‘MacGyver’
Custom-built agriculture tools a legacy for farmers
Inside:
‘Mystery meat’ gives way to farm-fresh foods
Bee hotels encourage pollinator reproduction
Ben Singson/Journal-Courier
Joe McGrath of Ag Machine Solutions in Virden overlooks the plasma cutter that helps him build custom attachments for farming equipment.
Saturday, March 30,
Computer-aided design is one of the tools Joe McGrath of Virden uses to help build bespoke farming implements.
By Ben Singson
R EPORTER
VIRDEN — Remember “MacGyver”?
The ‘80s spy thriller TV show’s titular protagonist made himself a household name by creating gadgets on the fly out of whatever junk was nearby. He was so known for improvised invention that his own name became a verb, defined by Merriam-Webster as “to make, form, or repair (something) with what is conveniently on hand.”
To the outside observer, his feats of engineering might seem like the stuff of science fiction.
But for west-central Illinois farmers, improving equipment with things you just have lying around is closer to reality than most might think. Just ask Joe McGrath of Virden.
McGrath, who runs Ag Machine Solutions, grew up on a Murrayville farm and has been a f abricator for about 23 years. He said when he was growing up, his f amily would constantly be coming up with ideas for projects and working on them with only basic tools, like hand torches, hacksaws and drills.
“I remember one time that he made a bar that
went on the front of a tractor and we could ride in seats out of an old junk car,” McGrath said. “Instead of walking (through) beans, we could ride and spray it with Roundup (herbicide).”
However, that work looks different in the modern day. Rather than adding on things built from scrap to other people’s equipment, McGrath instead “convert(s) something old into a new machine” using computer-aided design, plasma cutters and fresh steel to make new additions to older equipment. He said he has built a variety of farm-
ing implements like custom three-bar harrows for equipment that usually hails from the ‘90s.
“In that way, I’m kind of doing it backwards,” McGrath said. “The machine is a little bit more modern, but not quite modern enough, and then I just add some things to it to make it a little bit more into the 21st century.”
Why would someone want to get bespoke additions to things they already have, rather than buy something new? McGrath said it was simple: “new equipment is ridiculously expensive.” Corn planters or
MacGyver
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corn head combines could run anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000, he said, but modern crops have changed so much that f armers need to use modern techniques in order to harvest them.
“Genetics have changed, especially in soybeans, so much that even the biggest machines we had 25-30 years ago are not going to really work well today unless they’re modified
in some way,” McGrath said. McGrath did not learn how to do this in school; in fact, he graduated from Illinois College with a degree in English literature. But he said watching his father work on projects, as well as time spent at multiple f arming equipment dealerships, helped teach him how to put these things together.
One of the more important teachers, though?
“ Trial and error,” McGrath said.
However, the practice of retrofitting custom
implements on farm equipment was far more common in past decades than it is now. McGrath said when he was younger, farmers did not have the kinds of profit margins to do the kind of engineering he does now, as agricultural technology only began taking off in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
He said he did not know if it would get more popular in the future, but he noted that he had found a market in people just getting started in or about to retire from agriculture.
Attachments like this harrow are some of the implements Joe
Many people with smaller farming operations could not justify the high cost of an attachment for their equipment, which is when they turned to him, he said. He believed that those kinds of farmers would get more common as time went on.
Even if the niche might be shrinking, McGrath said that this kind of construction work was something that he has always wanted to do.
“I never lost my love for building things and dreaming of things,” he said. “I guess I never got away from my daydreaming.”
“I think there are more of those guys that are running around than we realize,” McGrath said.
By Angela Bauer
School cafeteria meals have been the butt of jokes about mystery meat — or worse — almost as long as there have been school cafeterias.
Now, a $7.3 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant awarded to Illinois is removing the mystery by putting some of the same farm-fresh foods found in local farmers markets on school cafeteria trays.
Students are offered meals prepared with fresh ingredients while the local farmers who grow those ingredients also grow their income.
“It is fresh beef, clean beef, a better product,” Noah Gregurich said of the beef he and his wife, Brooke, raise on their fourth-generation farm in Sangamon and Christian counties. “There are
no additives or preservatives. Kids are getting a higher-quality beef.”
The kids whose lunches include meat from Gregurich Beef Co. are students in 11 school districts across central Illinois, including Waverly Community Unit School District 6 and Jacksonville School District 117, Gregurich said.
“It’s as important in rural districts as in city districts,” Gregurich said of helping kids make the connection between their food and the farms from which it came. “We’re building that connection, educating the kids on where their meat comes from. I think we’ve lost a lot of that connection. ‘It comes from Walmart’ or ‘it comes from the grocery store.’ They don’t see the family behind it, the family’s commitment to the work.”
Along with ground
beef from Gregurich, which also sells its products to the public via its website, at farmers markets and elsewhere, Jacksonville schools have used or plan to use salad greens and produce from Moon Girl Farm, a chemical-free farm in Pleasant Plains, and organic chicken and eggs from Bland Family Farm in Jacksonville, according to Joyce Hiler, food service coordinator for Jacksonville schools.
The district was awarded $10,000 — $5,000 this school year and $5,000 for the 202425 school year — from the state through the Local Food for Schools program to purchase “local, unprocessed or minimally processed foods to be (served) in the national school lunch and/or school breakfast programs.”
“I was looking around,
Meat continues on A6
Meat sticks are among the many beef-based products sold by
Co., which also supplies fresh, local ground beef to school districts around central Illinois.
Joyce Hiler/Provided
A meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes lunch using locally sourced ground beef from Gregurich Beef Co. awaits distribution during a recent lunchtime at Jacksonville High School. The addition of more farm-fresh, locally sourced foods to school cafeteria menus is a result of USDA grant funding.
Noah Gregurich/Provided
A cow at Noah and Brooke Gregurich's fourth-generation farm in Sangamon and Christian counties. Gregurich Beef Co. is providing fresh ground beef to several school districts around central Illinois.
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trying to decide what we were going to do,” Hiler said. Food services supplier “M.J. Kellner approached me about Gregurich’s ground beef. We had a homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes meal one day, and meatloaf sandwiches (another day) with what we had left over.”
Having leftovers is not an indication that the fresher meal was not a hit, she said.
“Meatloaf is not going to be the most popular (lunch menu) choice,” Hiler said. “I got 80 pounds of ground beef to make meatloaf. … We
at the high school with these fresh products because of the way our meal program operates,” Hiler said.
All meals for the district are prepared at the high school and transported to the other schools, and Hiler said there’s “no way I can make sure of the food safety (of preservativefree fresh foods) through the cooking and cooling process” involved.
When a locally raised food is featured, Hiler makes a point to draw attention to it.
probably made a little more than we needed to make.”
The fresh meals aren’t just a treat for students, Gregurich said.
“Everybody who’s been involved, especially the kitchen staff, has been so enthused about this,” he said.
Hiler agreed.
“I had no complaints from staff on the amount of grease (involved in cooking the ground beef), so I consider that a win,” she said. “I truly was worried about that.”
Hiler now is planning a chicken meal in April at Jacksonville High School, complete with between 600 and 650 chicken drumsticks from Bland Family Farm.
“I did order enough for two drumsticks for each student at the high school,” she said.
Cubed beef from Gregurich also could figure into a beef stew meal this fall, she said.
While Hiler likes the local-foods program, so far, it’s largely Jacksonville High School students who are benefiting from the fresher ingredients in District 117.
“We’re just doing stuff
“We try to promote it on the menu,” she said. “We put up signage in the cafeteria, pictures of the farm family, the animals on the farm. I’m not sure the kids will go home and tell their parents, but it’s there on the menu if the parents look.”
The Jacksonville schools’ program has focused heavily on proteins — beef, chicken, and Hiler now is considering her pork options — but has used local produce and may look to expand that next school year, she said. It’s also possible the district’s efforts to serve more fresh foods purchased from local farmers will continue even after the state and federal funding is eaten up.
“When we run out of (grant funding), we can still choose to purchase it if we want,” Hiler said. “I think (the grant) is just a start to encourage schools.”
And Hiler considers the results so far to be encouraging.
“We got at least one compliment from a student,” she said. “Maybe two. A student actually came back and said the meatloaf was good.”
No mystery meat joke included.
By Dave Dawson
A SSISTANT EDITOR
Some city folks have the notion farmers spend the time between the end of harvest and start of spring planting either luxuriating in the Florida sun or at the local cafe drinking copious amounts of coffee.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether grain farmer or livestock farmer, there is something to be done virtually every day of the year.
For David McQueen, who raises corn and soybeans north of Orleans, the end of harvest means the beginning of trucking season.
“When we are not doing anything on the farm, I need to do something to supplement our income, so I haul Asgrow soybean seed for Bayer. I’m not a sitting-around person,” McQueen said. “I drive mainly in the Midwest –usually in a stretch from Nebraska to Ohio.”
Will Andras is a livestock producer near Manchester who says once one project wraps up, there is another one awaiting him.
“We stay really busy year-round. I don’t say that to say, ‘Look at me I m a hard worker,’ it’s just part of the game we play. We would not do it if we didn’t love it,” Andras said.
There is little rest for Evan Marr who operates MDM Farms with his parents, Martin and Sheila, uncle, David, and brother, Martin Jr., along the Old State Road near the boundary of Morgan and Sangamon counties.
“We grow mainly corn and soybeans and have a small cow-calf herd. I actually run some other businesses. We run Marr Transport, which is all ag commodities, and Elite Ag
Sales which is a seed and equipment business,” Marr said. “When not farming, there are other irons in the fire to keep us busy.”
David McQueen
David McQueen considers himself a full-time farmer, though he has a smaller operation than many. He raises about 500 acres of corn and 500 acres of soybeans each year. His wife, Robyn, and son, Austin, have other jobs but their employer, J.O. Harris Sales, lets them off during planting and harvest seasons to work on the farm.
“Robyn comes home and does odd jobs around the farm, but she also drives a truck during harvest while Austin and I do the picking. In the spring, Robyn will bring us seed,” McQueen said.
When all goes well, McQueen said they can have the corn and beans picked in two weeks. If they start in the last week of September, they will be done by the middle of November, which includes two or three weeks of field work and getting machinery ready for its next use.
“There is more to do in the fall than the spring,” McQueen said.
“When work is done in the fall, I tell them I am available to drive. Sometimes I am out all week and sometimes I am out two or three days a week,” McQueen said.
McQueen owns McQueen Trucking but works for Goatley Logistics that operates from Pana. He normally picks up beans to put in his hopper in Stonington in Christian County, about halfway between Decatur and Taylorville.
“I work from the time I get caught up in the fall to
mid-March when I get ready for spring planting. If I get things ready early and it is still not time to plant, I let him know and help some more,” McQueen said.
During trucking season, he also has more time to devote to his gun business, D&R Arms, which he has operated since 1989. Austin helps him with the firearms business, stopping in most days for at least an hour to help with paperwork.
“Whether it is fall or spring, we’ll clean up our tools and equipment and make sure maintenance is done. We do most of the routine maintenance such as oil changes ourselves,” McQueen said.
and Elite Ag Sales. Seasons continues on A8
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In late February, McQueen was working on replacing parts on one of his planters.
“The parts are here, and we’ll be ready to go by the end of March. After that, we just hope we have to add some air to the tires and we’ll be ready to plant,” McQueen said.
In addition to farming, trucking and running his firearms business, McQueen is president of the Alexander Fire Protection District, vice president of the Morgan County Fair Board and a member of Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau, frequently assisting with fundraisers.
“Farming has changed. When my dad and grandpa were around, they would go to the elevator at
Orleans at 9:30 a.m. and wait for the opening grain prices. Some of them would drink coffee and hang around. Don’t see that as much anymore,” McQueen said.
“I like getting up every morning knowing I have something to do. I don’t like sitting around doing nothing. It doesn’t help pay the bills,” McQueen said.
When the premise of how farmers spend time between harvest and planting was brought up, Will Andras said, “We don’t have an offseason and that’s the way we are structured. Some cattle producers have a slower time than we do.”
“We do sell a few of our cattle at market. We sell some quarter and half beeves to family friends and referral customers.
But most of our cattle will be going to others to feed out,” Andras said.
In 2023, they were named the Farm Family of the Year by the Illinois Beef Association, which was given to “recognize a beef producer family in Illinois who has done an outstanding job in the production and promotion of beef and exemplified leadership skills on the county and state level.”
Reaching that level of achievement means the family is continually doing something on the farm.
“During the first year of my married life, I told my wife, ‘As soon as we slow down, we’ll do X and Y.’ But things never slow down. My grandmother, who died in 2007, told my wife not to take offense but, after the cows, you come first. If you have an event during calving sea-
There is always something to be done on David McQueen's farm, north of Orleans. When he is not farming, he could be paying attention to his firearms business or checking the oil of his semitruck.
son, we might not go,” Andras said.
“We have two calving seasons – spring, which is January and February; and fall, which is September and October. We also have two production sales. First Saturday of April is a bull sale, and first Saturday of November is a female sale,” Andras said. “It seems we are always wrapping up after a sale or getting ready for the next sale.”
In early March, Andras was working on the catalog and taking pictures of the bulls for their catalog. Another step to get ready for the April sale is taking videos of the bull so potential customers can see them.
“Technology is paramount and there are a lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross. On sale day, a lot of the family pitches in to help,” Andras said.
After the bull sale, there will be a lot to wrap up, including transporting bulls. Then it’s time to move into breeding season.
“We do the same thing in the fall. Once the fall sale wraps up, we move into breeding. And there is
also the daily feeding and caring of the animals,” Andras said. “We don’t have a winter break; busiest season of the year is mid-January to mid-March.”
Andras has a red Angus operation. While there are some black cattle, but most are registered red.
“We are a seed stock operation. We sell genetics. We try to breed and think five years out. We want to meet market demand now, but also three years or more down the road. We have to keep planning the next phase of genetics, so we don’t see the same genetic makeup we saw before,” Andras said.
“We have been doing artificial insemination for 50 to 60 years and do a lot of embryo transfers. We use genomics and have DNA information on each animal. We know every animal. It involves a lot of paperwork and detail work,” Andras said.
Andras’ dad, Steve, 76, still works on the farm as does Will’s son, Peyton, who works after he is done with classes at Winchester
Seasons continues on A9
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High School, where he is a junior. Will Andras graduated from Oklahoma State University and his son is considering heading to Stillwater as well.
Andras’s wife, Kim, daughter, Peri, and mother, Theresa also work as needed.
“We are very blessed. I’m the sixth generation of family here and my son would be the seventh generation. We’ve been here for a long time and, Lord willing, we will be here for a long time to come,” Andras said.
Evan Marr
There is no typical day for Evan Marr other than they are all packed with activity.
Six generations of the Andras family have raised purebred red Angus cattle at their farm near Manchester. Will Andras hopes his son, Peyton, becomes the seventh generation to run the farm. They were honored in 2023 as the Illinois Beef Association Farm Family of the Year. From left to right are Peyton, Peri, Will, Kim, Steve and Theresa Andras, representing three generations.
“None of my days are ever the same. Some weeks I may be nonstop trucking, or it could be equipment sales while watching markets and cash flow,” Marr said. “I dispatch and still get out and drive, not as much as used to. I still like to get my hands dirty.” Then, of course, there is
the farming side, which also gets attention during the offseason.
“We use data to become better at what we are doing with yields and what we do with the land. Going into the winter, we look to see what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. We look at markets and see if we need to move grain,” Marr said.
The Marrs practice minimum till on their land, so field work in the fall is minimal. But it starts the season of getting ready for spring planting.
“We move machinery through the shop as we approach April, so we are ready for planting. Being prepared early has always been big for us,” Marr said. “We do most of the work that we can on our machinery.”
With all of the activity going on in various busi-
ness interests, Marr has learned how to juggle and multitask.
“You learn ways to balance your time over the years, though it can be a struggle at times. I have learned to prioritize my time. There are a lot of seven-day weeks, especially if you are in the livestock business,” Marr said.
“You also need the time away from it to regather yourself. I’ve learned to step back and take a breather. That helps you be more successful in the long run,” Marr said.
“The world of farming moves at a rapid pace. Sometimes, we are just trying to keep up with stuff during the offseason and there can be a lot to comprehend at once,” Marr said.
Over the last few years, Marr said he thinks his role has changed as he has
accepted more responsibility. One of those roles is reaching out to nonfarm people who don’t always understand what is being done to feed the world.
“We advocate teaching people about the farm. We have groups come out and educate people about what we’re doing and putting agriculture in a positive light. We do that, too, during the offseason. We are trying to protect agriculture and promote the positivity associated with it,” Marr said.
“It’s kind of an odd time to be in farming. A lot of wild things are going on overseas. Sometimes there’s more uncertainty on the other side of the fence,” Marr said. “There are a lot of chances to be successful, but you have to work to stay ahead of the game and be ready for the challenges.”
By Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree R EPORTER
With the expansion of pollinator gardens to encourage natural habitats for butterflies and other insects, bee hotels are also becoming more common in gardens of those that want to take care of nature.
Bee hotels are manmade structures that provide nesting places for solitary nesting bees such as mason bees, leafcutter bees and carder bees, who normally nest in old logs or plant stocks.
Ken Johnson, a horticulture educator with the University of Illinois Extension, said bee ho-
tels came out of increased consideration of pollinators and the push to establish more pollinator-friendly habitats.
“These discussions started with how honey bees and monarchs needed these areas to maintain their populations,” Johnson said.
In Illinois, there are close to 500 species of bees in Illinois, with several of them being species that create their nests in wood, plant stocks and other foliage. Some live in hives, such as honey bees in groups, but solitary species create their own nests.
When there is a limit on these types of places, Johnson said the bees either look elsewhere or die, causing a decline in the population.
Once found, Johnson said a female bee will create her nest in the tunnels of the mating block, using mud or plants to create nests and separating the various sections of a tunnel. Once they finish laying their eggs, they will place a cap either out of a pollen ball or mud or other material
Bees continues on A13
Though gardeners are encouraged to keep old stocks and wood in their gardens to provide habitats for insects, Johnson said those that do not have that type of foliage could create these hotels for bees to encourage continued populations in their gardens.
From page A12
to close off the tunnel to protect the growing eggs.
Once born, larvae will eat the pollen balls in their nests as they grow. They will usually be fully formed adults by winter when they hibernate inside a cocoon before emerging the following spring.
Because of the growth cycle, full nests should be placed in a safe outdoor location, safe from weather and animals.
The following spring, nesting block can be discarded once the caps have been removed by the emerging bees.
“It is really cool to watch them emerge,” Johnson said. “And, it’s not just bees, some wasp species will use them too.”
Johnson said there is a concern for diseases in nesting blocks, which is why most block should not be reused. Some blocks can be opened up and cleaned yearly, however those that are not able to be cleaned should
be disposed of.
“You have to be careful on timing, or use alternating blocks, switching them out each year,” Johnson said. A nesting block can accommodate multiple bees of a variety of species at the same time, de-
pending on the size of the holes available.
Johnson said a hotel will only be successful depending on the placement and what is available in the area for those pollinators.
Areas with plenty of resources of bees will attract more bees, Johnson said. Areas without the needed resources would limit the number of bees that use a hotel.
Johnson said bees are a needed part of the ecosystem and people need to take steps to help protect their populations.
“Bees are our pollinators, having them in your garden can help you with your fruit and vegetable pollination,” he said.
Bee hotels can be purchased online or at some garden or hardware stores.
Or, Johnson said many
people are creating their own.
To create a bee hotel: According to the Nebraska Extension, bee hotels are made primarily out of wood with the outer structure similar to a tradition birdhouse, with an open front.
• To create the frame, build a frame that has a closed back and roof. The front should be left open and the interior hollow to allow for a nesting block. The structure and blocks can be made from pine, spruce and oak woods. Cedar can also be used, however, it should be seasoned as bees will usually avoid the smell of fresh cedar.
• Nesting block can also be homemade by taking blocks of wood and drilling various size holes to accommodate the various types of bees.
The holes should rang between 1/16 inch to 5/8 of an inch.
• Nesting blocks can also be made out of logs, posts, bamboo or pithy reed grasses that can be found in nature, as these are materials that bees naturally use to build their nesting habitats.
• Wood used for the hotel and nesting blocks should not be pressuretreated because of chemicals used in the process.
• Once created, bee hotels should be placed about three feet to five feet off the ground with the opening facing south to southeast to allow for maximum sunlight to warm the nesting blocks once eggs have been laid. Hotels should be placed before mid-April when bees will begin finding nests and placing their eggs.
By Karina Atkins T RIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Lance Nacio’s family has made its living fishing along the coast of Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish for three generations. He’s continuing the family business, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are flowing from the Mississippi River Basin into the Gulf of Mexico, creating an oxygen-void area along southern Louisiana and eastern Texas over 18 times larger than Chicago.
Fish, shrimp and other commercial species swim farther from the coast to escape, and those that can’t move fast enough die. Fishermen must follow, spending more time and money to sail away from this “dead zone” with dicier odds of a good catch.
“It’s costly for fishermen because we struggle to catch fish, and we have to go deeper into the Gulf to get out of the dead zone,” said Nacio.
This virtually lifeless expanse, which was first discovered in the 1970s, has caused up to $2.4 billion in damage to Gulf fisheries
and marine habitats every year from 1980 to 2017, according to a 2020 study.
Illinois has been one of the top contributors to the problem. All the state’s waterways feed into the Mississippi River, so millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus-rich discharge from wastewater treatment plants, urban stormwater drainage and agricultural runoff eventually make their way to the Gulf. Increased precipitation associated with climate change is accelerating the flow of these pollutants.
The state’s latest biennial report on this nutrient pollution, released in December, shows a 5% increase in nitrogen levels and a 35% increase in phosphorus levels originating from Illinois compared with a base line period from 1980 to 1996. This is a far cry from Illinois’ goal of achieving a 15% decrease in nitrogen and 25% decrease in phosphorus by 2025, with sights set on reducing both 45% by 2035.
For many, it feels like Groundhog Day. The 2019 and 2021 reports also showed an increase in nitrogen and phosphorus lev-
Nitrogen and phosphorus are flowing from the Mississippi River Basin into the Gulf of Mexico, creating an oxygen-void area along southern Louisiana and eastern Texas over 18 times larger than Chicago.
els compared with the base line.
“We are having the same conversation we had two years ago,” said Eliot Clay, director of land use programs at the Illinois Environmental Council.
Pollution from wastewater treatment plants and other easily identifiable, confined facilities — called point sources — has actually decreased year-over-year since being regulated by the Clean Water Act, so conservationists are turning their attention to nonpoint
sources, particularly farms.
Farms make up threefourths of Illinois’ land area, and excess fertilizer application and loose soil are significant contributors to nutrient pollution. Farmers have been encouraged to adopt voluntary practices in their fields to mitigate soil erosion and runoff but, with nitrogen and phosphorus levels continuing to rise, some are calling on the state to regulate pollution from agriculture.
“If the state cares about water quality, it needs to
put some actual teeth in this strategy. It’s not enough to just ask, ‘Please don’t pollute for another decade,’” said Robert Hirschfeld, director of water policy at the Prairie Rivers Network.
Farmers and agricultural interest groups say it isn’t that simple. They want to mitigate nutrient pollution but conservation practices are costly, resources to help farmers make the transition are lacking and climate change is working against them.
“If all you had to say was ‘build soil health with these practices,’ and all our environmental issues would be solved, we wouldn’t be talking about this,” said Abigail Peterson, director of agronomy at the Illinois Soybean Association. “This is hard. There are obstacles, especially when you’re running a business and you’re relying on that money for your family.”
Richard Lyons, a fourthgeneration corn and soybean farmer in Montgomery County, has been incorporating conservation practices into his farming
since the mid-1970s, when the dead zone was first being studied.
The practices simultaneously improved soil fertility and mitigated excess nutrients: a seeming winwin. Now, he has some of the highest crop yields in the county. But Lyons’ success took time, financial risk and a willingness to experiment.
What let him to take the leap of faith?
“I didn’t have a father or a grandfather telling me how to do it,” he said.
After spending some time in northeastern Illinois as a high school teacher, Lyons returned south to take over his family farm following his father’s unexpected death.
While his father always took the recommendations of the local fertilizer retailer who had an incentive to sell more product, Lyons decided to create his own nutrient management plan. On the advice of a district official with the state’s conservation office, he stopped tilling his soil between harvests. This minimizes loose soil and increases the amount of organic matter in the soil over time.
In a business where neat rows have historically been a source of pride, his neighbors scoffed at his fields that were riddled with remnants of previous harvests. Nevertheless, he persisted, transitioning his whole farm to no-till by the late 1980s.
Then, in 2012, he started planting “cover crops” to keep the ground healthy between harvests. Cover crops like oats, radishes and buckwheat retain water and capture excess nutrients, which prevents runoff and increase soil fertility over time. However, he didn’t begin seeing im-
By Suman Naishadham A SSOCIATED PRESS
The groundwater that supplies farms, homes, industries and cities is being depleted across the world, and in many places faster than in the past 40 years, according to a new study that calls for urgency in addressing the depletion.
The declines were most notable in dry regions with extensive cropland, said researchers whose work was published in the journal Nature. On the plus side: they found several examples of aquifers that were helped to recover by changes in policy or water management, they said.
“Our study is a tale of bad news and good news,” said Scott Jasechko, a professor of water resources at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the study’s lead author. “The novelty of the study lies in its global scope.”
Groundwater is one of the largest freshwater sources anywhere in the world, making the depletion of aquifers a significant concern. Overpumping aquifers can make land sink and wells run dry — and threatens water resources for residential development and farms that use it to irrigate fields.
Jasechko and his colleagues analyzed groundwater data from 170,000 wells and nearly 1,700 aquifers across more than 40 countries that cover 75% of all groundwater withdrawals. For about a third of the aquifers they mapped, they were able to analyze groundwater trends from this century and compare them to levels from the 1980s and
1990s.
That yielded a more robust global picture of underground water supplies and how farms, and to a lesser extent cities and industries, are straining the resource almost everywhere. It also points to how governments aren’t doing enough to regulate groundwater in much or most of the world, the researchers and other experts commented.
“That is the bottom line,” said Upmanu Lall, a professor of environmental engineering at Columbia University and director of the Columbia Water Center who was not involved in the study. “Groundwater depletion continues unabated in most areas of the world.”
In about a third of the 542 aquifers where researchers were able to analyze several decades of data, they found that depletion has been more severe in the 21st century than in the last 20 years of the previous one. In most cases, that’s happening in places that have also received less rainfall over time, they found. Aquifers located in drylands with large farm industries — in places such as northern Mexico, parts of Iran and southern California — are particularly vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion, the study found.
But there are some cases for hope, Jasechko said.
That’s because in about 20% of the aquifers studied, the authors found that the rate at which groundwater levels are falling in the 21st century had slowed down compared to the the 1980s and ‘90s.
“Our analysis suggests that long-term groundwater losses are neither
Universal Images Group via Getty Images/ The groundwater that supplies farms, homes, industries and cities is being depleted across the world. And in many cases, it's happening at rates faster than in the past 40 years.
universal nor irreversible,” the authors wrote. But in a follow-up interview, one of them, University College London hydrogeology professor Richard Taylor, said that pumping too much groundwater can irre-
versibly damage aquifers when it causes land to subside or slump, and the aquifer can no longer store water.
In Saudi Arabia, groundwater depletion has slowed this century in the Eastern Saq aquifer,
researchers found, possibly due to changes the desert kingdom implemented — such as banning the growth of some water-intensive crops — to its farming practices in recent decades to curb water use.
The Bangkok basin in Thailand is another example the study highlighted where groundwater levels rose in the early 21st century compared to previous decades. The authors cited groundwater pumping fees and licenses established by the Thai government as possible reasons for the improvement.
“That means there is an ability to act, but also lessons to be learned,” Taylor said.
Hydrologists, policy makers and other water experts often describe groundwater as a local or hyper-local resource, because of the huge differences in how water moves through rocks and soils in individual aquifers.
“You can’t extrapolate from one region to another, but you can clearly map the fact that we are depleting faster than we are accreting,” said Felicia Marcus, a former top water official in California and a fellow at Stanford University’s Water in the West Program who was not involved in the research.
That, said Marcus, means “you’ve got to intervene.”
And outside Tucson, Arizona, they pointed to a groundwater recharge project — in which surface water from the Colorado River is banked underground — as another example where groundwater levels have risen considerably in the 21st century.
By Diana Yates
NIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
EWS BUREAU
Scientists have found a way to boost ethanol production via yeast fermentation, a standard method for converting plant sugars into biofuels.
Their approach, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, relies on careful timing and a tight division of labor among synthetic yeast strains to yield more ethanol per unit of plant sugars than previous approaches have achieved.
“We constructed an artificial microbial community consisting of two engineered yeast strains: a glucose specialist and a xylose specialist,” said Yong-Su Jin, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who co-led the new research with bioengineering professor Ting Lu. “We investigated how the timing of mixing the two yeast populations and the ratios in which the two populations were mixed affected the production of cellulosic ethanol.”
Postdoctoral researcher
Fred Zwicky/University of Illinois
Professor Yong-Su Jin and other researchers have found a way to maximize ethanol production during yeast fermentation, a standard method for converting plant sugars into biofuels like ethanol. Their approach relies on careful timing and a tight division of labor among the yeast strains, and yields more than twice the ethanol produced per unit of plant sugars.
Jonghyeok Shin and Siqi Lao, a student in the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology at the University of Illinois, carried out the work.
Glucose and xylose are the two most abundant sugars obtained from the breakdown of plant bio-
mass such as agricultural wastes. The team was trying to overcome a common problem that occurs when using yeast to convert these plant sugars into ethanol.
In the wild, the yeast strain of interest, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, prefers glucose and lacks the ability to me-
tabolize xylose. Other scientists have used genetic engineering to alter the yeast so that it also consumes xylose, but these engineered strains still prefer glucose, reducing their overall efficiency in ethanol production.
Some scientists have pursued the idea that communities of microbes, each with its own special function, can operate more efficiently than a single, highly engineered strain.
“My group is dedicated to the design, analysis and engineering of synthetic microbial communities. Jin’s lab specializes in yeast metabolic engineering and biofuel production,” Lu said.
“Our complementary expertise enabled us to test whether a division-of-labor approach among yeast might work well in biofuels production.”
The researchers conducted a series of experi-
ments testing the use of their two specialist yeast strains. They altered the order in which the different strains were added to the sugar mixture and the timing of each addition.
“We also investigated the ratios at which the two populations were mixed to determine their effects on the rapid and efficient production of cellulosic ethanol,” Jin said.
The team also developed a mathematical model that accurately predicts their yeasts’ performance and ethanol yields.
“We used the data from the experiments to train our mathematical model so that it captures the characteristic ecosystem behaviors,” Lu said. “The model was then used to predict optimal fermentation conditions, which were later validated by corresponding experiments.”
The researchers discov-
ered that adding the xylosefermenting yeast specialist to the mixture first, followed 14 to 29 hours later by the glucose specialist, dramatically boosted ethanol production, more than doubling the yield.
“This study demonstrates the functional potential of division of labor in bioprocessing and provides insight into the rational design of engineered ecosystems for various applications,” the authors wrote.
Yong-Su Jin and Ting Lu also are professors in the Biosystems Design theme in the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois. Jonghyeok Shin is now a scientist at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology. The Department of Energy and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology supported this research.
By Diana Yates
NIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS NEWS
In a newly released TED Talk, Stephen Long, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign professor of plant biology and crop sciences, detailed his and his colleagues’ efforts to boost photosynthesis in crop plants. He described three interventions, each of which increased crop yields by 20% or more.
Long is the director of the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency project in the Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology at the Universito of Illinois RIPE is an international research effort dedicated to improving photosynthesis to address worldwide food shortages. The project offers its technological advances to farmers in poorer regions of the world royalty-free, Long said.
“Photosynthesis is the most studied of all plant processes,” he told his audience at a TED Conference in Vancouver, Canada. “And from that knowl-
edge, we realize that even our most productive crops are only achieving about one-fifth of the potential efficiency of that process.”
To better understand these inefficiencies, Long and his colleagues modeled the 170-step process of photosynthesis on a computer, creating what he called a “digital twin.” The model identified three bottlenecks, each of which could be addressed by increasing levels of specific proteins associated with those steps or by adding new proteins.
One change involved boosting amounts of a naturally occurring enzyme known as SbPase, which the model revealed was present in short supply.
“We put in extra copies of the genes coding for that protein. We made more of it. We got more photosynthesis. We got a higher yield,” Long said. “But we wondered why evolution or breeder selection had not already done this.”
When a colleague suggested that plants evolved in an atmo-
sphere with much lower carbon dioxide levels than present today, the team ran more simulations – one with lower atmospheric CO2 and one with levels expected in the future. This revealed that current levels of SbPase in plants were optimal for much lower atmospheric CO2 levels than exist today and that increasing SbPase would
bolster photosynthetic efficiency at the higher CO2 concentrations.
A second study from researchers at RIPE boosted plant productivity by adding a metabolic pathway to reduce energy lost when plants process the byproducts of photorespiration.
A third line of research al-
tered the process by which plants turn up and turn down photosynthesis in their leaves in full sun or when shaded by other leaves. Simulations revealed that these intraleaf adjustments are normally so slow that they “cost plant productivity an estimated 20% to 40%,” Long said. The team identified three proteins that, when increased, allowed plant leaves to adapt more quickly to fluctuations in light.
“And in soybeans on our farm, we got more than 20% increase in seed yield,” he said. Each of these interventions was tested in the laboratory and in experimental fields at the University of Illinois.
“I hope I’ve shown to you that by boosting photosynthesis, we can relieve the risk of food insufficiency for some of the most vulnerable, we can protect the environment by preventing the need to go on to yet more land to produce our food, and the possibility that we might even be able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” Long said.
provements in his cash crop yield until 2018, when it jumped significantly and has steadily increased since.
He had the highest corn and fourth-highest soybean yields per acre in the county, according to the local farm service agency’s last audit in 2019.
“It takes a while and you gotta have faith in what you’re doing. There’s so much research out there that says (conservation practices) work,” said Lyons, who credits his exceptional harvests to his cover crops.
“When you don’t do it, it’s because you can’t change away from what grandfather did,” he continued, noting that his neighbors still get advice from their fertilizer retailers.
Lack of subsidies for cover crops
Lag time between implementation and results is common. Farmers should expect to wait at least five years before seeing improvements in soil fertility from cover crops, according to Peterson, the Illinois Soybean Association
agronomist. In the interim, they must endure the cost of seeds, labor to tend to the cover crops and unexpected interactions between these new crops and cash crops.
“You have to understand that farming is a business, and it’s a narrow-margins business a lot of the time,” Peterson said.
The average cost of planting cover crops was $37 per acre in 2021, according to a study published by the University of Illinois. That’s $42 per acre today, when adjusted for inflation. Farmers may also lose profits since cash crop growth can suffer when cover crops are first introduced.
Lyons used a government crop insurance program to hedge his losses during the six years it took to reap the benefits of his cover crops. This support, however, is hard to come by.
Funds for the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s cover crop subsidy program, which are distributed on a first-come, firstserved basis, were drained in 10 hours in 2021, leaving 72,652 acres of cover crop applications unfunded. The program budget was increased in 2022, but demand still exceeded available resources. Available funds were depleted in five hours and 22,700 acres of
cover crop applications were left unfunded.
Meanwhile, cover crop implementation is at about 6% of what is needed to meet the 45% nutrient reduction goal, according to the state’s latest nutrient loss report.
“There needs to be a better coordinated effort from the state to get conservation practices on as many acres as possible, period,” said Clay, the Illinois Environmental Council land use director.
A bill enacted in August to increase state support for agricultural soil health programs is a promising start, he said.
Federal funding for conservation programs in Illinois is also lagging, with over $60 million in unfunded applications, noted the report.
Amelia Cheek, associate director of environmental policy at the Illinois Farm Bureau, is calling on state politicians to more proactively advocate for federal funding to support conservation farming.
“It comes down to educating our elected officials on the needs of rural Illinois,” she said.
And there is money to be had. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, $19.5 billion is being doled out for cli-
mate-smart agriculture programs over the next five years. The 2024 Farm Bill will also likely include support for conservation farming.
However, funding programs is only one part of the puzzle. On-the-ground support and education are equally critical, according to agricultural interest groups.
“My fear is that we’re going to have all these federal dollars coming from Congress, and we don’t have the personnel on the ground to help farmers execute what they want to do,” said Courtney Briggs, senior director of Government Affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
The state-funded offices meant to help farmers figure out how to best apply conservation practices on their fields are chronically understaffed, Cheek said.
The Illinois Department of Agriculture is aware of capacity challenges and secured a multimillion-dollar federal grant to increase conservation staffing, said a department spokesperson. Just over a year into the grant, over 40 conservation planners have been hired across the state.
lot more practices, but I don’t own any land and I can’t just go to a conservation office and say: ‘Hey, I want to put in a prairie strip.’ I have to go through the landowner,” Hazzard said.
It’s often difficult for farmers like Hazzard to justify short-term losses for long-term soil health to landowners whose primary interest is the yearly bottom line.
“(Farmers) are more willing to make those sacrifices and those risks on a piece of land that they own. It’s harder to do that on a piece of land that they’re renting and have to be able to justify that return on investment,” said Megan Dwyer, the director of conservation and nutrient stewardship at the Illinois Corn Growers Association.
As it struggles to improve funding and education, Illinois must remain vigilant against potential legal action, said Clay, with the Illinois Environmental Council.
pollution are also being felt closer to home.
Illinois EPA’s latest water quality report revealed 61.6% of streams are too polluted to support indigenous aquatic life and 85.3% are too polluted to support direct human contact.
“We have a nutrient problem, but we also have a climate resilience problem. Everything we do for nutrient reduction would also make us more climate resilient,” said Liz Stelk, the executive director of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, which advocates for local food systems and sustainable farm practices.
May’s fatal pile-up crash on I-55 might have been prevented if nearby farms stopped tilling their land, according to Stelk and other conservation farming activists. The dust storm was likely caused by unusually high winds blowing loose soil from nearby fields.
In Illinois, there is an added challenge of educating absentee landowners who often live in cities hundreds of miles away or may even be corporations. About 77% of farmland is leased through crop share or cash rent agreements between farmers and absentee landowners, according to 2021 Illinois Farm Business Farm Management Association data. This is one of the highest rates in the country.
Andrea Hazzard, a grain farmer in Winnebago County who leases her land, is committed to practicing sustainable agriculture and has used her own resources to plant cover crops.
The five-year average size of the dead zone is over two times larger than management targets and Gulf state economies already intimately feel the ramifications. Economic impact data from 2006 to 2016 shows their coastal commercial and recreational fishing industries have experienced little growth over the past decade, which has ripple effects throughout local economies.
“I can see there being a scenario where there are lawsuits from (Gulf) states down south against other states,” he warned. “And Illinois — being a leading contributor of nitrogen and phosphorus — we’re gonna be a target. We need to start taking that seriously because if we don’t, we’re gonna be in a real pickle.”
In light of the rising stakes, some environmental groups are calling for the state to mandate conservation practices on farms rather than invest in more voluntary incentive-based programs.
Hirschfeld, with the Prairie Rivers Network, points to the strides that have been made by wastewater treatment facilities. They have already exceeded the phosphorus reduction goal for 2025.
“It is time for agriculture to actually be accountable for its pollution,” Hirschfeld said.
But agriculture interest groups say farms are fundamentally different from point sources. Any onesize-fits-all approach would be counterproductive, said Dwyer, especially in Illinois where the state’s north-to-south orientation means the climate varies significantly across the state.
“Regulations would pigeonhole farmers and make
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“I would like to adopt a
The effects of nutrient
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them have to adapt to something that does not make sense,” Peterson added. “It would drive me, as an agronomist, insane because there are years — if we have a late harvest, for example — when it doesn’t make any educational sense to put in a cover crop.”
Michael Ganschow, a sixth-generation corn and soybean farmer in Bureau County, has appreciated the ability to experiment and to find the system that works best on each of his fields.
“There is a lot of risk when you have these kinds of practices in your operation. On the other side of it, if you’re able to play around with (the practices) on a small scale to see how you can get them to work on your operation and then ex-
pand, there are tremendous benefits that can come out as far as soil health and nutrient loss,” he said. Besides, it would be “nearly impossible” to impose a regulatory structure on an industry that covers nearly 75% of the state, said Clay.
Instead, the state should focus on deploying educational resources to rural countryside farms and increase funding for nutrient management projects deployed and managed at the watershed level, suggested Lauren Lurkins, the former director of environmental policy for the Illinois Farm Bureau and founder of the environmental consulting firm Lurkins Strategies.
As some farmers wait to reap the benefits of conservation practices and others try to overcome the eco-
nomic and social barriers to adopting them, climate change is intensifying and making nutrient reduction goals harder to achieve.
“When are we going to really think about our goal as a state in light of this changing world? Is it going to be more expensive or complicated?” asked Lurkins, who was part of the policy team that crafted the state’s first nutrient loss reduction strategy in 2015.
“From the very beginning, we looked at how effective (the conservation practices) are and how much they were going to cost. I feel like it’s off now.”
Heavier and more frequent rainfall in recent years has increased runoff and, with it, the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi River Basin. The increase in nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the state’s latest report
were mostly driven by a 23% increase in river flows, said an Illinois EPA spokesperson. Climate change projections indicate even more frequent and severe rain in the coming years.
Other contributors like streambank erosion and legacy nutrients deposited into streambeds decades ago may also be playing a larger role in current nutrient pollution than previously expected. The Illinois EPA is working with researchers to quantify these sources and determine their contribution to increased nutrient levels.
Meanwhile, many farmers are looking to potential technological innovations to help them reduce nutrient pollution.
Ganschow is particularly excited about the prospect of new precision sensors that could allow him to be more time and location spe-
cific when applying fertilizers. This will be especially helpful as weather patterns become increasingly unpredictable. By only using fertilizer when and where necessary, he can reduce his costs and the amount of excess nutrients on his fields.
“It’s kind of a two-sided coin here. It’s not only environmentally friendly, but it becomes an economical thing,” said Ganschow, thinking back to how his grandfather’s early adoption of conservation practices made their land productive so he and his father can continue to live off it today.
“A farmer puts their retirement in the land. It’s a multigenerational business. I’m not just looking at how I can get the most out of this one piece right now. This has to be my lifeline when I retire. I want it to be
there for the next generation,” said Dwyer, who is also a fourth-generation corn and soybean farmer in northwestern Illinois.
To stay afloat and have something to give their children, farmers must strike a balance between economic pragmatism and environmental stewardship. Ironically, perhaps the ones who can best sympathize with this challenge are the fishermen downstream whose livelihoods depend on farmers striking the balance.
“Farmers and fishermen have a lot of similarities,” said Nacio, the Louisiana fisherman. “We’re both dependent on nature, and we appreciate any efforts farmers do to help minimize runoff because it’s impactful for us also in South Louisiana — the people who rely on the Gulf of Mexico to make a living.”
