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Buffer Strips - Habitat and Water

iowaqdm said:
Just to clarify, I am now referring to all CRP not just buffer strips. Because you said you enrolled 20% of your poor ground which I am going to assume you’re not referring to bottom ground that is normally adjacent to creeks or rivers. I agree 100% with what you are saying, but you have to remember that some of Iowa’s worst ground is still more productive than a large percentage of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota and several other States (obviously not referring to these States best ground and obviously excluding some river bottom tillable, or ground under pivot).

So do we tell all those people to just quit trying to produce grain so we don’t have to have support payments? I guess they try to level the playing field regarding support payments based on proven yields and county averages, but what can they do differently other than increase the rental payments, increase cost share payments and offer sign up incentives for conservation programs like they did in 2016. That’s how they enticed so many to enroll their farms back then. Most people I know, that aren’t hunting fanatics, will take their acres out of CRP with payment running in many cases $50+ an acre below cash rent payments. Once the 15% reduction went on CRP payment and cost share was dropped to 50% and they got rid of sign up incentives far more ground has been taken out when the contract expires versus renewed or new ground being enrolled in CRP.

Guys that are pushing for one buck limits should be focusing their time on how to get CRP payments up so we could add 150,000-200,000 acres of CRP across Iowa’s landscape. That would do way more for our deer herds trophy potential than going to a one buck limit.
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All great points qdm...Good discussion.
 
JNRBRONC said:
The individual farmer's only control over grain prices is when he chooses to sell into the market. Not saying they shouldn't be held accountable in some fashion.

One DNR employee I know calls field tile the "hypodermic injecting poison into our rivers" and probably isn't far off with that assessment. Biofilter systems could help but the adoption of those practices is time, labor and money intensive.
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So I’m not positive here on this so chime in if I’m wrong, I’ve been told by smart people over the years that a couple of feet of dirt will filter a ton of stuff out of water.

One thing I do like about tile is when it is a spring that sometimes runs across the top of the ground sometimes doesn’t. In that case you’re catching that water below ground before it has a chance to become surface water that would get sprayed or fertilized, thus dumping spring water in the creek.

Obviously best case scenario for water and wildlife is everyone just doesn’t farm next to those spots and they grow to cover.

In the real world though that gets trickier. This is why I think a solid program incentivizing buffers along water would be huge.
 
Iowa said:
So I’m not positive here on this so chime in if I’m wrong, I’ve been told by smart people over the years that a couple of feet of dirt will filter a ton of stuff out of water.
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The dirt is the coffee grounds, the ag chems are the caffeine. Not all chems bind to dirt.
 
I wonder if our streams even get tested for a lot of these chemicals, seems like all i ever hear about are N and P runoff.
 
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