WW-06679     Revised 1997  

Minnesota River Decision Cases

 The Wilder Farm Decision Case

Part of the Minnesota River Decision Cases (other cases available)
View Teaching Note for this case.

Part One - The Situation:

1. "Personally, I feel there is little problem with the Minnesota River until it hits the metropolitan area. I think she comes in in pretty good shape and comes out a mess. The main problem is not coming out of the agricultural communities. I know there is talk of fertilizers and pesticides going into the river - well, economically speaking, you can’t afford to let those pesticides and fertilizers go into the river, because you can’t afford to put them on the fields, much less in the river!"
   
   
2. These statements displayed the exasperation Jay Wilder felt about his situation. His daughter, Jennifer, had recently come to him with some information obtained through her local Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter. She had been told that farmers were encouraged to adopt alternative practices to reduce agricultural pollution of the Minnesota River. One of the practices she learned about was promoted through an educational conservation program called "Operation Green Stripe" (Exhibit A). This project promoted the establishment of filter strips, which were supposed to reduce sediment and agricultural chemical movement into streams and rivers. If she helped her dad design and install filter strips on their farm, and wrote about it, she would help her local FFA chapter to receive educational grants. As an FFA member, Jennifer was eligible for these grants. Jay needed to decide whether to put filter strips on his farm as Jennifer had proposed.
   
   
3. But Jay wondered if filter strips were needed or would be effective on his sugar beet farm. He was not convinced that responsible farmers like himself were entirely to blame for the condition of the Minnesota River further downstream. His 1,100-acre farm was bisected by a branch of the Chippewa River, a tributary of the Minnesota River (Exhibit B). Jay and others he talked to felt the Chippewa was in good condition, at least as far as Montevideo. And besides, what difference would installing filter strips on his farm make? When he considered the vastness of the Minnesota River Basin, was it really worth the bother?
   
   
4. In West Central Minnesota, where Jay lived, 1995 had been a wet year. The corn, soybeans, and sugar beets were stunted or dead in low-lying areas of fields where water had formed a pond. A total of 15 inches of rain had fallen in two torrential rainstorms during the first week of July. That was almost two-thirds of the precipitation normally received in an entire year.
   
   
5. But Jay’s situation was better than some. Most of his tillable acreage was artificially drained by subsurface and open intake drains. The drainage water from his fields was diverted into either the Chippewa or into a ditch that ran through his property and ultimately into the river. The best news was that, despite the rains, the sugar beet crop looked good. About 70% of his gross income was realized each year from sugar beets. Although the Wilders also raised corn and beef cattle on their farm, sugar beets were the most important to them. "The only reason I even grow corn," commented Jay, "is because I can’t grow sugar beets year after year."
   
   
6. Sugar beet farmers like Jay also had other considerations - such as surface residue-free fields in the winter and spring. "When we harvest a field of beets, any ridges, any no-till is history. We tear it up to the point where there is nothing left. We physically dig a trench and remove the beets. Following the harvest, there is absolutely nothing [residue] out there whatsoever. And there is no way to prevent that."
   
   
7. "Concerning the river, we would like to go with more of a reduced tillage method for beet production. Because of the timing of the harvest (late fall), we can’t get a cover crop seeded. And no matter what you do as far as reduced tillage is concerned, it costs tonnage - it costs sugar. We tried ridge-till - it does not work very well. You get the beet seedlings up and in a ten, fifteen mile an hour wind the cotyledon leaves act just like helicopter blades. You go out there the next day and they’re gone, just plain gone." Jay also knew that maintaining surface vegetative residues, as with reduced-tillage systems, would be more difficult in sugar beets because of their narrow row spacings (22 inches) and the complications that residue posed when cultivating.
   
   
8. Growing sugar beets also meant using pesticides. The spindly, slow-emerging beet seedlings are poor competitors with weeds in the spring and sensitive to injury by many herbicides. "We kind of tickle the weeds to death," Jay noted. "We put on 1/2 to 1/3 herbicide rates and just keep putting them on. Herbicides are applied approximately every five days during the growing season until full rates are achieved, plus the field is cultivated two or three times." After the crop canopy closes, it becomes important to fight fungal diseases such as Cercospora, a potentially devastating disease for sugar beets. Since no reliable systemic fungicides (fungicides that work internally through the plant) were available, Jay had to rely on protectant-type fungicides (fungicides that protect from infection on the surface of the plant) that needed to be applied every 14 days until 21 days prior to harvest. Genetic resistance to the disease was only partially effective at best, so fungicides were the best defense for beet producers.

Part Two - Further Considerations:

9. Despite the potential for soil erosion and chemical runoff with sugar beets, Jay didn’t feel that water erosion was a serious problem on his fields. He generally planted across the slopes, where they occurred, and the tile drains helped reduce potential for forming ponds and runoff. His open intake drains stood a little above the field surface. He didn’t think much suspended particle matter entered these (Exhibit C). He did feel that there was potential for wind erosion on some of his land, but he cut ridges with his sugar beet planter to help protect the young beets and to retard soil movement by wind. Still, Jay knew there were times, such as during the winds of spring or intense rainstorms, when even the best drainage and tillage practices couldn’t keep some soil from blowing or washing away.
   
   
10. Throughout the history of Jay’s farm, the Chippewa flooded regularly. Usually it was in the spring, but sometimes it happened at other heavy-rainfall times of the year. Although the river was bordered on the south by permanent pasture and by a high bank on the north, it sometimes came up into his crop fields. Jay knew that floodwater could eat away at the topsoil in those fields, but he felt there wasn’t much he could do about it. The river had been flooding before farmers settled the land and it would be flooding long after he was gone - it was part of the natural cycle of things.
11. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Fish and Wildlife Service had considered putting dams along the Chippewa to create wetlands for wildlife and waterfowl and to moderate flooding downstream, but Jay didn’t care much for the proposal. "They have a map drawn where they are going to put a dam 500 feet east of the bridge here (near the Wilder’s home). That would go across our property. There would be another dam two miles farther east, and another dam three miles west of here on some DNR land. We absolutely do not want to see the dams go in. We would lose all of our pasture (along the river), and we would lose all of our drainage (outlets). It would not be a lake - it would just be a slough. It would be a nesting ground for some wildlife, but would contain too much water for duck habitat. Fish would not survive in it. It would devalue our property something fierce."
    
    
12. In considering other approaches to river enhancement, Jay knew he had 15 acres of alfalfa that needed replanting. He felt he could put them in as three or four smaller fields to act more or less as filter strips in accordance with his daughter’s proposal. They would be planted along the edges of fields that came right up to the river. "At first the filter strip idea seemed kind of Mickey Mouse, but after thinking about it, I realized it might work for us in some places," said Jay. Although he didn’t believe the strips would protect his cropland from flood erosion, Jay did think the alfalfa might help against the seasonal runoff that came with snow melt and heavy rains.
13. However, he was reluctant to sacrifice any hope of gain from the land. "The bottom line is I’ve got to be able to use it. Perennial grasses might give me one cutting at about a quarter ton per acre. That is not good enough. I need alfalfa for my [cattle]." Jay was considering an alfalfa/brome mixture, with a tentative option to let some of it go to grass as a permanent buffer if productivity could be maintained. "We’re looking at a couple of strips along the ditch and another along the far river bank, where the cropland comes right to the edge. We would want to make them 60 or 80 feet wide to make them worthwhile to hay, and they would also provide end rows for our cropland for turning our equipment."
14. Fall was coming and Jay was eager to begin harvesting beets. He knew there would be the usual labor shortages to contend with during harvest, and he had a nagging concern about Cercospora. If it got out of hand, it could cut into the quality of his crop in the last few weeks before harvest. He also knew that he needed to make a decision soon whether to go forward with Jennifer’s filter strip project. "If we’re going to move on that, this may be the best time," Jay commented. "Our alfalfa is about ready to come out anyway and if my daughter can get credit for the project, all the better."
    

Exhibits:
A. Details of Operation Green Stripe (filter strips)
B. Background on the farm
C. Water and River Quality

Part of the Minnesota River Decision Cases (other cases available)
View Teaching Note for this case.

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