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Your county's Soil and Water Conservation District office is the place to get answers and assistance for conservation concerns that will help maintain the value of your land. Both professional staff and volunteer commissioners who are passionate about preserving natural resources are ready to help you with your plans.
Water Quality
The quality of our water supply both above and below ground directly effects everyone in the county. The economic impacts of having to cleanup water is becoming a larger issue. Our SWCD is committed to helping producers manage their crop inputs and practices to reduce losses that impact our water. |
Forestry Programs
There are several state and federal programs that can assist landowners in either establishing or managing forest stands. Our office can help you with some of these and also put you in touch with the District Foresters for our area. |
Donate to the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District
Your support will help us to continue our conservation education efforts and support staff that will promote practices in the district
Cerro Gordo SWCD
1415 South Monroe Ave. Ste. B
Mason City, Iowa 50401
641-424-4452
1415 South Monroe Ave. Ste. B
Mason City, Iowa 50401
641-424-4452
Earthworm Middens in a corn field with no tillage for 35 years
Articles in the Globe Gazette
The Globe Gazette has been generous enough to print one article a month in their Sunday business section dealing with conservation issues. The articles are written by Dennis Carney, one of our local commissioners, often with the help of the office staff. A wide variety of subjects have been covered over the past 2 years and many more articles are planned. Check them out.
Article for September 2019 - Attitudes are Changing
This past week I was involved in the Conservation Districts of Iowa annual conference in Ames. There are 500 elected unpaid Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioners in Iowa. Traditionally, Commissioners help administer local Soil and Water Conservation offices, approve state and federal cost share money to support voluntary practices, and promote the conservation of our working lands. More often than in the past, Commissioners are now supporting youth education programs on resource stewardship, offering scholarships for students to study environmental issues, and are starting to be more proactive in promoting conservation practices.
The Soil and Water Conservation Commissioners of Iowa have a resolution process that directs our state leaders and staff in their efforts in conservation legislation and regulations. One district in the state proposes an idea (referred to as a resolution) that advances our mission of conservation and all the Commissioners debate and then vote on the resolution. In the past, most of these resolutions dealt with operational and administrative issues in our offices and at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship in Des Moines. After much debate, this year the Commissioners approved resolutions that supported funding for environmental educators across the state and a proposal to lobby for an Iowa buffer law that would require a thirty-foot permanent grass buffer along streams and waterways, similar to Minnesota’s buffer law. Curtailing row crop farming right next to streams where field runoff and eroded soil can so easily enter our surface water should be one of the first steps in responsible soil and water conservation.
These are bold moves for our group. It is apparent that Commissioners who work with conservation issues see the writing on the wall better that many of the farm groups to which they belong. Agriculture needs to clean up its act and soon. The agency from which all our county offices receive their federal funding, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is investing heavily in educating producers about soil health. Practices that include no tillage, cover crops, and reduced commercial inputs are proving their economic and environmental advantages over the traditional methods producers have used since the prairie was first plowed. These conservation practices have huge benefits in increased water absorption rates, reduced soil loss, and improved nutrient recycling; and they cost very little to implement. This is a departure from the NRCS’s traditional emphasis on terrace and grassed waterway construction.
The only things that are going to drive the widespread adoption of an agricultural conservation ethic is consumer pressure, landowner education, and the realization that we all have to live with the problems we are creating through commodity agriculture. Degraded soils due to ill-timed and excessive tillage result in erosion and lost long-term productivity. The water quality and quantity issues we experience in and around our streams and rivers have a real future cost. Hopefully, bold action by Iowa’s Soil and Water Conservation Commissioners will begin to nudge us closer to that goal.
October 2019 - Protect Your Investment
Harvest season is here once again and brings to an end a rather trying year for area farmers. A very wet spring resulted in planting delays and much erosion of soil not protected by crop residue or cover crops. There are several things that producers can do this fall to reduce the chances of such extensive losses next spring.
Thousands of acres in Cerro Gordo and surrounding counties have already been seeded to aerially applied cover crops. Most were seeded in very early September and stayed on the surface until rains came a couple weeks later. My farm had four-inch tall cereal rye in standing corn within six days after a rain. This rye will primarily develop its root system this fall as it salvages excess fertility left unused by the corn crop; these roots will continue to grow below the frost line all winter. Then in the spring the rye will green as soon as the snow melts and begin adding above- ground growth. Also, many additional acres of cover crops drilled in following crop harvest will provide benefits in soil protection and nutrient salvage.
Soluble nutrients in the soil profile that are not recaptured by a crop eventually reach tile systems or underground water supplies, which is truly money down the drain. Too many of these nutrients reach surface waters and cause problems for wildlife and people downstream. The costs of removing these easily avoided pollutants will eventually drive a change in how crops are produced. If you have not grown cover crops in the past, cost share is available.
While planting cover crops is the best way for farmers to save their soil and prevent erosion, the second best action to preventing sheet or gully erosion in fields over the winter is nothing. Simply by staying out of the tractor seat this fall and leaving the tillage machines in the shed will do a great deal in protecting your most valuable resource. A protective crop residue cover will reduce the impact of raindrops and snow hitting the soil and dislodging soil particles. Also, the anchoring effect of crop roots left attached to the soil will help to slow down the water carrying this soil.
The elimination of fall tillage performed on the tiny amount of residue left after harvesting a soybean crop has been and still is the low hanging fruit of soil and water conservation. It requires nothing and reaps benefits to the producer and the surrounding community in cost savings and resource preservation. The very old argument about using tillage to loosen the soil for the next crop has been proven wrong in so many ways. Do your soil and yourself a favor this fall by planting cover crops and eliminating fall tillage, giving you more time to enjoy fall recreational activities.
Completely eliminating all tillage long-term improves water infiltration and retention: a 1% increase in soil organic matter increases the water-holding capacity of an acre of Iowa soil by 25,000 gallons. Most long time Iowa no-tillers report a 1% gain in organic matter every 7-9 years. For more information on reducing tillage and planting cover crops visit www.nrcs.usda.gov or contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District at 641-424-4452 or visit our website at www.cerrogordoswcd.org.
This past week I was involved in the Conservation Districts of Iowa annual conference in Ames. There are 500 elected unpaid Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioners in Iowa. Traditionally, Commissioners help administer local Soil and Water Conservation offices, approve state and federal cost share money to support voluntary practices, and promote the conservation of our working lands. More often than in the past, Commissioners are now supporting youth education programs on resource stewardship, offering scholarships for students to study environmental issues, and are starting to be more proactive in promoting conservation practices.
The Soil and Water Conservation Commissioners of Iowa have a resolution process that directs our state leaders and staff in their efforts in conservation legislation and regulations. One district in the state proposes an idea (referred to as a resolution) that advances our mission of conservation and all the Commissioners debate and then vote on the resolution. In the past, most of these resolutions dealt with operational and administrative issues in our offices and at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship in Des Moines. After much debate, this year the Commissioners approved resolutions that supported funding for environmental educators across the state and a proposal to lobby for an Iowa buffer law that would require a thirty-foot permanent grass buffer along streams and waterways, similar to Minnesota’s buffer law. Curtailing row crop farming right next to streams where field runoff and eroded soil can so easily enter our surface water should be one of the first steps in responsible soil and water conservation.
These are bold moves for our group. It is apparent that Commissioners who work with conservation issues see the writing on the wall better that many of the farm groups to which they belong. Agriculture needs to clean up its act and soon. The agency from which all our county offices receive their federal funding, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is investing heavily in educating producers about soil health. Practices that include no tillage, cover crops, and reduced commercial inputs are proving their economic and environmental advantages over the traditional methods producers have used since the prairie was first plowed. These conservation practices have huge benefits in increased water absorption rates, reduced soil loss, and improved nutrient recycling; and they cost very little to implement. This is a departure from the NRCS’s traditional emphasis on terrace and grassed waterway construction.
The only things that are going to drive the widespread adoption of an agricultural conservation ethic is consumer pressure, landowner education, and the realization that we all have to live with the problems we are creating through commodity agriculture. Degraded soils due to ill-timed and excessive tillage result in erosion and lost long-term productivity. The water quality and quantity issues we experience in and around our streams and rivers have a real future cost. Hopefully, bold action by Iowa’s Soil and Water Conservation Commissioners will begin to nudge us closer to that goal.
October 2019 - Protect Your Investment
Harvest season is here once again and brings to an end a rather trying year for area farmers. A very wet spring resulted in planting delays and much erosion of soil not protected by crop residue or cover crops. There are several things that producers can do this fall to reduce the chances of such extensive losses next spring.
Thousands of acres in Cerro Gordo and surrounding counties have already been seeded to aerially applied cover crops. Most were seeded in very early September and stayed on the surface until rains came a couple weeks later. My farm had four-inch tall cereal rye in standing corn within six days after a rain. This rye will primarily develop its root system this fall as it salvages excess fertility left unused by the corn crop; these roots will continue to grow below the frost line all winter. Then in the spring the rye will green as soon as the snow melts and begin adding above- ground growth. Also, many additional acres of cover crops drilled in following crop harvest will provide benefits in soil protection and nutrient salvage.
Soluble nutrients in the soil profile that are not recaptured by a crop eventually reach tile systems or underground water supplies, which is truly money down the drain. Too many of these nutrients reach surface waters and cause problems for wildlife and people downstream. The costs of removing these easily avoided pollutants will eventually drive a change in how crops are produced. If you have not grown cover crops in the past, cost share is available.
While planting cover crops is the best way for farmers to save their soil and prevent erosion, the second best action to preventing sheet or gully erosion in fields over the winter is nothing. Simply by staying out of the tractor seat this fall and leaving the tillage machines in the shed will do a great deal in protecting your most valuable resource. A protective crop residue cover will reduce the impact of raindrops and snow hitting the soil and dislodging soil particles. Also, the anchoring effect of crop roots left attached to the soil will help to slow down the water carrying this soil.
The elimination of fall tillage performed on the tiny amount of residue left after harvesting a soybean crop has been and still is the low hanging fruit of soil and water conservation. It requires nothing and reaps benefits to the producer and the surrounding community in cost savings and resource preservation. The very old argument about using tillage to loosen the soil for the next crop has been proven wrong in so many ways. Do your soil and yourself a favor this fall by planting cover crops and eliminating fall tillage, giving you more time to enjoy fall recreational activities.
Completely eliminating all tillage long-term improves water infiltration and retention: a 1% increase in soil organic matter increases the water-holding capacity of an acre of Iowa soil by 25,000 gallons. Most long time Iowa no-tillers report a 1% gain in organic matter every 7-9 years. For more information on reducing tillage and planting cover crops visit www.nrcs.usda.gov or contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District at 641-424-4452 or visit our website at www.cerrogordoswcd.org.