NRCS Tennessee now accepting FY2024 EQIP applications
Application deadline is Friday, November 17, 2023
Extended deadline for Select Practices through February 16, 2024
NASHVILLE, October 17, 2023 – Producers in Tennessee who are interested in implementing conservation practices to improve natural resources on their farmland have until Friday, November 17 to submit their application for financial assistance through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Extended deadline for Select Practices through February 16, 2024.
“EQIP places a priority on water quality, water conservation, and promotes soil health practices by offering financial and technical assistance to address these resource concerns on eligible agricultural land,” NRCS Tennessee State Conservationist Sheldon Hightower said.
EQIP is an incentives-based program that provides technical and financial assistance for conservation systems such as animal waste management facilities, irrigation system efficiency improvements, fencing, and water supply development for improved grazing management, riparian protection, wildlife habitat enhancement, and cover crops for soil resource protection.
EQIP provides numerous conservation initiatives through a variety of funding opportunities. An emphasis on climate smart agriculture will be continued in 2023 through the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act represents the single largest investment in climate and clean energy solutions in American history and is estimated to help hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers gain access to conservation assistance and apply conservation to millions of acres of land.
Tennessee will implement an extended funding opportunity for select practices through the CPA, DIA, and CEMAs, Soil Health, Urban, Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, and High Tunnel ranking pools. NRCS Tennessee will be utilizing an ACT NOW approach. Based on the availability of funds, applications with a score greater than a pre-determined threshold will be preapproved once assessed and ranked until funds have been expelled.
Applications can be taken at all NRCS Tennessee county offices and USDA Service Centers. To locate an office near you, please click visit the USDA Service Center website. Applications MUST be received in your local service center by 4 p.m. on Friday, November 17. Extended deadline for Select Practices through February 16, 2024.
Applicants can submit a signed and dated Form NRCS-CPA-1200 in the office, hand delivered, mailed, scanned, emailed, or through an agency-approved business tool (Farmers.gov). If NRCS receives a program application request by other means, such as by telephone, a NRCS representative must manually prepare Form NRCS-CPA-1200, using the date NRCS received the request in order to establish the application cut-off deadline has been met. NRCS will follow up to obtain the participant’s signature to ensure the application was properly completed prior to ranking.
NRCS continually strives to put conservation planning at the forefront of its programs and initiatives. Conservation plans provide landowners with a comprehensive inventory and assessment of their resources and an appropriate start to improving the quality of soil, water, air, plants, and wildlife on their land.
USDA touches the lives of all Americans each day in so many positive ways. In the Biden-Harris administration, USDA is transforming America’s food system with a greater focus on more resilient local and regional food production, fairer markets for all producers, ensuring access to healthy and
nutritious food in all communities, building new markets and streams of income for farmers and producers using climate smart food and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to equity across the department by removing systemic barriers and building a workforce more representative of America.
Contact Garrett Morris at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 615-277-2576, for more information about the EQIP program in Tennessee, or visit the NRCS Tennessee website.
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Microbes could be used by farmers as natural fertilizer for poor soil
A study published in The ISME Journal identified 522 genomes of archaea and bacteria associated with the roots and soil of two plant species native to the Brazilian montane savanna ecoregion known as campos rupestres ("rocky meadows"). Hundreds of microorganisms hitherto unknown to science were identified, showing that the ecoregion is a biodiversity hotspot and that many new organisms have yet to be described and classified in Brazil.
The discovery could potentially be a basis for the development of biological substitutes for the chemical fertilizers used by farmers, especially those containing phosphorus.
"Phosphorus is normally present in the soil, but not always in a form that plants can use. Most of the microorganisms we found make phosphorus soluble so that plants can absorb it," said Antônio Camargo, first author of the article.
The study was conducted under the aegis of the Genomics for Climate Change Research Center (GCCRC) in partnership with the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) at UNICAMP.
One of the plants, Vellozia epidendroides, lives in shallow soil, whereas another, Barbacenia macranta, was found growing on exposed rock. Both belong to the family Velloziacea. Specimens were collected in a private area adjacent to the Serra do Cipó National Park in Minas Gerais state.
A comparison of microorganisms associated with plants found growing in soil and on rocks showed that they comprised different communities but shared many species. Several microorganisms were highly specialized in phosphorus transport and conversion to the soluble form of the mineral, which plants can absorb.
"Microbial communities also play an important role in supplying nitrogen, another essential plant nutrient," said Camargo, currently a researcher at the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, where the genomes were sequenced.
Novel solutions
"Previous research focused on plants' mechanisms for adapting to the harsh conditions of this montane savanna and often ignored microorganisms. Our study shows that microorganisms can play a key role in plant adaptation to the extreme conditions of this environment. In particular, they supply the phosphorus need to fuel plant growth," said Rafael Soares Correa de Souza, one of the corresponding authors of the article.
The researchers expect their discoveries to contribute to the creation of products that replace chemical fertilizers based on phosphorus, one of the crop nutrients most widely used by Brazilian farmers. More than half the phosphate fertilizer used in Brazil is imported, mainly from Morrocco but also from Russia, Egypt, China and the United States.
In addition to the dependence on imports, phosphate fertilizer pollutes water bodies, and its production is a source of greenhouse gas emissions, estimated at 1 kg for every kg of fertilizer produced. Moreover, phosphorus is a non-renewable natural resource and hence finite.
Biological fertilizers are already in use in Brazil. In the case of soybeans, they are the main source of nitrogen in 80% of the planted area. A previous study by the GCCRC estimated that the use of biological inoculants instead of nitrogen fertilizers could save USD 10 billion per year.
"The study also underscores the need for conservation of Brazil's ecosystems, which can supply many other nature-based solutions like this one," said Souza, a co-founder of biotech startup Symbionics, which develops next-generation biologics.
As noted, campos rupestres are biodiversity hotspots with many exclusive species. They form mosaics totaling some 26,500 square kilometers scattered across Brazil in biomes such as the Cerrado (savanna), Caatinga (semi-arid areas in the Northeast) and Atlantic Rainforest. The main threats to these ecosystems are mining and cattle raising.
The researchers are now conducting studies to test the benefits of some of the microorganisms found in croplands. Experiments are under way at the GCCRC in Campinas.
Alternative Forages:
Specialist looks at different options
Kansas State University’s Beef Systems Specialist Jaymelynn Farney is investigating how cattle choose what to eat.
Farney, who is at the Southeast Research and Extension Center in Columbus, Kansas, has been performing studies on what forages cattle prefer. She’s using summer cover crops, or annual forages, in re-purposed protein tubs. They’re then offered to cattle to determine preference.
“I have grown eight plant species in each growing period and offered the plants to the cows in two 24-hour sessions,” she said. “We recorded their behavior for the first hour after introduction to the plants and they were video recorded through the remainder of the time to see which plants they completely consumed and in which order.”
The study wants to help producers make decisions about which cover crops to plant when incorporating grazing.
“There is a laundry list of plants that contain useful cover crop benefits and it becomes daunting to select the species that will meet your operation’s objectives,” Farney said.
When deciding what plant species to sow, Farney said there are two trains of thought.
Purposefully plant only those species that cattle will consume to maximize land usage or gains along with capturing some cover crop benefits; or
Strategically plant species that cattle are averse to in order to leave appreciable biomass in the field for soil health objectives.
“With these two things in mind I was interested in seeing how cattle that were completely naive to cover crops consumed these plants,” Farney said.
Initially, Farney has found the most preferred plants include: Barley, Austrian winter pea and Graza forage radish (tie), mustard, Impact collard, Trophy rape, and purple top turnip (all fairly the same in preference). Last was Bayou kale. Her preference information was collected prior to a freeze.
“Stay tuned to next year to find out what their preference to these same species are when grazing after a killing freeze,” Farney said.
For summer grazing, in order from most preferred to least includes: Brown mid-rib forage sorghum and sorghum-Sudan (tied for first), pearl millet, Black oil sunflower and sun hemp (tied for third). Least favorite with little to no difference (strongly objected) were mungbean, okra and safflower.
Farney said there is some learning in both the cattle and the researchers associated with these summer grazing plants.
“The first day exposed nearly all the cows did not even try the okra, but the second day they consumed them before mungbean and safflower,” Farney said. “Another interesting comment about the summers, all grazing occurred when the sorghums were 2 feet tall to minimize prussic acid issues.”
For the sorghums, grazing occurred 35 days after planting. The sunflowers in that time frame were very small and immature (6 to 8 inches tall at the most) while the mungbean and okra had leaves that were over 7 inches in diameter.
“Preference studies become difficult to quantify as cattle do learn and modify grazing behavior especially after that first introduction to new plants,” she said.
When in drought
Farney suggests spending some time to determine the plant species with more drought tolerance.
“I would stay away from really expensive components of mixtures because there is a greater chance of crop failure with no moisture,” she said. “There is some literature that shows that a few different plant species as a cover crop have some environmental lee-way.”
For stocker cattle
Farney leans heavily on the grass component of a stocker cover crops plan.
She limits brassicas to a 1 pound per acre with maximum of 1.5 pounds of brassica seed per acre. Amounts over this can cause the brassicas to outcompete the grass species and reduce grass tonnage. For fall forages, the grass and brassica species offer enough protein to the animal.
“Younger calves have a stronger aversion to the broadleaves and brassicas than cows do and this can potentially hamper gains for a short duration until they begin to consume these plants,” Farney said
“In Kansas, from my research and measuring producers fields, we rarely get any fall growth of legumes,” she said. “This is an expensive component of the mixture and with the combination of low to no-growth and no need for additional protein to meet calf requirements, I do not include legumes in fall covers.”
Farney suggests oats and barley—both spring and winter varieties—to those looking to graze something other than native grass as they offer the earliest, quickest growth. Triticale is intermediate and wheat and rye will have the majority of their growth late winter and early spring. Turnips and radishes have a very rapid growth rate, but once a freeze happens, they don’t generate any more dry matter. Grass species continue to have some growth as the season goes on.
Managing the meat
During and through a drought, the reduced availability of forages hurts stocker producers the most.
“If forage is severely limiting, alternative methods of growing these calves need to be implemented,” Farney said.
She said Dale Blasi at the K-State Stocker unit has been doing interesting research that shows that limit feeding stocker calves can be a viable management strategy.
“These calves gain as well as contemporaries on less feed,” Farney said. “This allows us to stretch our forage and feed base.”
With the option of several high energy feedstuffs, when limit fed and balanced in the ration become an economical option to forage only, especially at elevated prices due to low supply and high demand.
“Substitution is another thing to consider with stockers,” Farney said. “We are essentially wanting to feed more of something else so they eat less grass or hay.”
Corn has commonly been identified as the culprit of reducing free-choice hay and grass consumption, according to Farney. A general rule of thumb for supplementing corn is 0.3 percent of the animal’s body weight or less will not reduce forage consumption. A level above that can reduce it. At 0.75 percent of body weight, for each pound of corn they will consume one pound less forage on a dry matter basis.
“It is still important to make sure to meet protein requirements,” Farney said.
Tennessee's farmers care for the landscape with no-till farming