Freedom with responsibility
According to a 2025 state agriculture overview, New York State is home to 30,000 farm operations, 650,000 milking cows, 500 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) with 300 or more mature cows and is number five in the nation for milk production. Extensive acreage in hay, haylage, corn grain, corn silage and soybeans generate farm products to feed livestock.
Dr. Quirine Ketterings, leader of the nutrient management Spear Program at Cornell University, recently presented information on New York’s nutrient management efforts.
“It’s important to keep clean water clean for the state of New York,” said Ketterings. “We have tremendous water resources in rivers, lakes and underground aquifers that supply drinking water. It includes a drinking water supply that supplies about 1.2 billion gallons of drinking water to New York City every day.”
The state’s watersheds are connected to large, important watersheds. The southern part of the Empire State is the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
“We’re also connected through the Great Lakes Watershed,” said Ketterings. “On the east side of the state, we’re connected to the Lake Champlain Watershed. These are important in terms of water quality.”
Ketterings explained that in the mid-1990s, agricultural groups approached the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) to develop a permit. The first CAFO permit was issued in 1999, and today, full compliance is required. Permits are based on USDA-NRCS standards.
“The 590 standard for New York also directly refers to land grant university guidelines – fertility guidelines (primarily nitrogen and phosphorus), risk assessment for nitrogen leaching and phosphorus runoff, manure management,” said Ketterings.
The Nutrient Management Spear Program (NMSP) is designated by the College of Agronomic Sciences. The program helps ensure profitability, sustainability and protection of the environment. Research programs are developed through asking and addressing relevant questions.
Ketterings outlined the six focuses of the program developed over the years including land grant responsibility, soil health and climate resiliency, precision agriculture, dairy sustainability, on-farm research and student engagement. Published risk assessment guidelines address nitrate leaching index, the New York phosphorus runoff index, groundwater protection for agriculture and adaptive nitrogen management for field crops.
“New York has looked at ‘How do we incentivize advancing nutrient management and manure management?’” said Ketterings. “New York State’s adaptive management policy was first initiated in 2013 specifically for nitrogen management with a two-page fact sheet. Now we have a full-fledged nutrient management document with more options than we had in 2013.”
Since 2022, Cornell has been working toward a united phosphorus index for the Northeast region, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. It’s the same concept under which New York operates with very minor differences between states.
Cornell develops land grant university guidelines for corn, grain or silage, considering soil nitrogen supply, rotation credits, fertilizer uptake efficiency, cover crops, soybean nitrogen and past manure credits to come up with a recommendation. A crediting system for manure allows farmers to estimate the value of manure based on the manure analysis. Considerations include organic vs. inorganic nitrogen and whether inorganic nitrogen can be captured by applying manure in season.
When NRCS released its field notes in 2011 and 2013, the question was whether an adaptive management program with the mission of supporting farms with profitability while protecting the environment would work.
“At that time, the original policy was ‘use an equation and book values unless you have field- specific yield data, then you can use your own data,’” said Ketterings. “When we introduced the adaptive management, we have freedom with responsibility. We can evaluate if the change in management is justified – we can overwrite the land grant university guidelines. If you do so, you also sign up for the responsibility to measure yield and do an environmental assessment to see if the higher nitrogen rate was needed.”
Ketterings said the adaptive management concept has been important, and since it was released, evaluation tools have been added. Farmers are still required to do a yield assessment and can choose from five evaluation options including nitrogen rate studies, targeted corn stalk nitrate test (CSNT), nitrogen rich strips (+SSEA), control strips (+SSEA) and field balance.
“Adaptive management, by policy, is field specific,” said Ketterings. “We also introduced the concept of if farms show they’re doing great at the whole farm level, we should leave them alone and let them keep doing that. If you’re doing a whole farm nitrogen balance (imports minus exports divided by tillable acres), and that number is at or below 105 pounds of nitrogen per acre, you meet the adaptive management guidelines for New York and do not require additional field-specific evaluation beyond the recording yield.”
The phosphorus index involves a transport score, which is the risk of phosphorus leaving the field if manure is applied under poor conditions. The BMP credit system involves reducing risk by implementing beneficial management practices such as setbacks, injection or applying manure to a living ground cover.
“The resulting phosphorus index score can be low, medium, high or very high,” said Ketterings. “Depending on the soil test level for that field, it can mean one of three things: we can go with a nitrogen-based rate, a phosphorus removal base or zero phosphorus application (no manure application).”
The adaptive management policy for phosphorus is used if a farm has a whole farm phosphorus balance of under 12 lbs. phosphorus/acre. They can open some fields for manure application at nitrogen-based rates.
Ketterings said the goal is to incentivize farmers to keep soil test levels low, such as incentivizing staying off fields with manure if the transport risk is very high. When transport risk is reduced, farmers can open up fields for either phosphorus- or nitrogen-based management.
“That’s how the freedom with responsibility come in,” said Ketterings.
by Sally Colby
