Planning is an essential component of reaching your goals. Planning is nothing but thinking before the action.

Lessons from the past

The process of planning reminds me of my experience growing up with my nine siblings. My parents raised six girls and four boys in a small house with one bathroom, and we all survived!

My father was a planner, and he was all about dividing up the workload of chores on our small farm operation by identifying, prioritizing, assigning and setting timelines.

He developed a hand-drawn spreadsheet that was action-oriented and time-bound — years before Excel was designed. I did not realize until years later, but those childhood experiences have had an impact on how I deal with projects and situations today working for a soil and water conservation district.

Endurance of conservation planning

Conservation planning has been the root of the efforts to save our nation’s precious soil since the Dust Bowl era some 80 years ago.

Now, more than ever before, American farmers and ranchers face a seemingly impossible task — to feed a rapidly growing global population. This challenge is being met with fewer farmable acres, less freshwater and more pronounced climate change.

In an effort to assist the landowners and operators to meet these challenges, the National Conservation Planning Partnership (NCPP) was formed to emphasize the critical role that conservation planning plays in advancing voluntary conservation efforts on private lands.

NCPP is made up of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS); the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD); the National Conservation District Employees Association (NCDEA); the National Association of State Conservation Agencies (NASCA); and the National Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils (NARC&DC).

NCPP is working together to do the following:

• Reinvigorate conservation planning,
• Improve the partnership’s capacity to deliver one-on-one conservation planning assistance,
• Ensure the delivery of technically sound, science-based assistance, and
• Build a workforce of strong conservation planners.

Listening to customers

The NCPP and teams have conducted listening sessions across the United States, hearing from farmers, ranchers, field staff and public and private partners. Nationally, surveys have been distributed, and the returns have been analyzed.

Additional technical training for field staff; improved communications and technical, science-based tools, techniques and processes; and identifying private sector partners who can provide precision agriculture and economic data to producers are but a few of the goals of NCPP.

For more detailed and comprehensive information for farmers, conservation field staff and the general public about the advancement in conservation planning a website has been created. Go to NCPP.info.

Although it has been a long time since I have checked off my action item responsibilities on my father’s hand-sketched spreadsheet, those learned habits have remained with me.

I will end with a message from Matt Tracy, a farmer in Johnston, Rhode Island: “With good conservation planning and the right set of conservation measures in place on our farm, there are direct economic benefits. We’ve seen overall increases in yield and crop health accompanied by overall decreases in expensive inputs like fertilizers and water. Improved pollinator habitat increased honey production. High tunnels have help us to extend our growing season with minimal resource inputs. All of this means the farm is not only more profitable, but it means we can spend this extra income to employ more local people and utilize local services to keep the farm running.”

Nine Step Conservation Planning Process

The Natural Resources Conservation Service uses a nine step planning process whenever it begins a project. The purpose of the steps is to develop and implement plans that protect, conserve, and enhance natural resources within a social and economic perspective. 

1 - Identify Problems and Opportunities Everyone needs a reason to plan.  Planning can start with a problem, an opportunity, shared concerns, or a perceived threat. Initial opportunities and problems are first identified based on readily available information provided by the client(s). There may be information available through the County Conservation Districts or through a larger-scale conservation plan.  The Little River Salt Marsh Restoration Project is an excellent example of how this process worked on an area-wide scale, with multiple stakeholders and objectives.

2 - Determine Objectives During this step, the stakeholders identify their objectives.  A conservationist guides the process so that it includes both the stakeholder needs and values and the resource uses and on-site and off-site ecological protection. Objectives may need to be revised and modified as new information is learned later in the inventory and analysis stages. Objectives may not be finalized until Step 4 of the planning process.

3 - Inventory Resources In this step, appropriate natural resource, economic and social information for the planning area is collected. The information will be used to further define the problems and opportunities. It will also be used throughout the entire process to define alternatives and to evaluate the plan. It is important that as much information as possible can be collected so that the plan will fit both the needs of the landowner and the natural resources. Inventories can range from a farmstead or small watershed all the way up to a complete inventory of resources for a state or the entire nation, such as with the NRCS National Resources Inventory or the Soil Survey Program.

4 - Analyze Resource Data  Study the resource data and clearly define existing conditions for all of the natural resources, including limitations and potential for the desired use. This step is crucial to developing plans that will work for a landowner and their land. It also provides a clear understanding of the baseline conditions will help to judge how effective a project is after it has been put into place.

5 - Formulate Alternatives The purpose of this step is to achieve the goals for the land, by solving all identified problems, taking advantage of opportunities, and meeting the social, economic, and environmental needs of the planning project. With NRCS conservation planning, we often can help landowners formulate alternatives based on cost-sharing programs that help offset the financial expense of implementing conservation practices.

6 - Evaluate Alternatives  Evaluate the alternatives to determine their effectiveness in addressing the clients problems, opportunities and objectives. Attention must be given to those ecological values protected by law or executive order.

7 - Make Decisions At this point the landowner chooses which project or plan will work best for their situation. The planner prepares the documentation. In the case of an areawide plan, public review and comment are obtained before a decision is reached.

8 - Implement the Plan   Technical assistance is provided to help with the installation of adequate and properly-designed conservation practices. At this point in NRCS conservation planning, our conservation engineers step in and make designs based on our technical standards. Also, assistance is given in obtaining permits, land rights, surveys, final designs, and inspections for structural practices.

9 - Evaluate the Plan Conservation planning is an ongoing process, that continues long after the implementation of a conservation practice. By evaluating the effectiveness of a conservation plan or a practice within a plan, stakeholders can decide whether to continue with other aspects of an overall areawide plan.

New Thoughts on Pre -Emergence Options in Cotton

Author: Larry Steckel, Extension Weed Specialist 

Clearly, after all the struggles in recent years controlling grass weeds, many are looking to change their weed management program. The most frequent question recently has been on the best pre emergent (PRE) options to more account for barnyardgrass, jungle rice and goosegrass.

In an attempt to do a better job on grass most have decided to move from the traditional Cotoran and/or Caparol. Rather many are trying to decide if herbicides such as Brake, Dual Magnum,  Prowl H20 or Warrant would be a better fit for their cotton.

Prowl H2O is by far the herbicide many have decided to go with to help improve their grass control.  I believe this is a good option as well. Unfortunately, shortages have been reported and it will not be an option for some. If you are able to use Prowl H20, please consider using at least a low rate of Cotoran to help with the Palmer control. The Treflan/Prowl resistant Palmer amaranth identified by Dr. Rhodes in the late 1990s is still present in some fields and Cotoran will help here.

Another good option is Brake. In our research a tankmix of Brake and Cotoran can provide good grass control. Remember Brake needs a good ½” of rainfall to become activated. As such it would often work more consistently applied with the burndown early PRE-plant where it would be more likely to catch a rain than PRE-applied. Another caveat with Brake is that for soils with higher clay content that 16 oz/A rate is too low. Even bumping up to 24 oz/A maybe not enough depending upon the clay content of the soil and the weed pressure.

Dual Magnum and Warrant are also labeled options. Dual Magnum will provide the most consistent grass control in most situations. The exception to this would be in a cover crop where often in our research Warrant provides better residual control. Of all the herbicides mentioned these two would have the highest probability of harming stand when used as a PRE. This can be mitigated to some extent by using a split-shot approach where ½ to 2/3 of the full rate is applied PRE and the rest early Post emergence around the typical thrips application window (1 to 2 lf).