California water authorities in February adopted stricter requirements for growers, a move signaling increasing emphasis on protecting drinking water sources from nitrate impacts.
Adopted by general order of the State Water Resources Control Board on Feb. 7, the new rules bring more growers under regulation and reporting requirements. Most of the changes will take effect in 2019. The most immediate change for growers is that all domestic wells on their land must now be tested for nitrates. Growers will also need to add information about their irrigation management to their nitrogen management plans.
Domestic well testing requirement begins in 2019
Parry Klassen, manager of the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition, said growers will have until the end of 2019 to test all domestic wells on their parcels of land registered within their Irrigated Lands Coalition. If after three years of testing a well the nitrate level is at least 20% below the drinking water standard, testing can be reduced to once every five years. State-certified laboratories must be used to analyze samples and will report results back not only to the growers, but also directly to a State-operated website. Well testing is a requirement specific to growers and will not be handled by their Coalitions other than reminding growers of the need to complete the sampling, Klassen said.
If lab tests show that domestic well water exceeds the nitrate drinking water standard, landowners must report those exceedances to all users of the water within 10 days. Growers who farm the land under a lease or rental agreement are required to report exceedances to their landowner within 24 hours of learning of an exceedance.
Nitrogen and irrigation management plans
Growers were previously required to maintain a Nitrogen Management Plan (NMP) on farm and, if in a high-vulnerability area, submit annual NMP summary reports to their Coalition. Changes to the previous requirement are:
- Growers now must have a new “Irrigation and Nitrogen Management Plan” (INMP) in place on their farm by March 1, 2019. A revised INMP template will be developed by the Coalitions.
- The INMP must be completed by all Coalition members, not just growers in high-vulnerability areas.
- The plans continue to require certification by a CCA or agronomist.
- Growers in high-vulnerability areas must begin submitting INMP summary reports to their Coalition annually beginning March 1, 2020, in the event that the Regional Water Board has the revised Orders in place for all the Water Quality Coalitions by the end of 2018. Growers in low-vulnerability areas must begin submitting the reports by March 1, 2021.
INMPs stay on farm and are not submitted to the Coalition or Regional Water Board. However, growers must keep records of data such as evapotranspiration, nitrogen applied from all sources and total water applied to their crops. Coalitions are already at work to provide guidance to growers on meeting the new requirements, maintaining necessary certifications and other important details, Klassen said.
“We’re updating the NMP template and the summary report template,” he said. “We should have something out by this summer. It will be important for growers to keep up to date by following activities of their Coalition and consulting with their crop advisers.”
The Coalitions will continue to compile the reported nitrogen applied and yield data in summary reports, which are shared with anonymous identifiers to the Regional Water Board.
One positive change with the revised Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program is that growers will only need to complete a Farm Management Plan once every five years, rather than every year.
Almond Board research and tools help position growers to meet requirements
Klassen pointed out that Coalitions are now required to develop “crop coefficients” for nitrogen uptake and typical ranges of nitrogen use efficiencies for all crops grown in their areas. Thanks to research already carried out by Dr. Patrick Brown at the University of California, Davis, with funding from Almond Board of California (ABC) and USDA, science-based coefficients for almonds are already in place.
“I wish all commodity groups could be as proactive as the Almond Board,” Klassen said. “They are the gold standard.”
Gabriele Ludwig, director of Sustainability and Environmental Affairs, ABC, said previous investments by ABC are paying dividends as pressure mounts for growers to ensure they are applying the appropriate amounts of nitrogen and water.
“The research funded by almond growers has improved their ability to assess demand as well as time nitrogen applications,” Ludwig said. “This helps almond growers improve their nitrogen use efficiency, improve the productivity of their input investments and, at the same time, reduce the chance of nitrogen ending up elsewhere in the environment.”
Spencer Cooper, senior manager for Irrigation and Water Efficiency, ABC, said achieving irrigation efficiency remains a vital part of nitrogen management and pays benefits to both growers and the environment.
“Nitrate is water soluble, and wherever water goes, nitrate has the potential to go with it,” Cooper said.
Fortunately, almond growers already have access to free tools to calculate nitrogen requirements, improve irrigation efficiency and generate the required nitrogen plan. The existing almond Nitrogen Calculator and Irrigation Calculator will be updated to provide reports that the meet the new Irrigated Lands requirements.
“We try to take some of the pressure off growers with these tools; the tools make the nitrogen management plans a thousand times easier,” Cooper said.
Cooper added that growers who want to stay ahead of the game have opportunities to do so by:
- Using the Nitrogen Calculator and Irrigation Calculator developed by ABC in partnership with the University of California (UC), located on the California Almond Sustainability Program (CASP) website at SustainableAlmondGrowing.org
- Using the Almond Irrigation Improvement Continuum, a comprehensive manual of irrigation management and scheduling practices, also developed by ABC in cooperation with UC, at Almonds.com/Irrigation. ABC is also working on a new, improved version of the manual to be released soon.
