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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 10 months and many more articles are planned. Check them out.
Article for March 2019 - Make a Change
It is a stretch to think of spring, as I write this article during the biggest and wildest snowstorm of the season, but it will come. With spring’s arrival, producers and landowners will have another opportunity to either do what they have always done in regards to field practices and tillage or make a positive change.
The rains and early freeze last fall prevented a huge amount of tillage and fall application of fertilizer across the state and especially in our area. This has many producers concerned about the amount of time available to do the tillage operations that they have always done. Now with heavy snows, spring seems even further. This is an opportunity to take a long hard look at why we do what we do to our soils. Cropland tillage is the single biggest cause of soil and nutrient loss. The adoption of a drastically reduced tillage program, preferably no tillage at all, will make a positive change to your farm’s environmental footprint and its bottom line.
Making a change to a farm’s tillage practices is really difficult because the majority of producers were raised on the farm and tillage was always used as a way to control weeds, to bury plant residue from the last year’s crop, and to allow planting equipment to operate properly. All of these were valid reasons forty years ago, but not since. The prudent use of herbicides to control weeds is a much better alternative to laying the soil bare to the elements and watching it erode into waterways and rivers. Also, there are not many planters today that don’t have some sort of disc openers that allow planting into undisturbed soybean stubble. The old ideal that the field should be nearly clear of residue prior to planting is archaic and damaging.
Iowa has lost half of its topsoil in the past 150 years. The average soil loss from an acre of Iowa farmland continues to be five tons per year. This represents a layer of the best soil, the thickness of a dime, from each acre. With heavy rain events on tilled soils whose surface is not protected, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how that soil is lost.
Now with the advent of a better scientific understanding of soil health and the interaction of soil biology with growing plants, the case for eliminating tillage is much stronger. A healthy undisturbed soil provides a home for thousands of earthworms per acre that help recycle plant residues and whose burrows provide for better water infiltration. A healthy soil biology increases soil structure which in turn increases water infiltration, reduces the need for commercial fertilizers, and helps to increase soil organic matter that improves water retention. Tillage destroys the soil biology, the much needed earthworm, and soil structure.
This spring could be a turning point for many producers; please do some research on how reducing tillage will save your soil, your time, your bottom line, and your community’s water quality. For more information on cost share opportunities for adopting no-till, call the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District office at 641-424-4452 or visit www.cerrogordoswcd.org.
Article for April 2019 - Soil Health Pays
A year ago, in this space, I reported about traveling around the state of Iowa with Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) scientists presenting research about the emerging science of soil health. Again this year, we presented nine meetings for soil and water district commissioners across the state, under the auspices of the Conservation Districts of Iowa. This time NRCS scientists presented the economic advantages of soil health practices to over 500 attendees. On-farm research and the rapidly expanding acceptance of soil health practices are resulting in economic evidence that soil health changes to a farm’s management are profitable and environmentally sound. In addition, as a sign of real progress, you cannot pick up a “farm” magazine lately without seeing some mention of the emerging science of soil health.
A healthy soil contains more organic matter and therefore more carbon; it requires less fertilization and less herbicides. Healthy soil absorbs more of the rainfall that lands on it, which reduces soil and nutrient losses. Healthy soil water absorption rates are 80-90%, rather than the 30-40% rates of degraded soil. Healthy soil withstands dry periods better, thus reducing runoff and downstream flooding. This water buffering effect can also have a real impact on long-term farm profitability.
So how do we make our soils healthy? The things we can do are simple, the reasons that they work take a little more explanation. First and foremost is to drastically reduce or completely stop tillage. By eliminating tillage, we allow the soil to develop aggregate stability, defined as small marble sized clumps of soil held together by fungal strands, microbial and earthworm excretions, and the leakage of photosynthesized sugars from plant roots. These aggregates give the soil a stable structure, allow for oxygen and water to move into the soil profile, and allow the soil biology (especially fungi) to move nutrients to the plant roots. Tremendous savings in time, equipment, and expense can be made when eliminating tillage.
Second is to maintain a growing crop on the land for as much of the year as possible; this means the addition of cover crops to our usual system of corn and soybeans. These two cultural practices allow soil to begin to build soil organic matter, which is a major key to productivity. Higher organic matter results in more nutrients available to the crop and increased water holding capacity. In addition, cover crop roots do a great job of salvaging unused nutrients before they are leached from the soil and returns them to the top of the soil profile as plant residue. It has been demonstrated that due to increased microbial activity in healthy soils, more mineral nutrients become available to the crop. Commercial fertilizer applications can often be drastically reduced after a few years of soil health practices. This is contrary to what all of us have been taught since the inception of commercial fertilizers nearly 70 years ago.
Producers have traditionally been taught to treat their soils as an inert growing medium that provides only a place for roots to grow to support the plant; with all other inputs needing to be added. Now as we learn about the biologic relationships that this sort of management destroys, we are realizing that there are vast quantities of mineralized nutrients in the soil that certain fungi and microbes are able to convert to usable forms and transport to the crop. Our soils are much more resilient than we have thought and do not need the levels of fertilizers or pesticides that are currently used. Producers across the country are adding to the knowledge base of soil health every season.
All of these advantages of a healthy soil can result in a farming operation with less machinery, less reliance on commercial inputs, and therefore more profit. The single requirement is a small increase in the management level of your farm. For more information on soil health practices and potential cost share options for adopting these practices contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District at 641-424-4452 or visit www.cerrogordoswcd.org.
Article for May 2019 - Soil and Water Conservation Week
This past week, April 28 through May 4, 2019 was designated as Soil and Water Conservation Week in Iowa. This year the week was coordinated with national Stewardship Week sponsored by the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). The Stewardship Week theme was "Life in the Soil: Dig Deeper” and is designed to focus the nation’s attention on the importance of stewardship of our natural resources.
The severe erosion during the “Dust Bowl” years of the 1930s brought about the first efforts to prevent soil erosion, which also helped protect water resources. Iowa passed a law in 1939 establishing a state agency and the means for soil and water conservation districts to organize. This legislation declared it the policy of the State of Iowa to preserve soil and water; protect the state’s tax base; and promote health, safety and public welfare of people of Iowa.
In every county in Iowa, the local Soil and Water Conservation District offices with state and federal staff administer voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs to landowners and operators. Five locally elected Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioners oversee programs. Since the system’s inception in the 1930s, what these programs are and their effectiveness on the landscape has evolved.
Almost all of the early work to curb soil erosion in Iowa was done using structures such as terraces, dams, grassed waterways, and drainage ditches. Over time, the emphasis shifted to farming practices such as contour farming, reduced tillage, contour strips, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to take highly erodible land out of production, and buffer strips to protect our streams and rivers. Now the priority has shifted logically to the latest science concerning “soil health”.
If landowners would concentrate on practices that encourage healthy soil, many of the erosion, water quality, land degradation, and even profitability issues faced by today’s producers would be greatly reduced. A healthy soil is protected from surface erosion by crop residue or a cover crop, has a porous structure which allows more water infiltration, and has a diverse and vibrant soil microbiology that digests plant materials quickly while drastically reducing the need for commercial fertilizers and herbicides. To move away from degraded soil and toward healthy soils, producers need to drastically reduce or eliminate tillage operations that destroy soil structure and microbiology as well as strive to keep a living root in the soil for as much of the year as possible. The roots from cover crops help keep the soil biology alive and thriving during the six months of the year when crops are not growing.
We are reminded by Soil and Water Conservation Week and various Earth Day activities that we all can have an effect on our environment through small changes we make in our activities such as recycling, reusing, and reducing purchases of items that cause harm to our fragile ecosystem. Agricultural operations are the leading cause of sediment and nutrient pollution in our streams and rivers, and in the degradation of our valuable soil resources. Inexpensive changes to our farming practices could make a positive effect on the health of our soils and our local environment; best of all, not cost nearly as much as the structures we built in the past to keep our soil in place.
For more information on soil health and other conservation programs please visit our website at www.cerrogordoswcd.org or contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District office at 641-424-4452.
It is a stretch to think of spring, as I write this article during the biggest and wildest snowstorm of the season, but it will come. With spring’s arrival, producers and landowners will have another opportunity to either do what they have always done in regards to field practices and tillage or make a positive change.
The rains and early freeze last fall prevented a huge amount of tillage and fall application of fertilizer across the state and especially in our area. This has many producers concerned about the amount of time available to do the tillage operations that they have always done. Now with heavy snows, spring seems even further. This is an opportunity to take a long hard look at why we do what we do to our soils. Cropland tillage is the single biggest cause of soil and nutrient loss. The adoption of a drastically reduced tillage program, preferably no tillage at all, will make a positive change to your farm’s environmental footprint and its bottom line.
Making a change to a farm’s tillage practices is really difficult because the majority of producers were raised on the farm and tillage was always used as a way to control weeds, to bury plant residue from the last year’s crop, and to allow planting equipment to operate properly. All of these were valid reasons forty years ago, but not since. The prudent use of herbicides to control weeds is a much better alternative to laying the soil bare to the elements and watching it erode into waterways and rivers. Also, there are not many planters today that don’t have some sort of disc openers that allow planting into undisturbed soybean stubble. The old ideal that the field should be nearly clear of residue prior to planting is archaic and damaging.
Iowa has lost half of its topsoil in the past 150 years. The average soil loss from an acre of Iowa farmland continues to be five tons per year. This represents a layer of the best soil, the thickness of a dime, from each acre. With heavy rain events on tilled soils whose surface is not protected, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how that soil is lost.
Now with the advent of a better scientific understanding of soil health and the interaction of soil biology with growing plants, the case for eliminating tillage is much stronger. A healthy undisturbed soil provides a home for thousands of earthworms per acre that help recycle plant residues and whose burrows provide for better water infiltration. A healthy soil biology increases soil structure which in turn increases water infiltration, reduces the need for commercial fertilizers, and helps to increase soil organic matter that improves water retention. Tillage destroys the soil biology, the much needed earthworm, and soil structure.
This spring could be a turning point for many producers; please do some research on how reducing tillage will save your soil, your time, your bottom line, and your community’s water quality. For more information on cost share opportunities for adopting no-till, call the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District office at 641-424-4452 or visit www.cerrogordoswcd.org.
Article for April 2019 - Soil Health Pays
A year ago, in this space, I reported about traveling around the state of Iowa with Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) scientists presenting research about the emerging science of soil health. Again this year, we presented nine meetings for soil and water district commissioners across the state, under the auspices of the Conservation Districts of Iowa. This time NRCS scientists presented the economic advantages of soil health practices to over 500 attendees. On-farm research and the rapidly expanding acceptance of soil health practices are resulting in economic evidence that soil health changes to a farm’s management are profitable and environmentally sound. In addition, as a sign of real progress, you cannot pick up a “farm” magazine lately without seeing some mention of the emerging science of soil health.
A healthy soil contains more organic matter and therefore more carbon; it requires less fertilization and less herbicides. Healthy soil absorbs more of the rainfall that lands on it, which reduces soil and nutrient losses. Healthy soil water absorption rates are 80-90%, rather than the 30-40% rates of degraded soil. Healthy soil withstands dry periods better, thus reducing runoff and downstream flooding. This water buffering effect can also have a real impact on long-term farm profitability.
So how do we make our soils healthy? The things we can do are simple, the reasons that they work take a little more explanation. First and foremost is to drastically reduce or completely stop tillage. By eliminating tillage, we allow the soil to develop aggregate stability, defined as small marble sized clumps of soil held together by fungal strands, microbial and earthworm excretions, and the leakage of photosynthesized sugars from plant roots. These aggregates give the soil a stable structure, allow for oxygen and water to move into the soil profile, and allow the soil biology (especially fungi) to move nutrients to the plant roots. Tremendous savings in time, equipment, and expense can be made when eliminating tillage.
Second is to maintain a growing crop on the land for as much of the year as possible; this means the addition of cover crops to our usual system of corn and soybeans. These two cultural practices allow soil to begin to build soil organic matter, which is a major key to productivity. Higher organic matter results in more nutrients available to the crop and increased water holding capacity. In addition, cover crop roots do a great job of salvaging unused nutrients before they are leached from the soil and returns them to the top of the soil profile as plant residue. It has been demonstrated that due to increased microbial activity in healthy soils, more mineral nutrients become available to the crop. Commercial fertilizer applications can often be drastically reduced after a few years of soil health practices. This is contrary to what all of us have been taught since the inception of commercial fertilizers nearly 70 years ago.
Producers have traditionally been taught to treat their soils as an inert growing medium that provides only a place for roots to grow to support the plant; with all other inputs needing to be added. Now as we learn about the biologic relationships that this sort of management destroys, we are realizing that there are vast quantities of mineralized nutrients in the soil that certain fungi and microbes are able to convert to usable forms and transport to the crop. Our soils are much more resilient than we have thought and do not need the levels of fertilizers or pesticides that are currently used. Producers across the country are adding to the knowledge base of soil health every season.
All of these advantages of a healthy soil can result in a farming operation with less machinery, less reliance on commercial inputs, and therefore more profit. The single requirement is a small increase in the management level of your farm. For more information on soil health practices and potential cost share options for adopting these practices contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District at 641-424-4452 or visit www.cerrogordoswcd.org.
Article for May 2019 - Soil and Water Conservation Week
This past week, April 28 through May 4, 2019 was designated as Soil and Water Conservation Week in Iowa. This year the week was coordinated with national Stewardship Week sponsored by the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). The Stewardship Week theme was "Life in the Soil: Dig Deeper” and is designed to focus the nation’s attention on the importance of stewardship of our natural resources.
The severe erosion during the “Dust Bowl” years of the 1930s brought about the first efforts to prevent soil erosion, which also helped protect water resources. Iowa passed a law in 1939 establishing a state agency and the means for soil and water conservation districts to organize. This legislation declared it the policy of the State of Iowa to preserve soil and water; protect the state’s tax base; and promote health, safety and public welfare of people of Iowa.
In every county in Iowa, the local Soil and Water Conservation District offices with state and federal staff administer voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs to landowners and operators. Five locally elected Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioners oversee programs. Since the system’s inception in the 1930s, what these programs are and their effectiveness on the landscape has evolved.
Almost all of the early work to curb soil erosion in Iowa was done using structures such as terraces, dams, grassed waterways, and drainage ditches. Over time, the emphasis shifted to farming practices such as contour farming, reduced tillage, contour strips, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to take highly erodible land out of production, and buffer strips to protect our streams and rivers. Now the priority has shifted logically to the latest science concerning “soil health”.
If landowners would concentrate on practices that encourage healthy soil, many of the erosion, water quality, land degradation, and even profitability issues faced by today’s producers would be greatly reduced. A healthy soil is protected from surface erosion by crop residue or a cover crop, has a porous structure which allows more water infiltration, and has a diverse and vibrant soil microbiology that digests plant materials quickly while drastically reducing the need for commercial fertilizers and herbicides. To move away from degraded soil and toward healthy soils, producers need to drastically reduce or eliminate tillage operations that destroy soil structure and microbiology as well as strive to keep a living root in the soil for as much of the year as possible. The roots from cover crops help keep the soil biology alive and thriving during the six months of the year when crops are not growing.
We are reminded by Soil and Water Conservation Week and various Earth Day activities that we all can have an effect on our environment through small changes we make in our activities such as recycling, reusing, and reducing purchases of items that cause harm to our fragile ecosystem. Agricultural operations are the leading cause of sediment and nutrient pollution in our streams and rivers, and in the degradation of our valuable soil resources. Inexpensive changes to our farming practices could make a positive effect on the health of our soils and our local environment; best of all, not cost nearly as much as the structures we built in the past to keep our soil in place.
For more information on soil health and other conservation programs please visit our website at www.cerrogordoswcd.org or contact the Cerro Gordo Soil and Water Conservation District office at 641-424-4452.