2 New Programs Launched - CRP

UGUIDE

UGUIDE

Active member
One is a honey bee mid contract management that offers incentives and cost share to interseed pollinators after a burn or other. Goal is to keep CRP grass more diverse than just grass.

Another major new one is CRP for grasslands. 2 million acres planned nation wide. Basically attempting to keep expiring CRP in grass for pasture/hay use and also keep pasture in pasture by offering a rental rate for pasturelands. No cropping history needed for eligibility.

Check with your local FSA/NRCS office or local Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist.
 
UGUIDE said:
One is a honey bee mid contract management that offers incentives and cost share to interseed pollinators after a burn or other. Goal is to keep CRP grass more diverse than just grass.

Another major new one is CRP for grasslands. 2 million acres planned nation wide. Basically attempting to keep expiring CRP in grass for pasture/hay use and also keep pasture in pasture by offering a rental rate for pasturelands. No cropping history needed for eligibility.

Check with your local FSA/NRCS office or local Pheasants Forever Farm Bill Biologist.
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I have mid contract mowing/burn requirement beginning in 2017. The honey bee incentive could be a fit for me. I'm wanting to interseed pollinators into my existing grasses.

Thanks for the heads-up!
 
Freeborn said:
I have mid contract mowing/burn requirement beginning in 2017. The honey bee incentive could be a fit for me. I'm wanting to interseed pollinators into my existing grasses.

Thanks for the heads-up!
Click to expand...

I did about 180 acres on that one as eventually I will have to treat thistle on my nestng acres and that means some species will be taken out by herbicide. I wanted a way to bring back nesting production and this HB Mid contract Mgmt is a great option. I would recommend drilled no-till interseed immediately after the spring burn for best results.

We are also designing Milestone herbicide tolerant species in to the mix so if we di have to spray for thistles after interseed we will still have some good forbs and wildflowers remaining for bugs.
 
When you interseed, how many pounds per acre of forbs are you planting? I believe my original CRP planting had approximately 10 lbs per acre of grass and Forbs with probably 80% grasses.

If I wanted to add forbs is their a ratio or general rule of thumb for lbs of forbs per acre.

I'm sure the NRCS office will have recommendations but am looking for what others may recommend.
 
Freeborn said:
When you interseed, how many pounds per acre of forbs are you planting? I believe my original CRP planting had approximately 10 lbs per acre of grass and Forbs with probably 80% grasses.

If I wanted to add forbs is their a ratio or general rule of thumb for lbs of forbs per acre.

I'm sure the NRCS office will have recommendations but am looking for what others may recommend.
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NRCS will not be the pioneer in this area. You Pheasants Forever Biologist has access to a seed mix calculator they developed. Millborn Seed in Brookings can also help design seed mixes.

You want to get away from lbs per acre and think seeds per square foot.
 
Freeborn, you need to realize that most of the NRCS seeding rates are either developed from historical grassland plant communities or (probably more often) from seeding mixtures developed for grazing plant communities. There are any number of problems from the game bird perspective with this. The more favorable species of grass for cattle are not the MOST favorable species for game birds. The clump grasses are the species most favorable to ground-nesting birds. Often too, the forbs added to grazing mixes are limited in diversity and seem to be added as an afterthought. A seeding mix for game birds will have more structure and include a diverse group of forbs that will be green and bloom season-long. They will be attractive to insects, some will be edible, and many will produce edible seed useable to game birds. In a perfect world, each soil type and each exposure, and each slope, etc would be planted to a seed mix designed specifically for them. Yes, the cost would be much higher.

Uguide, one question, what has happened to sod buster? If it is still law, why do we have to pay to keep grassland in grassland? I can understand CRP coming out, that was the plan. However, we should not be losing native range these days!
 
Thanks Troy,

Good advice. I need to reach out to Pheasants forever and have them do a site visit and then spec a forbs mix.

Uguide, yep, seeds per square foot is what I should be focusing on.

Thanks again guys!

Jerry
 
Prairie Drifter said:
Uguide, one question, what has happened to sod buster? If it is still law, why do we have to pay to keep grassland in grassland? I can understand CRP coming out, that was the plan. However, we should not be losing native range these days!
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Hmmm.....good question. I have not heard boo about sod buster in quite some time.

#1 objective of grassland CRP would be to keep expiring CRP acres in grass and not convert back to crops.

We should be paying farmers to better manage their grasslands acres if they want to like fencing out streams and deferring haying and grazing, etc.

We will see where this program goes but I think they needed something that did not require cropping history.
 
I checked into the grassland one and asked a few what if questions. They did not have any answers. This is going to take some time to see if the rule makers can get enough bugs worked out so landowners can use it. I believe sodbuster does not stop breaking of sod, it just takes away the option of crop insurance for awhile. There is probably more to it than that but I think that was the main idea.
 
UGUIDE said:
I did about 180 acres on that one as eventually I will have to treat thistle on my nestng acres and that means some species will be taken out by herbicide. I wanted a way to bring back nesting production and this HB Mid contract Mgmt is a great option. I would recommend drilled no-till interseed immediately after the spring burn for best results.

We are also designing Milestone herbicide tolerant species in to the mix so if we di have to spray for thistles after interseed we will still have some good forbs and wildflowers remaining for bugs.
Click to expand...

Hi UGUIDE,

I reached out to my local FSA/NRCS office and the initial message I received from them was the Bee program was only for block plantings. An acre or two in existing CRP plantings. Do you have anything in writing regarding this program/practice?

The FSA office did not seem familar with the program and is going to send me some information but from my past experience with my local office its best to do my homework so I know the programs well.

If you have a source of the program specifics please provide it.

If possible I would like to enroll a large portion of my CRP in this if it makes sense and can be done.

Thanks!
 
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Just found out on the honey bee mid contract management program that you have to plant/interseed within 12 months of contract signing.

My burns on the ground I was signing up were not coming until 2018. The cover is currently very good and diverse and already in early successional establishment and it just did not make sense to move the burn up and seed just for the money.

I opted to wait until regular burn schedule and see if funds are still available.
 
It would not surprise me they have funding left in 2018. Allot depends if they limit the acres to a percentage of total acres or if they allow land owners to enroll their entire acres.

If Minnesota limits the enrollment to 10% while requiring land owners to sign new contracts for those acres I doubt many people will bother with the program. I know I don't want to stagger my renewal dates.

I'm hoping they open up the enrollment to either a higher percentage or all acres are eligible.
 
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