1. Dennis Frame
Professor, UW-Extension
Co-Director UW–Discovery Farms
UW-Discovery Farms
On-Farm Research/Monitoring
Activities & Findings

2. Special Projects
Environmental Training
Core Farms

3. Discovery Farm?
Discovery farms are real-life Wisconsin
farms in different geographic areas facing
different environmental challenges.
Our goal is to better understand and reduce
the sources of phosphorus, nitrogen, and
other pollutants that may impair the surface
and groundwater.
Farms participate for 5-7 years

4. Mission Statement
 The Discovery Farms Program
will develop on-farm and related
research to determine the
economic and environmental
effects of Best Management
Practices on a diverse group of
Wisconsin farms;

5.  The Discovery Farms Program will develop on-farm and
related research to determine the economic and
environmental effects of Best Management Practices on
a diverse group of Wisconsin farms;
 and educate and improve
communications among the
agricultural community,
consumers, researchers, and
policy-makers to better identify
and implement effective
environmental management
practices that are compatible
with profitable agriculture.

6. About UW-Discovery Farms
 6 Core Farms
 3 Special Project Farms
 21 Monitoring Stations
 Steering Committee
 Education and Outreach

7. Locations of
Discovery Farms
Projects
 1 Beef
 1 Swine – odor
 3 Poultry-stacking
 2 dairy – grazing
 1 dairy
-grazing/organic
 6 dairy -
confinement

8. Different Physiographic
Hydrogeologic Settings

9. Surface & tile monitoring

10. …the brains of the operation

11. What else are we collecting?
 Meteorological data:
precipitation, wind speed
and direction, air
temperature, solar
radiation, relative
humidity, soil moisture
and temperature

12. What have we learned?
 Identified critical risk periods
 Snowmelt, rain on snow/frozen ground
 Non-frozen soils that are close to saturation.
 All farms/farming systems have losses.
 Tile drainage a major contributor in areas
 Sediment losses are lower than expected.

13. Timing – Critical Runoff Periods
Mean-
Monthly
Runoff
Mean-Monthly Runoff
as a Percentage of
Annual Runoff
Runoff
Frequency
Total
Precip
Mean-Monthly Runoff
as a Percentage of Total
Precip
October 0.07 3% 23% 2.32 3%
November 0.02 <1% 15% 2.22 1%
December 0.04 1% 35% 1.73 2%
January 0.10 4% 50% 1.68 6%
February 0.41 16% 58% 1.48 28%
March 0.87 34% 100% 2.22 39%
April 0.11 4% 54% 3.42 3%
May 0.32 12% 38% 3.70 9%
June 0.48 19% 42% 3.83 13%
July 0.07 3% 42% 3.90 2%
August 0.07 3% 19% 3.55 2%
September <0.01 <1% 19% 2.76 <1%

14. 0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
SW1,2005
SW1,2006
SW1,2007
SW2,2004
SW2,2005
SW2,2006
SW2,2007
SW2,2008
Pioneer,2003
Pioneer,2004
Pioneer,2005
Pioneer,2006
Pioneer,2007
Pioneer,2008
SE1,2006
SE1,2007
SE1,2008
NE1,2004
NE1,2005
NE1,2006
NE1,2007
NE1,2008
NE2,2005
NE2,2006
NE2,2007
NE2,2008
Totalphosphorusyield,inpoundsperacre
Non-Frozen Ground
Frozen Ground
Mean
Average annual yields of total phosphorus,
by farm and year, 2003–2008.

15. Distribution of event-mean total P concentration 2003 - 2008

16. How much phosphorus?

17. How much phosphorus?

18. So now what?
 Discovery Farms is wrapping up a
number of sites.
 Organizing and writing up the
results from the first nine projects
 Move toward linking field and
stream monitoring

19. Discovery Watersheds
 In-stream and in-field water quality monitoring
 Providing information that helps farmers and their
advisors to make changes that protect water quality
 Identify critical sites (contributors or major sinks)
 Engage producers and their advisors in the identification
and adoption of practices which reduce losses

20.  Nutrient management
 Evaluate fields to identify critical sites
 Relate edge-of-field losses to P – Index
 Identify fields based on level of risk (timing
and location)
 Low risk
 Medium risk
 High risk

21.  Compare critical sites with other
methods of identification (LIDAR)
 Look for alternative practices on
critical sites
Critical Sites

22. Questions?