Crop Talk by IAS – 07/28/26

As growers begin looking ahead to post-harvest planning and conservation decisions, there are several opportunities available to support cover crops, water quality practices, and carbon market participation. In this week's episode of Crop Talk, Sustainability Lead Kayla shares an overview of current programs, funding opportunities, and resources available to help growers understand what's available and where to start.

Whether you're considering cover crops for the first time or looking to better understand carbon intensity scoring and emerging market opportunities, this episode provides timely information and practical next steps.

In this episode, the team discusses:

• Conservation That Pays event coming up July 29 in Epworth, Iowa
• Conservation economics and available funding opportunities
• Farmers for Soil Health cover crop cost-share program
• Iowa Department of Agriculture cover crop cost-share opportunities
• Programs available for first-time and long-term cover crop users
• Water quality conservation practices, including bioreactors and saturated buffers
• Watershed-based conservation programs across the region
• Carbon market opportunities and the IAS Elevate program
• Understanding carbon intensity (CI) scores
• Information growers may need to participate in sustainability programs
• How local agronomists can help growers evaluate conservation opportunities

As always, the best approach is to start the conversation early. Whether you're exploring cover crops, conservation funding, or carbon market opportunities, your local IAS team can help identify programs that fit your operation and goals.

Featured this week:

• Nicholas Thompson - Host and Eastern Region Agronomist
• Owen Heetland - Northwest Region Agronomist (Cleves)
• Kayla Bergman - Sustainability Lead 

🎧 Listen now
Have a question for the team? Send it to CropTalk@InnovativeAg.com

To learn more about Innovative Ag Services and our agronomy services, visit InnovativeAg.com/Agronomy.

Produced by IAS Communications in partnership with My Four Creative.

Transcript

Nicholas Giessman 0:00

Welcome to Crop Talk, brought to you by Innovative Ag Services, and this is our Field Scouting Special. Each week from March through October, our agronomy team shares timely, boots on the ground updates from across the IAS geography so you can make confident decisions as the seasons change. Today you'll hear a quick regional update from our IAS agronomist, including what we're seeing in the fields right now, what to keep an eye on next, and a few practical scouting reminders you can put to work this week.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Thanks, Nicholas. Thanks for having me on. It's an exciting time for sustainability in AG. We know our members are interested in participating in various programs and learning more about conservation and sustainability. So I want to cover a couple of things today that we have gone on here at IAS. The first I want to highlight is the Conservation That Pays event on July 29th at 5 p.m. At that event, we will be diving into soil health fundamentals, the economics of conservation, and available funding available for conservation. That will be held at the locals bar in Epworth, Iowa. And we have information posted on our socials for you to learn more there. And be on the lookout for more events like that coming across the company. Another opportunity I wanted to highlight is a cover crop cost share program that Innovative Ag administers called Farmers for Soil Health. This is a $35 an acre cost share program for cover crops, no matter how long you've been using cover crops or if you're new to cover crops on that field. We also have a program for landowners in Clayton and Dubuque counties that pays for 100% of a denitrifying bioreactor or saturated buffer. Both of those denitrify the water and improve water quality for that watershed. And we have several watershed-based programs as well that support farmers and landowners implementing a variety of conservation practices through the federal government. Another program I wanted to highlight is the Iowa Department of Ag and Land Stewardships Cover Crop Cost Share. At IES, we do not administer that program, but we are happy to give you information and send you in the right direction. This program pays $20 an acre for first-time cover crop users. So if you have a field that hasn't had cover crops in it before, you can pair that IDOLS cost share with the Farmers for Soil Health program I talked about earlier, and you would get $55 an acre plus a carbon program on top of that. So a really good opportunity to try cover crops for the first time. And this leads me to my final point that I'd like to share. I'd like to talk about the carbon opportunity with IAS. So not only are we supporting farmers in enrolling carbon's inset and offset markets through the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund, we have recently launched a new internal program called IAS Elevate. So that program will support IAS customers that market grain to and through IAS to understand the market and market their carbon intensity score or CI. Due to our ownership of the Pine Lake Corn Processors plant in Harding County, IAS and our customers have the opportunity to be leaders in accessing the 45Z Biofuels tax credit opportunity, no matter where the farmer is located. So if you are marketing grain to or through IAS, you are eligible for this program. And I would encourage you to reach out to your local sales agronomist or grain originator to learn more about that program.

Nicholas Giessman 3:49

Kayla, that was some great information. It sounds like there's a lot of opportunity, whether it be from cover crops to cost-hare programs all the way into some carbon cred stuff. What does a customer, an innovative A customer, have to do to get involved in, let's say, the 45Z program for carbon? What is going to be required of them?

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Yeah, thanks for that question, Nicholas. So, like I said earlier, I encourage you to talk to your local sales agronomists, but the information that you're going to need to even understand your CI score to begin with, and then eventually enroll in the IAS Elevate program would be things like your yield for the previous crop year on the corn side of things, whether or not you've done it used a cover crop, the pounds of synthetic nitrogen, pounds of nitrogen from manure, uh, whether or not you are stabilizing your nitrogen. So things like that within your management. And of course, we would have a lot of that information already, but we need that in one location or one spot so that we can fill out the calculator to get your CI score and be able to understand where you're at and then be able to market that CI score certificate in the future.

Nicholas Giessman 4:59

That's awesome. So just that entry-level management information that you know what's going on every acre, yield data, and that's enough to get them kicked off and you know enrolled or you know, to figure out what their CI score is. That's that seems very easy to obtain.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah, we're trying to make this as accessible as possible for the IAS customer. So we encourage you, even if you don't have all those data points collected, to begin that conversation with your local sales advisor so that we can get the ball rolling there.

Owen Heetland 5:26

Okay, let's say I'm a customer in Cleves and I'm already doing cover crops. You know, I have I've done them or am doing them on all my fields. What programs would be the best for me to take advantage of? And to further on that, say I'm in Nicholas's area, so Cascade area, would those programs be the same, or are there different programs that you know different areas can take advantage of?

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, that's a good question, Owen. So what I would say for a previous cover crop user is that farmers for soil health program, the $35 an acre, um, you can use that for cover crops, no matter if you've used cover crops in that field before or not. So that would be a good opportunity. And that funding comes from the federal government. So you can pair that with a carbon program or really this 45Z opportunity, because that is going to be year by year, it's not going to matter what you did seven, five years ago, right? So the 45Z opportunity combined with the Farmers for Soil Health will be a good pairing for cost share. In addition, in some parts of eastern Iowa, eastern uh part of our territory, there are those watershed projects that pay for cover crops that on fields that have had a cover crop before. So there's going to be a little bit different opportunity, but all that money comes from the federal government. So you have to select whether you want to do some of those watershed projects or the Progress for Soil Health program. But we can help you navigate that. If you reach out to the sustained team here at IAS, we can help you figure out what the best financial situation is for your practices.

Nicholas Giessman 7:00

Well, thanks again, Caleb, for all that information. I just want to remind our listeners and our customers, you know, if you're interested in any of these programs, whether it be the cover crops or the carbon, don't be afraid. Reach out, call your local agronomist. We'll help you get the ball rolling and get involved. That's all for this week's Crop Talk by AS. Thanks for tuning in. If any of our listeners have questions, feel free to email them to croptalk at innovativeag.com. Be sure to like, follow, and subscribe so you don't miss next week's update. And if you know a fellow grower who'd value a quick field snapshot, share this episode with them. For more agronomy resources and to connect with your local IAS team, visit InnovativeAg.com and follow Innovative Ag Services on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. We'll catch you next week on Crowd Talk.