Around 80 miles as the crow flies west to east over the three most southeastern counties of Minnesota—Mower, Fillmore and Houston—farmers, state agency staff and others in tune with water quality efforts have been working together to better understand how farming practices affect local waters.

With six years of baseline field and stream monitoring data now in hand, those involved with the Root River Field to Stream Partnership can target conservation efforts to areas where the most sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus have been leaving the landscape. Ongoing monitoring will help scientists evaluate the effectiveness of conservation practices before and after practices are installed.

Monitoring water quality. (left) Kevin Kuehner, MDA, and Ron Meiners, conservation consultant, are working with farmers in southern Minnesota through the Root River Field to Stream Partnership. They are standing at the watershed outlet to Crystal Creek.

The partnership came about eight years ago as ag water quality discussions became heated, recalls Kevin Kuehner, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture lead for the field to stream program.

“Comments kept coming up about how we needed better numbers and better science to understand how agricultural practices affect the health of local rivers and streams and what’s feasible with respect to obtaining clean water goals,” Kuehner says. “To get those answers, we first needed detailed measurements from actual farm fields and small watersheds.”

The Root River watershed came up in early discussions as a possible area for research, due to its size and geologic diversity. Encompassing around 1.06 million acres—a little smaller than the state of Delaware—the watershed contains glacial till, karst topography and bluff land.

Several entities came alongside MDA to work together, thus creating the Root River Field to Stream Partnership. Partners include the Minnesota Agricultural Water Resources Center, The Nature Conservancy and Monsanto. Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment funding and technical support are provided by Mower, Fillmore and Houston County Soil and Water Conservation District staffs.

The project was designed in two phases: the first, to accumulate data from edge-of-field and in-stream monitors and second, to work with farmers in the watershed to install additional and/or update existing conservation practices.

Due to the diversity of farming practices and landscape, three small subwatersheds were selected for the study: the south branch of the Root River headwaters, located in glacial till in the western portion of the watershed, encompassing 2,778 acres with 14 farms; Crystal Creek, covering 3,728 acres in the center of the watershed, dominated by rolling hills and karst features with 23farms; and Bridge Creek, with 4,665 acres in the bluff land in the east region of the watershed with 16 farms.

Water movement through the watershed is interesting. The Root starts as a drainage ditch in Mower County and empties into the Mississippi River near Hokah. Near Forestville State Park, the river disappears underground and resurfaces at the Mystery Cave near Preston.

“Surface water can become ground water and ground water can become surface water all within a matter of hours,” Kuehner says. “We’ve got [drainage] tile to the west, karst in the middle and steep bluff land in the east. Plus, there is sandy soil in the floodplain of the Root and we have the highest annual precipitation in the state here.”

The data collection phase wrapped up last year. Since this spring, Kuehner and project consultant Ron Meiners with Fillmore SWCD have been focusing efforts on working with landowners. Meiners, who recently retired after 25 years with the Root River SWCD, is responsible for doing field walkovers and assessments on farms in the watershed. However, this time it’s different for him.

“Before, landowners came through the office door when they needed help,” Meiners says. “Here, with this program, we’re going out to them, asking permission to walk their land and offering suggestions of things to install.”

Fifty-two of the 53 farmers in the program’s subwatersheds allowed Meiners to conduct field walkovers on 8,400 crop acres. Walkovers are a visual assessment of existing conservation practices, erosion and erosion potential. When Meiners visits with farmers, he takes detailed maps that show runoff risks based on land slope and where field runoff tends to flow and concentrate. Maps were developed by MDA staff using high resolution elevation information and conservation planning tools developed by USDA’s Ag Research Service.

During follow-up farm visits, Meiners offers a simple report, showing options for improving prioritized areas needing improvement. Since starting, Meiners has helped identify more than 400 potential conservation practices of which 88 projects are considered a high priority. In the first year of implementing practices, nearly 20 projects were completed in two of the three study watersheds with an additional 20 planned for this fall and next spring.

“Some farmers received cost-share money and some installed them on their own,” Meiners adds. There have been challenges for some farmers with getting paperwork and cost-share lined up. Sometimes local soil and water office staffs have been overwhelmed by the increasing paperwork.

Still, it is well worth the time for farmers to seek some conservation financial assistance.

“We’ve been offering up to 90% cost share rates on most practices, which is pretty much a ‘gimme,’ Meiners says.

Kuehner says recently awarded state Clean Water Legacy funding from the Board of Soil and Water Resources and the federal EQIP program will be available for the next three to four years.

“Our goal is to continue monitoring for an additional four to five years after practices are installed to measure how low we can practically cut our losses from these agricultural watersheds,” Kuehner says. “This information will be valuable to farmers and watershed managers in the region. Just as important will be the lessons learned from the conservation delivery phase of the project and the approach the partnership has taken.”

Kuehner adds that overall, farmers in the watershed have a lot of practices on the land and they are doing a good job.

“There is always room for improvement, though,” he adds. “Let’s address those most critical areas on farms now.”

Having data in hand helps move the conservation discussion to the next level.

“All this local data elevates the conversation and we can talk facts about what is actually happening,” Kuehner says. “I tell cooperating farmers that you need to know your runoff numbers like you do your crop yields so you can share the information with other farm neighbors and non-farmers. Now more than ever is the time to have these conversations and be proactive about practices for clean water.”