Dust Storms Shouldn’t Happen in the Corn Belt
By Don Reicosky, David Brandt, Randall Reeder and Rattan Lal
Could the catastrophic dust storm along I-55 in Illinois have been prevented? Yes! If the farmland had been in continuous no-till with cover crops there would have been no dust. No wrecks. No deaths. No injuries. No drivers upset because the main highway from Chicago to St. Louis was shut down for almost 24 hours. The tragedy of the infamous Dust Bowl era of 1930s was repeated on I-55 in the heart of the U.S. Corn Belt.
Dust storms are major problems in the Great Plains and Southwest where annual rainfall is 5 to 20 inches. A catastrophic dust storm does not need to happen in the nation’s highly productive Corn Belt where 40 inches of annual rainfall is common.
Unfortunately, a rare and intense dust storm caused a 90-vehicle pileup on May 1, 2023, in Montgomery County in central Illinois on Interstate 55, about 30 miles south of Springfield. Seven people died and 30 people were hospitalized. The accident involved 30 commercial trucks and more than 50 passenger vehicles. Visibility was near zero after 55-mph winds carried soil dust from newly tilled fields across both lanes of the highway.
The unintended consequences of intensive tillage (usually one pass in the fall and one or two more passes before planting in the spring) include soil erosion by water and wind; decreased soil, water and air quality; and the loss of soil organic matter/carbon, which is the heart and soul of soil health. Soil dust from both tilled and bare fallow farmland poses severe risks to public health and transportation safety as illustrated in this recent catastrophe.
Dust storms are not a minor inconvenience. They can have a major impact on our environmental quality and the health and well-being of humans and animals. A research article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society recently reported a total of 232 deaths from windblown dust events from 2007 to 2017, with dust fatalities most frequent in the southwest Great Plains. Minimizing dust storms will require widespread adoption of new and improved agricultural practices that preserve, protect and regenerate our soil, and hence, our welfare along with the environmental and food security.
Is Dust Soil?
Dust particles are very small soil particles. Dust storms are primarily the result of turbulent wind systems lifting and carrying small soil particles into the air. Those “soil particles” are valuable. The dust is usually our best topsoil and contains nutrients necessary for plant growth. When combined with dry weather and windy conditions, tillage disturbance can create chaos on our fields and adjacent highways. Tillage not only sets the soil up for erosion and degradation, it causes carbon and water loss and decreases the quality of soil, water and air, leading to environmental degradation and food insecurity. In addition, tillage-induced dust storms damage crops, delay transportation, disrupt commerce and reduce the recreational value of all landscapes. Is this the way we want to treat our beloved soils that we depend on for food and other essential ecosystem services?
Slow to Learn Conservation Lessons
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is perhaps the best-known and most often quoted example of large-scale wind erosion and dust-storm activity anywhere in the world. The core of the Dust Bowl area comprised much of the Great Plains when the most severe dust storms (“black blizzards”) occurred between 1933 and 1938, with activity related to the plow and usually at a maximum during the spring. The single worst day of the Dust Bowl was April 14, 1935, known as “Black Sunday.”
These experiences led to the development of the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in 1935 that evolved into NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) in 1994. No-tillage research began in the 1960s. The development of efficient herbicides initially made no-till a more popular soil conservation practice. Now, both weed and erosion control are being enhanced using cover crops. The economic cost of losing 5 to 10 tons per acre of topsoil per year, with attached nutrients, is shameful when soil erosion can be reduced to a few pounds per acre, not tons, with no-till and other conservation practices.
Cause and Solutions of Soil Dust Storms
The three requirements for severe soil dust storms are “dry” weather, “windy” conditions and bare or tilled soil surfaces. From a farm management perspective, we have little or no control over dry weather and windy conditions. The main management decisions relate to the soil surface and tillage decisions. As a result, it is important to transition from intensive moldboard plow tillage to no-tillage to minimize soil loss and degradation. Adding cover crops to continuous no-till offers many benefits, such as erosion control, increasing organic matter, nitrogen fixation, increasing water infiltration, better soil structure, improving the soil microflora and helping sustain or increase yields through healthier soils.
While no-tillage showed promise with respect to decreasing soil erosion, having living plants and roots as long as biologically possible providing biomass is essential. Some time was required to understand the complexity and interactions of the natural systems and put them in proper context to farm in nature’s image.
No-tillage reduces erosion losses, tends to maintain the level of soil organic carbon, reduces the detrimental effects on soil quality, retains soil moisture and lowers the input costs of fuel, labor and machinery. No-tillage as a single practice was not sufficient to provide economic and environmental benefits with profitable yields. The combination of no-till, cover crops and crop diversity are the three pillars of conservation agriculture systems. Several prominent researchers suggest adopting conservation agriculture systems to control erosion, improve soil and water management outcomes, protect the environment and achieve food security.
The three primary principles of conservation agriculture systems are:
1. Minimize soil disturbance.
2. Provide continuous plant biomass cover.
3. Add more crop biodiversity in rotations and cover crop mixes.
While minimum soil disturbance broadly refers to the physical disturbance of the soil, it can also encompass unnatural forms of chemical and biological disturbance. Conservation agriculture systems tend to decrease agriculture’s carbon footprint.
Education is required for the three principles to be broadly accepted as a sustainable agriculture system. As more innovative ideas and concepts evolve, they must serve as a foundational basis for other types of sustainable agriculture, such as sustainable intensification, regenerative agriculture, soil health farming and carbon farming.
The solution is more education for farmers. The biggest challenge is changing the mindset about the need for tillage. Tillage has been a part of agriculture for 12,000 years. That’s a long tradition, making it difficult to convince farmers to change to a system developed over the past 60 years.
Slowly, the concept of a “living soil system” and the importance of soil biology is being understood and accepted. In addition, the unknown risks can be significant and require enhanced management skills as new technology and equipment evolve that require data collection to make improved management decisions. Another area where farmer education can be enhanced is in developing independent farmer-led networks with farmers as mentors. Conferences, field days and other programs to educate farmers, crop consultants, agricultural business representatives, ag science teachers and professors are essential. Experienced farmers with positive attitudes and credibility with a little passion are effective communicating with and teaching other farmers. They can also provide their fields for on-farm research.
Policy Changes
The current crop insurance policy reinforces poor farming practices. Basing crop insurance on conservation agriculture systems principles would encourage adoption of practices that prevent soil erosion from water and wind. The resulting resilient soils provide a level of insurance (consistent crop yields).
Important policy “decisions” are included in the farm bill. The new farm bill, probably in 2024, should emphasize education and funding to get more conservation agriculture system on farmland. The entire agriculture community needs to understand the three primary principles of conservation agriculture systems for truly sustainable production for future generations. Provisions to enable the development of farmer-led networks should be encouraged to ensure the continuation of effective sustainable production. Organizations, such as the Ohio No-Till Council and Pennsylvania No-Till Alliance and No-till on the Plains, should be funded to organize events to educate farmers on conservation agriculture systems practices. Payments to farmers based on practices and land use for ecosystem services, such as CRP, are needed to promote the adoption of conservation agriculture.
As a former chief of the Soil Conservation Service (1990-1993) and one of several farmers who started developing no-till in the 1950s, Bill Richards says we have the technology to help address the blowing dust problems. He believes producers have the duty and responsibility to use the best technology available to protect our land, soil and water while producing food, feed, fiber and fuel for the world. However, farmers should not be asked or required to go beyond what’s scientifically sound and economic. That’s where public policy dedicated to soil conservation practices must be addressed in the next farm bill, he says.
Summary
The recent soil dust cloud catastrophe in central Illinois is just another alarm bell and a wake-up call from mother nature suggesting all of agriculture needs to implement more sustainable production practices. The loss of human life with this and other verified dust storm incidents, should justify the need to apply conservation agriculture systems widely. Farm bill programs that promote further conservation innovation through payments for ecosystem services, training and new ideas along with farmer and consumer education programs are essential. We owe it to future generations.
About the Authors
Don Reicosky is a retired soil scientist for USDA-ARS, North Central Soil Conservation Research Laboratory, Morris, Minn., and adjunct professor in the soil science department, University of Minnesota.
Randall Reeder, P.E., worked as an Extension ag engineer at Ohio State University from 1979-2011. Since 2011 he has served as executive director of the Ohio No-till Council and coordinated programs for the annual Conservation Tillage & Technology Conference in Ada, Ohio.
Rattan Lal, a distinguished professor of soil science at Ohio State University, has researched soil for five decades on five continents.
David Brandt was known as the “Godfather of Soil Health.” He died on May 21 from injuries suffered in a traffic accident at age 76. He was recognized internationally as a leader in no-till, cover crops, soil health and regenerative agriculture.
