Welcome everybody to Midday magazine for this Thursday October 10th, 2024.
Have your host James here and we are joined right now by our great friend,
Jen McNally, Natural Resource Groundwater Educator with UW-Madison Extension Wood County.
Jen, good to have you with us.
Hey, thanks James. Happy to be here.
Always appreciate the conversation as I always mentioned to you and
our listeners out there. I always learn when you join us and I appreciate the topics you touch on.
When we're getting into today is an important one but one that I don't
we hear the word nitrogen all the time. We've heard it pretty much our whole lives
but I don't know how many of us know a definition or really have an idea of
what nitrogen truly is. Can we dive? We're going to dive into that today.
So let's just start right there, nitrogen. Sure, absolutely. I think when most people hear
the word nitrogen, they're thinking of probably something like a fertilizer, right?
So that's how most of us, they're familiar with it. But yeah, I think you're right.
I don't think most of us know what the heck is it and where does it come from.
So nitrogen is one of the most abundant elements in our atmosphere, which is
crazy to think about. It's found in soils, plants, drinking water, everywhere.
And it's a building block. It's essential to our lives.
It's actually one of the building blocks of our DNA as a matter of fact.
So the reason that it gets so much hype is that it is absolutely essential for plant growth.
So whether it's growing our food and our crops or our beautiful lawns or flower gardens,
we have to have nitrogen in order to survive and grow. So it's super important.
So with some plants, they have a relationship with bacteria that I wanted to touch on too,
that I thought was really interesting. I had not heard of this before. I hadn't read it
about this until your notes. Yeah, so like I said, nitrogen is found in the atmosphere.
But plants can't use that form of nitrogen. So it has to go through a process called
fixation, which is really converting it from a gas down to something that's usable for plants
and in some cases ourselves. And so there's a few different ways that nitrogen fixation happens.
One is most of it happens in the soil. There's bacteria in there that can make that conversion
happen and it becomes available for plants. So it's a nutrient that's found in the soils.
Two, the super one that I think is super cool, just like you, is that there are certain
plants that are called nitrogen fixing plants. And they have a bacteria that grows
on their roots that actually fixes it. And so that bacteria puts the nitrogen into the plant
almost directly. So super cool. Things like our beans and peas, legumes, are nitrogen fixing
plants, which make them very cool. And then the last one that most of us are familiar with,
there's an industrial process that allows that fixation to happen. And that's how we get fertilizer.
Which is all really good information. But all stuff, again, I don't think is common knowledge.
I really appreciate the breakdown of that. So this is where nitrogen comes from. What are some
of the more important things about the cycles of nitrogen? Sure, sure. So yeah, so that's
a really important point that I'm glad that you brought up is that nitrogen goes through cycle,
very similar to our water cycles. So as it comes down as a gas, it gets converted into different
forms that plants can use. And eventually it'll wind up back up as a gas again. And so it keeps
going through this cycle over and over again, much like the water cycle actually does as well.
And as a side note, it doesn't seem like a coincidence that whether we're talking about water
or nitrogen, that these aren't just things in our atmosphere or in our planet, they're in us.
And it feels like there should be more of a, if not a, understanding a connection between us
and the earth, us and that. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, while it gets hyped a lot is
causing certain issues, you know, I think it's always important to remember that it is essential
for us to survive. Like, we need this element in order to be successful. Let's dive into that,
Jen. Why do we need nitrogen? Yeah. The long and the short of it is to make things grow.
That's a simple answer. And thank you for joining us today. It's true. It says it right there.
Yeah, exactly. So the big one is for crops and agriculture. Scientists estimated that if we
didn't have nitrogen fertilizers added to our crops, we would lose about a third of the crops
that supply our food supply, which that's huge. I mean, you know, we're already struggling sometimes
for food supply shortages. If we didn't have this resource or the ability to use this resource,
it would be in a lot of trouble. But we use nitrogen fertilizer for a lot of different things too,
whether it's in your backyard or in your front yard to make your grass grow and look nice.
It's if it's in your garden to make vegetables grow or plants, you know, all sorts of
different uses for it, which is why it makes it really kind of essential. One of the things that
we talk about this time of the year, it's fall. You know, people are starting to think about, okay,
what do I need to do to buckle things up for winter and get ready? And a lot of advice it will be
for those that have lawns to put on a nitrogen fertilizer in the fall. And that's to really
increase that strong root growth of your lawn, going into the winter so that grass can over winter
and then start to grow again in the spring. With the importance of nitrogen, why is there a concern
for it? Why is nitrogen a concern? Sure. So you've probably heard that adage too much of a good
thing, right? And that's the exact same case with the nitrogen. So while it is essential, we can
overdo it on the nitrogen. If we add too much or things get out of balance, we can actually kill
crops and plants. You know, sometimes you might see plants that are really yellow and starting to
wither and that can be a sign of too much nitrogen taking place in there. So there's a couple other
concerns to that happen. When we apply too much, plants aren't able to use all of it. And nitrogen
can go through a process where it converts into nitrate, which is what we hear a lot about associated
with junkie water. And that nitrogen or that nitrate can leach through the soil. Nitrogen is
tricky. It doesn't like to stick to soil. And so if it finds water, it sticks to water and it
travels with it. So we get a lot of nitrogen potentially, a lot of nitrogen loss. And that's
what actually leads to our nitrate and drinking water issue. So nitrate is Wisconsin and
wood counties biggest drinking water quality concern. And that's where that comes from,
primarily, nitrogen loss of using too much. The other thing that people may be familiar with too,
if you've been along the Wisconsin river lately, you'll see it sometimes looks a little green.
And we get some algal blooms going on right now. So just like nitrogen fuels plant growth on land,
if it reaches surface water, either through runoff or through groundwater, it fuels plant growth.
And our surface waters are lakes and our rivers and streams. And so it can lead to something called
beautification, which is excessive plant growth in those water bodies. Or if plants don't use it,
algae will use it. And then we get algal blooms. So this has such a bigger reach than just your yard.
This goes so much farther than that. Yeah, absolutely. So if you think about it,
once it hits that waterway, it's free to travel and it's not going to stop.
Some of you may have heard of the algal blooms done in the Gulf of Mexico, or the red tide,
or harmful algal blooms, those are fueled primarily by nitrogen. And nitrogen coming down the
Mississippi River from as far north as Wisconsin. So we really have an impact outside of us. It's not
just us that are feeling the effects of this. Any history book will show you and tell you how much
of this country was built on our waterways. And it's one of the, as a history nerd, it's one of
the cooler things that I think I found out about as a kid and learned about and everything. And
certainly how that is impacted the Midwest here in Chicago, Wisconsin, to plenty of other spots.
But this has the other effect of that too, where these waters carry things with them. And
whether it's from there to here or here to there, we're affecting other people with these things.
Yeah. And just like that nitrogen cycle, that water cycle, you know, one of the cool facts that I
always tell kids what I'm teaching is we never get any new water on our planet. It's just reused
over and over and over again. And if it reaches a point where we can't use it, too bad so sad.
There's one of my favorite lines in a TV show in the soprano. There's a line where Tony says,
by land, God's not making any more of it. Yeah. It's such a good line. That's so true.
It's what you said. It's so true. It's so many different things, right?
Really don't know. We're speaking with our friend Jen McNally, a natural resource groundwater
educator with UW-Madison Extension Wood County. Jen, how do we manage nitrogen? Sure. So it's
actually one of those things that can be pretty easy. And all of us can play a role in it. So, you
know, when it comes to crops and agriculture, they actually do a pretty dearing good job of trying
to manage their nitrogen. If you think about it, they have to pay for fertilizer. And so it's a
commodity to them. It's an input. So they're really careful about how they use it because those
margins are so thin anyway. In our own life and even the basis behind how they use it in agriculture,
it's really a matter of figuring out, okay, what nitrogen is already available to plants that you're
growing? What am I growing to grow and what does it need? And then working out the kind of the
timing of those two things. So to answer the question of how much is already there, really the
best way to do that is through soil test. And that's something that we should be doing on our
lawns and our gardens even too, not just crops. So good resource for soil tests. Of course,
I'm going to put a plug in here for UW Extension. We have soil test kits available in our office
that you can pick up. They have to be sent on a UW Madison or there are local labs that will do
soil testing as well. I think the closest one is in Stratford. And there are also places like
agricultural co-ops and stuff that will do soil testing for you. Just a quick follow-up,
Jen. When it comes to the testing part of this, and this is something I can't take credit for this
question. My father thought of this. He loves hearing your interviews. One of the things that we
were talking about was, well, how often should you test? Oh, good question. That's a great question.
He'll love hearing it. I would say at least once a growing season. So before you apply,
if you're going to apply twice a year, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and test twice a year,
just so you know what you have available already in that soil to your plants. And that's going to
change on a whole bunch of different factors. You know, it's going to change on if you have been
applying something like a fertilizer or other organic material, maybe a compost. That's going to
change the availability of nitrogen. It's also going to depend on if you're testing end of season
and you've had plant growth there as well that may have depleted the availability.
So knowing what your crops need, what your land needs is really important to this. There is no
umbrella kind of resource for that or use for this. Yeah, no, you know, there's some general
guidelines as far as like types of soil and stuff. But really, if you're getting down into the
nitty gritty of it, it's really dependent on different soils and then what your crops need.
So yeah, the second part of that is knowing what crop are you going to grow and how much
nitrogen does it need? That varies across the board. You know, something simple like our turf
usually requires somewhere around four pounds per acre of nitrogen on average. All the way up
to your high end, if you're going something like sweet corn or potatoes, those are way more nitrogen
intense crops. You know, and if you're looking at a crop scale, that's hundreds of pounds of nitrogen
that are applied per acre that they require in order to get like a decent yield. So really knowing
those two things, how much do you have available? How much does your crop need and then kind of
taking those two numbers and figuring, oh, okay, this is how much I need to, you know, add
additionally in order to have it. That's successful. To do that map, to be able to do all that,
is that something that you guys can help with at extension? Are there our professionals also
that can help with that? Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times when you get your soil test back
from UW Extension, they're going to have some recommendations in there about what your soils
might need and types of fertilizers that would be appropriate. Great resources and extension as well
are our horticulturists and our agricultural agents. They deal with this all the time and so
they're really going to be able to help give some extra guidance to folks who might be wanting
some more additional information. It's really good to hear and appreciate that, Jen. So much of what
we're talking about here too is the application of the nitrogen, how much to use and not wanting
any of it to be lost. Yes. Because the nitrogen is too smart for that. It's not going to get
the nitrogen is going to get used. Whether where we want it to be used and all that and that comes
down to the amount and so much of this that we're talking about. Yeah. So that nitrogen cycle that
we talked about, it's a naturally kind of like leaky cycle. Nitrogen doesn't hold its place in
that cycle very well. So we also, in addition to knowing how much to use, how much our plants need,
we really want to be careful about when and how we apply it to. Those are two additional steps
that can really help turn that dial back on that nitrogen loss. So one of the things is smaller
amounts more frequently. You know, it used to be a pretty common practice that we would go out,
you know, right away in the spring, whether it was egg or in your lawn, you'd apply a bunch of
nitrogen to really kick start that and grow it and big. And we have found over the years that if
you apply smaller amounts continually, that really helps to kind of give those plants the ability
to use it before it gets lost. So that's one thing, kind of spoon feeding it. Being aware that you
don't want to go past what you're supposed to be applied. But, you know, little amounts more
frequently is probably a better, a better route to go. The other thing is, just lost my train of
thought. Oh, making sure that you have a plant growing. It's available to use it too. You don't
want to be applying too late in the season when stuff is starting to die back and it's not going
to be taking it up or too early where your plants haven't come up yet and don't have the ability
to use it. That's a big one. And then the last one is kind of watching the weather in the conditions
that you're applying in. For us here in Sandy soil country, this one is probably a really important
one because if we apply nitrogen or any fertilizer or nutrient for that matter and we get a big
green storm within 24 hours, pretty much of none of that is going to be sticking around. It's all
going to be lost and leech. So we really want to be cognizant about kind of the conditions that
we're applying that in. And that seems like another thing that you can help our listeners with
and everything at extension as far as when to do this in keeping an eye on those things that
that's again, sort of a gray areas to me in this topic that we don't always get a chance to share
that information or we even know sometimes. Anybody out there listening knows one of the biggest
concerns in this area, one of the biggest topics here at Midday Magazine is our water quality.
And I've talked to many listeners for many years about this topic and one of the things that so
many keep coming back to us, this seems so daunting. It seems so big. And how do we fix something
that's so gigantic and like water? I mean, we all know how much of water populates our planet
and how much of all these other things. We're giving you some answers here. There are things you
can do. There are ways that we can impact this. Absolutely. So yeah, I hear the same sentiment a lot.
It can be a very overwhelming topic for people to talk about. And one where you kind of look at
and you're like, what in the heck am I supposed to do? I personally have the feeling that any way
that we can kind of turn back the dial on these different things, that's going to be a benefit.
No matter if you're the largest producer out there or if you're just a very small sliver of the
problem, I think we can all play a role in this. And something even simple is managing your
nitrogen on your own lawn and in your own landscape helps every little bit helps.
Just like this excess nitrogen or these excess things can interact and go farther than we
realize sometimes, the positive can as well. The good things you do can spread as well. And the more
of us do that, neighbor after neighbor, zip code after zip code, we get a lot cleaner water.
Exactly. It makes all the difference. Great conversation today, Jen. I really do appreciate it.
Do we cover everything you wanted to cover with it? I think so.
Yeah, I do so. So if people do have follow questions, though,
a better question than mine. No, people have follow questions or anything like that.
And certainly want to reach out to you and find out more information. How can they do that?
Sure. So if you have questions related to soil testing or you know, specific nitrogen
application rates, like I said, our horticulturist or agricultural agents are probably great resources
for that. You can find their specific contact information on the Wood County UW Extension website.
If you have water-related questions regarding nitrate and drinking water,
I'm a great resource for that. And my contact information can also be found on their website.
Otherwise, you're always safe if you just give our office a call and ask, we can point you
in the right direction to who might be able to answer that question for you. And our office
telephone number is 715-346-844-0. Keep in mind, you can also find out more at their website
extension.wisk.edu, extension.wisk.edu. And be sure to follow the gang of extension on
social media. It's a great way to keep up to data and things over there and share those different
events and stuff that are going on with our extension team that maybe people might not see
him otherwise. So share them on your pages as well. Jen, always appreciate the time.
Looking forward to talking again real soon. Great. Thanks James.
Thank you. We will know more midday magazine coming up for you because we have one more day
of midday magazine for you. And I'm tomorrow show at four o'clock. We're going to be talking
with the community bike ride and farmer's market with Hannah Wendell's. We're getting into those
with her. And in part two, we're going to talk with about the Wisconsin Rabbits Area Sports Commission.
Recently had some new information come out, some new candidates want to get some information
to you about that. All of that coming up for you. And be sure to keep in mind that any
interviews you might have missed, you can catch them at civicmedia.us, civicmedia.us. Go ahead and
find those. And hey, share them with your friends and family and everything under social media.
Spread the word about the show. Everybody spread the information. More coming up for you at
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