2024 October Stewardship Advocate

Nov 08, 2024

The Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council (INREC) supports, monitors and reports on progress towards the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy efforts through science-based solutions and collaboration across Iowa’s agricultural production systems. INREC was formed created in 2015 to measure progress to meet the goals of the strategy. Iowa Corn is one of the founding members of INREC and is one of four on the board of directors. The board president is Roger Zylstra, a long-time contributor and member of Iowa Corn Growers Association. Each winter, the INREC team hits the road, surveying 150 ag retailer locations out of the 600 across Iowa. The selection process is randomized to ensure unbiased, accurate insights into how Iowa farmers and landowners are managing their land to reduce nutrient runoff. Here’s what they discovered this year as a result of the survey:

COVER CROPS – Cover crop usage continues to increase year after year! Since the survey’s inception in 2017, cover crop acres have increased from 1,597,614 acres to 3,841,525 acres in 2023 — an average increase of 320,559 acres each year!   Rye continues to be the #1 choice for Iowa farmers and landowners in 2023, dominating the other cover crops with 86.6% of the acres planted in Iowa being rye. Remaining cover crops are 6.1% oats, 5.5% species mix and 1.7% of other cover crops.

TILLAGE – Conservation tillage and no-till methods continue to outpace conventional tillage. On average since 2017: 33.1% of farmers practice conservation tillage 36.4% of farmers practice no-till 32.9% of farmers practice conventional tillage. This means 69.5% of Iowa’s farmland is managed with conservation tillage or no-till, reducing soil erosion and promoting healthier soils.

NITROGEN USAGE – Corn/Soybean Rotation: In 2023, farmers applied an average of 166.6 lbs./acre of commercial-only nitrogen—16.8 lbs./acre less than in 2020, marking a nearly 10% reduction in use. Corn-on-Corn: In 2023, nitrogen rates averaged 185.7 lbs./acre, down 23.2 lbs./acre from 2020, translating to an 11% decrease.

While fertilizer prices may be influencing these shifts, the adoption of advanced nitrogen-use efficiency technologies is also playing a major role in helping farmers reduce inputs while maintaining yields.

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”

2024 October Stewardship Advocate

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

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