2021
Recycling Drainage Water to Improve Soybean Yields and Water Quality
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Contributor/Checkoff:
Indiana Soybean Alliance
Category:
Sustainable Production
Keywords:
DiseaseField management Pest
Parent Project:
This is the first year of this project.
Lead Principal Investigator:
Laura Bowling, Purdue University
Co-Principal Investigators:
Project Code:
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
Indiana Soybean Alliance
$74,226
Institution Funded:
Purdue University
$74,226
Brief Project Summary:

The overall goal of this project is to quantify the potential crop yield, water quality benefits, and the economic viability of using recycled drainage water to irrigate soybeans in West Central Indiana. A water control structure will be installed to manage water levels and a surface sprinkler irrigation system will be installed that pumps stored drainage water from an adjacent wetland to irrigate a soybean plot. The research team will monitor soybean growth and water stress. Crop phenology measurements and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) surveys will quantify biomass amounts and crop water stress for different soybean growth stages. These measurements will contribute to analysis of irrigation for yield differences between the plots.

Key Benefactors:
farmers, agronomists, engineers, Extension specialists, ag retailers

Information And Results
Project Deliverables

The PIs will disseminate the results of this project through fields days, and presentations at extension events and scientific conferences. Datasets will be made available for other researchers as they become available, following the model already used by the PIs (e.g., Lyu et al., 2020). Image analysis software is maintained in a GitHUB repository and a free version will be made available by the end of this project. The project will train one graduate student, but will also provide educational experiences for other graduate and undergraduate students in the PIs programs, both through undergraduate research opportunities and integration into course materials in three programs: Agronomy, Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. PIs Bowling and Cherkauer are also directing a Purdue EPICS team that is working with ACRE farm staff to design and build a network of trails and educational signage to open the Oaks’ Woods wetland to school groups. Proposed signage already incorporates the ongoing monitoring of water quality at the wetland, and additional signage will be developed to highlight the drainage water recycling system.

Final Project Results

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.