The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1073799
D-2 Pike County Planter SWCD Newsletter Quarter 1, 2019 The Press-Dispatch See HARVEST on page 3 Delivering Quality Diesel Fuel. Maximize the efficiency of your farm with reliable, high-performance fuel! We're committed to delivering premium, top quality diesel fuel at a good price. FRETTE ENERGY CO., INC. 504 West Walnut Street, Washington 812-254-3671 • 800-326-1966 Your Local Delivery Man TIM FEARS 812-486-9311 F R E T T E E N E R G Y Love Your Creek event set for Feb. 9 Please volunteer to help the Lower Patoka Watershed committee collect trash along ditches and creek banks to show you love our community and to protect our pre- cious drinking water! Contact Julie Loehr at 812-779-7924 or julia.loehr@in.nacdnet.net to register for this event. Trash bags, gloves, and reflec- tor vests are available for all registered volunteers. A prize will be awarded to the volunteer who brings in the most pounds of trash. Join us in improving water quality in our county! Petersburg Invasive plant Right-of-Way training Feb. 7 Petersburg Invasive Plant Right-of-Way Training will be Februar y 7 from 9 a.m. till noon at the Pike County 4-H building, Hornady Park, Petersburg. Registration starts at 8:45 a.m. EST. Do you manage or work within road or utility right-of-ways? Attend this free half day training to learn how invasive plants impact these areas and the best ways to manage them. Hosted by the nonprofit Southern Indiana Cooperative Invasives Management (SICIM), and the new Pike- Gibson CISMA (Cooperative Invasive Spe - cies Management Area), this training will include identification of common roadside invasives, best management practices to prevent and control their spread, and noxious weeds and other right-of-way vegetation management restrictions. Speakers will include Hans Schmitz (Purdue Extension), Emily Finch (SICIM Regional Specialist), and Matt Kraushar (INDOT Roadside Maintenance Special - ist). Some of the problematic invasive plants that will be covered by this training are Johnson Grass, Poison Hemlock, Caller y (Bradford) Pear, and Phragmites. The training is free, but pre-registration is recommended, by contacting Tabitha Anthis at 812-385-5033 x3 or tabitha. anthis@in.nacdnet.net. Pesticide applica- tor CCH credits are being sought for this training. Septic System Workshop Feb. 4 There will be a Septic System Workshop from 5:30 to 7 p.m. CST on Feb. 4 at Princ- eton USDA Ser vice Center, 229 South 2nd Ave, Princeton. This free educational event is open to the public. Topics include buying or selling an older home with an antiquated system, septic system maintenance and how to know if your system is working correctly. Guest speakers will be Chris Berg and Greg Inman. Space is limited. Contact Julie Loehr at julia.loehr@in.nacdnet.net or call the Gib- son County SWCD office at 812-385-5033 ext. 3 to RSVP or for more information. Landowners install 137 acres of bottomland trees in 2018 with help of CREP program By Linda Voglund Resource Specialist Indiana State Dept of Agriculture In 2018, Pike County had several landowners that chose to implement CP31 Bottomland tree practices on a portion of their acres in the Lower White Watershed. CP31 is an excellent practice to use on smaller fields that may be cut off, subject to repeated flooding or have other issues that make har vesting crops difficult and expensive for farmers. CRP/CREP offers great incentives for farmers by providing 140 percent of the soil rental rates as well as other incentives for installing and managing the practices. There are several practices within CREP that can be done including bottomland trees, filter strip, habitat buffers, and wetland restorations. Pike County had more than 137 acres of bottomland trees installed in 2018. We are proud of the efforts of landowners and contractors who must plan and cooperate to successfully install the trees or other practices within the allowed time frame. The unpredictable weather conditions of spring demand that tree consultants work in difficult conditions to complete the projects. We are also proud of the work that has been accomplished through the collaborative efforts of local, federal and state agencies. Your local Soil and Water Conser vation Ser vice (SWCD), the Natural Resources Conser vation Ser vice (NRCS), Farm Ser vices Agency (FSA), Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) and Indiana Department of Natu- ral Resources (IDNR) all contributed their part to ser vice requests and attain these goals. We look for ward to planning and implementing more CREP practices in Pike County for 2019. Anyone who may be interested in implementing the CRP program on their farm can contact their local Farm Ser vices Agency. PATOKA WATERSHED NEWS It's time to plan for 2019's cover crops By Julie Loehr Pike-Gibson-Dubois Watershed Coordinator With 2019 here, perhaps you have been looking for ward, as I have. Perhaps you have even "resolved" to do something new or even quit doing some- thing. Some people join a gym, others vow to stop smoking…. But sadly, many of us find that by the time Februar y is here, there isn't much left of our resolution to change. Farmers and producers may be plan- ning which fields will be planted with which crop. Or perhaps, like me, you already know what you will plant and have the seed ordered. But have you considered WHEN you will plant? It will, of course, be dependent on nature and the winds and the rains and the sun's warmth as to when we can get into the fields to plant the crops. So much is out of our control. One thing can be decided, determined, "resolved" now, however. And that is whether you will consider no-till plant- ing and fall cover crops. Just as you plan ahead to order the right variety and bags of seed from your preferred dealer, you need to plan ahead to fall cover crops as well. Now is the perfect time to research blends that match your circumstances. This year's and next year's crop as well as soil types are all vital information to help determine the best cover crop mix. Now is a good time to check availability of seed and find out how soon you can place an order. Soil health and water quality improves with each acre that is no-tilled with fall cover crop. As Tom Kaspar, USDA, Iowa stated "Cover crops have many potential benefits for both soil and water quality in an annual grain cropping system, like the corn-soybean rotation. Cover crops provide these benefits by growing dur- ing the fallow periods between har vest and planting of main crops. Studies have shown that r ye and oat winter cover crops can reduce erosion and nitrate leaching in corn-soybean rotations, which improves both water and soil quality." Let us all resolve to improve southern Indiana's soil health and the water quality by working together to plant more no-till acres this spring and plant more cover crop acres this fall. NRCS REPORT Impacts of 2018 harvest, where do we go from here? By Vince Pitstick Pike County NRCS District Conservationist It seems that ever y few years, har vest becomes a long, hard, drawn-out struggle. Most years, ground conditions allow for a quick, efficient har vest with only an occasional day that the combine cannot run, and those days are welcome to rest up, repair equipment and move grain. Har vest 2018 in southern Indiana started off normal; however, soybeans matured slow, therefore their har vest began later. Corn yields were excellent with large amounts of grain to move and store. Once the soybeans finally matured and were ready for har vest, the fall rains came and days suitable for har vest became rare, especially multiple days in a row. Thanksgiving came, and many com- bines were still in the field. Christmas came, and there were still isolated fields of corn and beans awaiting har vest some af- ternoons when the ground was frozen. No question about it, har vest 2018 was hard, long days, damaged equipment and worr y about crops deteriorating, the stress level was high! What are the lingering impacts of a hard har vest? In many cases, fields were heavily damaged by combines and grain carts. Many of the last fields har vested were rutted up and will need attention prior to planting in the Spring of 2019. What are some options, what can be done for the future? Obviously, the immediate concern is getting a field leveled up so the 2019 crop can be planted. Depending on the sever- ity of the damage, a vertical tillage tool, disk, field cultivator, or "one-pass" tillage tool can be used in the spring to level the field and prepare an adequate seedbed for planting. It would be a wise decision to limit this tillage to the area that was damaged, especially if you are in a no-till system. It is also a wise decision to resist using a deep ripper tool in the spring since the typical wet spring soil conditions will not allow a deep ripper to be effective and could possibly cause additional damage by smearing the soil. While this will allow a crop to be planted in 2019, the true problem is much deeper and will require additional treatment. Assuming a nice, quick normal har vest in 2019, what can be done to help fix dam- aged areas? In all likelihood, you will be able to pin point them once you have your yield maps. Areas of compaction, lead- ing to stunted growth and reduced yield, especially if the summer of 2019 is dr y, will be obvious. What can be done? These areas probably should be high on the priority list of the areas you are consider- ing installing subsurface drainage. If areas are wet during har vest, they are likely wet during spring planting, some drainage will improve the overall situation. The initial thought on many farmer's minds is, to correct damage from rutting, I must get out the deep ripper and go to work. If the fall is good and dr y after har vest, you might be able to help a little, but sometimes pulling a ripper is a feel- good operation and provides ver y little true benefit. The reason being, when you are har vesting, the combine tire usually cuts down to the deepest recent tillage pass. However, the true damage to the soil structure can be a foot or deeper than the bottom of the rut. To completely correct the compaction, you must be completely under the problem, ver y few rippers will go that deep. So, the question remains, what can I do to fix the problem that is deep in the soil? Tr y something besides steel, tr y the power of roots. Cereal r ye or annual r yegrass roots will grow to depths of over 40 inches over the winter so seed- ing disturbed areas to a cover crop after har vest will go a long way to improving soil structure, breaking up compaction, and improving infiltration in disturbed areas of a field. If you are feeling adven- turous, tr y some strip trials, cover crops versus no cover crops. You just might discover all the benefits cover crops can bring to your operation. Now, it is time to determine what you as a farmer can do to keep this from hap- pening again. The weather is the weather, farmers cannot impact what happens. What you can do, is build a soil that is more resilient to impacts from weather, protect it from erosion over the winter, infiltrate and store water for those hot dr y days of summer when your crop needs it, and build a soil that will hold up during those rare years that har vest is wet. Devel- oping a management system that involves the four principals of soil heath: Keeping a living root as much of the year as possible, diversity of plants within your cash crop and cover crop, a never-till system, and keeping the soil covered all year long will build a more resilient soil. Primarily reducing soil erosion and improving infiltration and water holding capacity have been the reasons for imple- menting a soil health system. However, har vest 2018 provided another benefit, one that we only see ever y few years dur- A field in southern Pike County is reaping the benefits of a winter cov- er crop mix that consists of tillage radishes, cereal rye and crimson clo- ver. Contact the SWCD/NRCS office to learn how you can improve your soil health system and what funding opportunities could be available today!