Conservation Compass

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  • FREE TICKETS: Iowa Hockey Games for Farmers

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    Two Farmer Appreciation Nights Coming to Iowa Hockey Games in 2026 Iowa’s farmers play a vital role in feeding our communities and protecting our natural resources, and in 2026, we’re excited to honor them with two special Farmer Appreciation Nights at hockey arenas across the state. IAWA is proud to partner with two USHL teams,…

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  • An Introduction to Drainage Water Management

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    Managing Water, Boosting Farmland: An Introduction to Drainage Water Management By: Tom Collins In 1938, the invention of in-field tile drainage systems ushered in a new era of productivity for US farmers. Tile works by effectively draining water off agricultural farmland to prevent flooding and oversaturation within the field. Sometimes, though, this drainage can be…

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  • Drainage water recycling improves crop yields and water quality

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    Emerging Farm Resiliency Practice Provides Significant Farm-Level and Public Benefits, New Report from EDF New economic analysis of drainage water recycling shows the practice can increase crop yields and improve water quality, highlighting the opportunity for public and private co-investment strategies October 21, 2025 – In the face of increasingly volatile and extreme weather across…

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  • IAWA Launches New Water Quality Website

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    IAWA Launches New Water Quality Website Iowa Ag Water Alliance’s new website includes goals-based conservation resources ANKENY, IA (IAWA) – Farmers, agri-businesses, and water quality professionals can access powerful resources on The Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance’s (IAWA) newly launched website at iaagwater.org. With pages organized by the user’s end goal, such as reducing erosion or…

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  • Rooted in Stewardship: How Iowa Corn Growers Can Stay the Course on Conservation

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    By Greg Wandrey, Ph.D., Director of Sustainability, Iowa Corn Growers Association As an Iowa row-crop farmer, you know that cover crop season doesn’t start after harvest—it starts during the growing season. Although most cover crops are planted after harvest, some of you are already seeding cover crop seed into the standing crop before harvest. It’s…

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  • Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt Improvement

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    Maxwell, IA A new water control structure to help the wetlands clean an additional 10,000 acres of ag runoff. A new water control structure to help the wetlands clean an additional 10,000 acres of ag runoff. A new water control structure to help the wetlands clean an additional 10,000 acres of ag runoff.

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  • USDA ramps up support for prairie strips

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    By Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – The USDA offers a cornucopia of conservation programs through its Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA) – but using them for planting prairie strips has been complicated and sometimes difficult for farmers. The FSA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) started in the 1980s to take whole…

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  • The STRIPS Project – A brief history

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    By Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – In 2007, a group of Iowa State University researchers started testing the concept of mixing the advantages of tallgrass prairie with row crops, an effort they dubbed “Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips,” or STRIPS. One advantage prairie plants have is their roots, which reach up to…

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  • Prairie fuel – A new market for prairie hay

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    By Dan Looker ANKENY, Iowa (IAWA) – Iowa farmers who plant prairie strips may soon have a new source of revenue for harvesting them. This spring, St. Louis-based Roeslein Alternative Energy finalized an $80-million USDA contract under the department’s Climate Smart Commodities program, which will allow the company to compensate farmers who harvest prairie hay. That…

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  • Polk County Accelerates Water Quality Efforts on Central Iowa Farms

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    More landowners sign up for nitrate filtration practices in farm fields thanks to a visionary new public-private partnership approach that is turnkey and systems-based By Kurt Lawton Creating a scalable system that can move the needle faster to reduce nitrate in Polk County watersheds began by rethinking the entire process of marketing and delivery of…

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