Farmers are increasingly faced with the challenges of meeting regulatory environmental quality requirements while struggling to run a profitable and sustainable operation. In addition, funding available to help farmers meet environmental quality standards often is not targeted to farms and fields where the greatest benefit may be realized. Furthermore, pay for performance programs that offer payment or credits for implementation of best management practices often do not have a strong scientific basis to quantify the magnitude of environmental improvement achieved. As part of a demonstration project applied to address the issue of phosphorus (P) pollution of surface water in Vermont, the Farm-P Reduction Planner tool (Farm-PREP) has been developed to help farmers, crop consultants, and regulators determine the optimal combination of field-level agronomic practices necessary to achieve farm-level P-loss reduction requirements. Farm-PREP is a web-based tool that provides a user-friendly interface to the Agricultural Policy/Environmental Extender model (APEX). APEX is a spatially distributed and physically-based model that simulates water, sediment, nutrient, and pesticide transport, along with crop yields, carbon sequestration, and soil health. It allows for the simulation of many agronomic best management practices, including no-till, cover cropping, vegetative buffers, grassed waterways, and variability in timing and application methods for nutrients and pesticides. Farm-PREP can prioritize the implementation of different types of best management practices at both the farm and field scale, then automatically search for management practice scenarios that best achieve the desired reduction of P losses from the farm. Farmers and their crop consultants then can choose the solutions that best align with their farm operation. The Farm-PREP tool, as applied for assessing P reductions, has the potential to optimize best management practices that will reduce off-site pesticide transport and meet regulatory water quality requirements.

Optimization of farm agronomic practices to meet environmental quality requirements

2019 Fall National Meeting

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