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2024 Projects: Whole-Farm Nutrient Mass Balance and Carbon Footprint Assessment

How Do Your Farm Nutrient Balance and Carbon Footprint Compare to Others?

To date, nutrient management regulations in New York and most other states in the US have addressed the Clean Water Act through implementation of the NRCS 590 standard for nutrient management. Losses could be significantly reduced if fewer nutrients were imported onto the farm in the first place. The key solution lies in finding ways to increase nutrient use efficiency on farms and, thereby, decrease nutrient imports and reduce loadings to watersheds. Knowing a farm's nutrient mass balance (NMB) is one step towards improving our understanding of nutrient movement onto, within, and away from the farm. Balances provide a useful and achievable metric for assessing nutrient loadings and potential losses on farms.

Each participating farm will receive its NMB and the summary of all farms to which the NMB could be compared. Active participation by the producers and their advisors (nutrient management planners, nutritionists, accountants) is essential for the development and implementation of BMPs that address the long-term sustainability of the farms. With the development of feasible balances and the optimum operational zone for management (where producers meet feasible balances per acre and per hundredweight), producers and advisors will be better able to identify farm-specific opportunities to reduce nutrient loadings. The project will set the basis for identification of more inclusive nutrient management policies and action plans for the development of BMPs across the cropping, herd, and manure management components of farms. The software facilitates data entry and is available from our website below.

If you are interested in participating, contact Quirine Ketterings (qmk2@cornell.edu or 607-255-3061). You can also write to: Quirine Ketterings, Nutrient Management Spear Program, Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, 323 Morrison Hall, Ithaca NY 14853.

Goals

    With the development of feasible balances and the optimum operational zone for management (where producers meet feasible balances per acre and per hundredweight), producers and advisors that participate in the whole-farm mass balance assessment will be better able to identify farm-specific opportunities to reduce nutrient loadings. This sets the basis for identification of more inclusive nutrient management policies and action plans for the development of BMPs across the cropping, herd, and manure management components of farms.

Funding Sources

This project has been sponsored by grants from Chobani, USDA Conservation Innovation Grants (USDA-CIG), Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP), National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), and Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NESARE).

Additional Resources

  • Input Data Sheets (PDF; 2023 Calendar Year; December 16, 2023)
    • Complete this form and mail to: Quirine Ketterings, Nutrient Management Spear Program, Department of Animal Science, Cornell University, 323 Morrison Hall, Ithaca NY 14853, or email qmk2@cornell.edu
    • You will recieve your farm N, P and K balance as well as a comparison of your farm data with all farms in the dataset (>1000 farms to date)
    • Farm identity is kept confidential.
  • Whole-Farm Nutrient Balance Software (Version 2.1; February 15, 2022).
  • User Manual (Version 1.0; March 28, 2011).
  • Input Data Sheets Instruction Form (PDF; 2023 Calendar Year; December 16, 2023).

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