Jane Frankenberger Purdue University

 Opportunity for agreement -- Even people with widely divergent views can agree on numbers drawn from the literature.

 Estimate baseline condition  Identify practices that have high benefits  Assess load reductions possible  Create plausible scenarios and assess benefits

 University and ARS researchers  State Department of Agriculture scientists  State regulatory agency scientists  NRCS, Agricultural organizations, Environmental groups  Even if some have an agenda, assessment based on published research only.

 Sometimes we focus on the gaps more than what is known.  (We will always need to polish the hubcaps, but can we focus on the engine in the driveway?)

 If others should be added to the list, evidence needs to be provided.  If the effect should be assumed to be somehow different within a system of practices, evidence should be provided.

 Let’s move away from lumping them as “nutrients”. It confuses.  To address nitrogen, we need to focus on the flow through tile drains.  The practices are not as effective as we wish they were at reducing nitrate (Table 1, page 5) except for changing land use.

 All fertilizer applied at MRTN Rate  60% of corn/soybean has cover crops  27% treated with wetland  60% of drained land has bioreactor 42% N reduction; 30% P reduction  All fertilizer applied at MRTN Rate  95% of corn/soybean has cover crops  34% in two MLRAs treated with wetland  5% land retirement 42% N reduction; 50% P reduction daunting, but not impossible

 Major Land Resource Areas  Ecoregion (Level 3 or 4)  HUC 6 or 8  Soil parent material, or drainage class?

 Only monitoring data?  Only our state and surrounding states?  Peer-reviewed literature only?

 Use the Iowa or Minnesota assessment, just changing numbers?  Use SPARROW?  Other?

 a few (bad) actors are the problem  just targeting a few fields will solve most of the problem  A single type of practice or system of practices (edge of field denitrification, no-till, soil health) can solve the problem  the response will take a long time (decades?)

A state-level nutrient reduction strategy can:  Clarify what it is that we know.  Expand the “we” in “we know”.  Provide a broadly-agreed-on foundation for a nutrient reduction strategy that will be developed in our states.