denitrification bioreactors to reduce the amount of nitrate in agricultural drainage has led to increased installations across the U.S. Midwest. Despite this recent attention, there are few peer-reviewed, field-scale comparative performance studies investigating the effectiveness of these denitrification bioreactors. The object of this work was to analyze nitrate removal performance from four existing bioreactors in Iowa, paying particular attention to potential performance-affecting factors including retention time, influent nitrate concentration, temperature, flow rate, age, length-to-width ratio, and cross-sectional shape. Based on a minimum of two years of water quality data from each of the four bioreactors, annual removal rates ranged from 0.38 to 7.76 g N m-3 bioreactor volume d-1. Bioreactor and total (including bypass flow) nitratenitrogen load reductions ranged from 12% to 76% (mean 45%) and from 12% to 57% (mean 32%), respectively, removing from 0.5 to 15.5 kg N ha-1 drainage area. Multiple regression analyses showed that temperature and influent nitrate concentration were the most important factors affecting percent bioreactor nitrate load reduction and nitrate removal rate, respectively. This analysis also indicated that load reductions within the bioreactor were significantly impacted by retention time at three of the four reactors. More fieldscale performance data from bioreactors of different designs and from multiple locations around the Midwest are necessary to further enhance understanding of nitrate removal in these systems and their potential to positively impact water quality.

Abstract:Flow from artificial subsurface (tile) drainage systems may be contributing to increasing baseflow in Midwestern rivers and increased losses of nitrate-nitrogen. Standard hydrograph analysis techniques were applied to model simulation output and field monitoring from tile-drained landscapes to explore how flow from drainage tiles affects stream baseflow and streamflow recession characteristics. DRAINMOD was used to simulate hydrologic response from drained (24 m tile spacing) and undrained agricultural systems. Hydrograph analysis was conducted using programs PART and RECESS. Field monitoring data were obtained from several monitoring sites in Iowa typical of heavily drained and less-drained regions. Results indicate that flow from tile drainage primarily affects the baseflow portion of a hydrograph, increasing annual baseflow in streams with seasonal increases primarily occurring in the late spring and early summer months. Master recession curves from tile-drained watersheds appear to be more linear than less-tiled watersheds although comparative results of the recession index k were inconsistent. Considering the magnitude of non-point source pollutant loads coming from tile-drained landscapes, it is critical that more in-depth research and analysis be done to assess the effects of tile drainage on watershed hydrology if water quality solutions are to be properly evaluated.

In agricultural landscapes, variation and ecological plasticity in depth of water uptake by annual and perennial plants is an important means by which vegetation controls hydrological balance. However, little is known about how annual and perennial plants growing in agriculturally dominated landscapes in temperate humid regions vary in their water uptake dynamics. The primary objective of this study was to quantify the depth of water uptake by dominant plant species and functional groups growing in contrasting annual and perennial systems in an agricultural landscape in Central Iowa. We used stable oxygen isotope techniques to determine isotopic signatures of soil water and plant tissue to infer depth of water uptake at five sampling times over the course of an entire growing season. Our results suggest that herbaceous species (Zea mays L., Glycine max L. Merr., Carex sp., Andropogon gerardii Vitman.) utilized water predominantly from the upper 20 cm of the soil profile and exhibited a relatively low range of ecological plasticity for depth of water uptake. In contrast, the woody shrub (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus Moench.) and tree (Quercus alba L.) progressively increased their depth of water uptake during the growing season as water became less available, and showed a high degree of responsiveness of water uptake depth to changes in precipitation patterns. Coexisting shrubs and trees in the woodland and savanna sites extracted water from different depths in the soil profile, indicating complementarity in water uptake patterns. We suggest that deep water uptake by perennial plants growing in landscapes dominated by rowcrop agriculture can enhance hydrologic functioning. However, because the high degree of ecological plasticity allows some deep-rooted species to extract water from surface horizons when it is available, positive effects of deep water uptake may vary dependPlant Soil (2008) 308:69-92