What's Up at the USDA Office?
Upcoming Deadlines/Dates
January 8: Deadline to apply for Marketing Assistance for Specialty Crops Program (MASC)
January 9: FSA County Committee Meeting
January 20: Office closed in observance of Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr
January 31: Deadline to request 2024 MALs and LDPs for all eligible wool, mohair and unshorn pelts
Roots and Ruminants Event
February 11th, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC) and Northeast Iowa Dairy and Ag Foundation will be hosting a producer workshop, Roots and Ruminants: Maximizing Farm Productivity, at NICC’s main campus in Calmar, starting at 9 a.m. At this workshop, speakers will cover manure management and benefits, digestible fiber for livestock, grazing cover crops, advocating farmer information on social media with IowaDairyFarmer, and sharing NICC’s most recent farming data and experiences that have helped improve their productivity on the farm. This workshop is free and open to the public. Donuts and coffee will be provided in the morning, followed by a complimentary lunch. In the evening, Northeast Iowa Dairy and Ag Foundation will be sponsoring a social at Pulpit Rock Brewing Company. For more information contact your local NRCS office or NICC at 563-265-5642.
As the harvest season is over and we have more time, landowners need to consider winter management of lands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program or CRP. The next few months are an ideal time to begin scouting for weeds, trees, and shrubs that are beginning to sneak their way in.
Although you may be required to burn or mow as part of your mid-contract management, these one-time practices alone often aren’t sufficient to remedy unwanted vegetation.
One of the biggest issues landowner’s have with managing whole fields in CRP is keeping trees out of their fields adjacent to timber. Taking care of these issues over the fall and winter allows you to manage for unwanted woody species without having to worry about interfering with the primary nesting season and allows for more targeted control of undesirable species.
Conifers and evergreens, such as red cedar, are typically the easiest to manage. In most cases, a chainsaw or loppers, if the tree is small enough, is adequate to kill those species without the use of a herbicide. Deciduous trees and shrubs such as box elder, poplars, willows, and multiflora rose require more management and often require the use of herbicide to effectively control. Mowing or burning typically are not effective treatment for these species, and typically only top kills the tree or shrub, leading to suckers or re-sprouts from the still viable roots. Cut stump treatment is a particularly effective practice this time of year. This method requires you to cut the tree or shrub close to the ground and apply herbicide to the outer rings of the stump. With proper application, this method allows the herbicide to move to the roots of the plant and effectively kill it. A number of commercial herbicides are available for this specific treatment. Just be sure to read and follow the label directions to verify the herbicide is labeled to control your target species with this particular treatment method.
After trees and shrubs have been cut down, it is important to remove them from your CRP fields. This could be done by hand or may require the use of larger equipment to skid the trees off the fields depending on the size of the tree. An additional advantage of doing these tasks this time of year is that the ground is typically frozen. This will save you the cost of reseeding these areas and prevent annoying ruts within your fields.
