Project Search
Since its inception in 2004, CIG has funded hundreds of projects, boosting natural resource conservation while helping producers improve the health of their operations for the future. Use this tool to search for CIG projects based on any of the criteria listed below.
CIG projects from 2004-2009 may be missing information in the following categories: Resource Concern (specific), Conservation Practice, Production/Use.
Showing 621 - 630 of 1760 projects
North Carolina State University
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NC
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2014
Livestock farms are major sources of ammonia and odor and they also emit hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter (PM) and greenhouse gases that affect the environment, public health, visibility and quality-of-life of neighbors. The U.S. EPA may regulate livestock barn emissions under the Clean Air Act and it is paying particular attention to ammonia because it is released in large amounts and it is a precursor of fine PM (i.e., PM2.5) which impacts public health and visibility. Local ordinances and nuisance complaints could also force livestock producers to reduce odor emissions. Improving management practices can improve air quality marginally but to reduce pollutant and odor emissions from barns substantially and consistently many farms may require exhaust air treatment to comply with the Clean Air Act. While conventional exhaust air treatment technologies are effective, they are very expensive and they choke the ventilation system. One promising method is the use of natural windbreaks (trees and shrubs) that can reduce odors without affecting the ventilation system. But windbreaks require maintenance, have large footprints and cannot be placed close to the fans where they would be more effective. This project will develop a low-cost, engineered windbreak wall – vegetative strip system. Computational fluid dynamics modeling will be used to design the system, including, vegetation height and density and wall features (e.g., height, angled or vertical) to maximize effectiveness by balancing pollutant removal, dilution to reduce odors and acceptable back pressure on the fans. Two systems will be installed to treat the exhaust gases of tunnel-ventilated livestock barns (roaster and swine) and monitored over two years. Inlet and outlet gas, PM and odor concentrations will be measured to evaluate treatment effect. Concentrations of pollutants and their fates will be determined using soil and plant analyses and compared with control areas. Finally, cost-effectiveness of the system will be determined based on reductions in $/kg of the pollutants.
Regents of the University of Minnesota
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MN
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2014
Access to local produce markets in combination with recent cost-share incentives has stimulated a recent and rapid expansion in high-tunnel purchase and utilization. High tunnels, which are unheated plastic-film covered protected field environments with a unique microclimate, allow for crop production in seasons when it would otherwise not be feasible due to low outside temperatures. This is especially valuable in regions such as the upper Midwest, an area challenged by a short growing season and a cold, wet spring. High tunnel growers produce simultaneous crops in the same soil year after year, thus soil quality and fertility can be severely impacted. Management practices that incorporate soil fertility building rotations can increase soil quality in these intensive cropping systems. Legume Cover Crops are extraordinary sources of organic matter and fertility and, if well managed, can completely replace external nitrogen fertilizer additions, increase soil organic matter, and increase biological functioning in high tunnel soils. The winter months provide a window of opportunity for cover crop rotations, and some high tunnel produces in northern climates are already successfully using Cover Crops over the winter in their tunnels. This project will increase adoption of winter annual legume cover crop use in high tunnels by identifying species of interest and transferring evidence-based information to growers, including improvements in both soil quality and cash crop productivity.
California Dairy Research Foundation
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CA
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2014
California is home to 1.8 million dairy cattle, over 80 percent of which reside in the states Central Valley, an area rich in agriculture and responsible for nearly 20 percent of the nations milk supply. Central Valley dairy farms produce much of the forage necessary to feed their cows by utilizing manure nutrients to grow crops year-round. Cow manure is an important renewable resource used to fertilize crops, replenish soil nutrients and enhance soil quality. Utilizing manure effectively is paramount to sustainable dairying and agriculture, but has been regulated since 2007. Regulatory requirements include the maintenance and implementation of both waste management and nutrient management plans. The industrys regulatory and environmental success depends on individual dairy producer ability to identify and adopt conservation practices and implement superior nutrient management to protect scarce surface and ground water resources. Multiple potential challenges exist which may prevent full implementation of all aspects of nutrient management and available conservation practices within a given operation. Barriers are most often site-specific and require individual assessment of current systems, equipment and practices to determine optimal farm solutions. This project will develop, field-test and demonstrate the use of an electronically available teaching and learning (eLearning) system as an innovative approach to conservation practice adoption and nutrient management implementation. A proven decision tree support system will be adapted into an eLearning format to enable individual farm nutrient management needs assessment. Its guiding principles will be communicating scientifically-proven yet practical, cost-effective options at various nutrient management system critical control points (decision tree nodes) to assist producers in identifying site-specific solutions for full nutrient management plan implementation.
Okanogan Conservation District
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WA
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2014
A large number of producers across the Inland Northwest are interested in integrating Cover Crops into their winter wheat-summer fallow rotation. Cover Crops have been utilized extensively in the Midwest and the eastern United States, where summer precipitation is prevalent, to build soil organic matter, reduce soil temperature and fertility inputs and improve farm sustainability. Because Cover Crops have not been evaluated in the 8 to 12-inch, non-irrigated rainfall zone, Inland Northwest producers have been hesitant to integrate them into their production systems. Cover Crops in the low rainfall regions have the potential to reduce soil moisture and therefore reduce the yields of the successive crop. Following the recent National Forum on Cover Crops and Soil Health, producers became interested in conducting on-farm demonstrations to improve soil health through Cover Crops. This project will support collaboration with producers to examine the feasibility of planting Cover Crops in the low-rainfall, non-irrigated wheat-fallow region of Washington. By closely monitoring soil moisture and other parameters, producers will gain more information and knowledge on the use and feasibility of Cover Crops in the area and the best way to include Cover Crops in their rotation.
Texas A&M AgriLife Research
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TX
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2014
In semi-arid regions of Texas, the impact of Cover Crops on soil moisture availability is a major concern. These concerns have been partly supported by past research evaluating Cover Crops in the Texas Rolling Plains and Southern High Plains. A comprehensive evaluation and demonstration of the impact of conservation cropping systems could be the very vehicle that drives a more widespread adoption of soil health promoting practices within semi-arid environments. This is especially important in regions that face water quantity issues, which is evident throughout Texas. In order to increase soil carbon and potentially reduce irrigation water requirements, soil health promoting practices such as conservation tillage, Cover Crops and crop rotation must be incorporated. With low adoption of soil health promoting practices and regional water supply issues, demonstration of soil health promoting practices are imperative to the success of future producers and conservation of water resources where deficit irrigation is commonly practiced. This project will incorporate crop rotation and mixed species Cover Crops into long-term conservation tillage systems and demonstrate how soil health promoting practices can improved water use efficiencies under deficit irrigation without compromising crop yields and/or economic returns.
Texas A&M AgriLife Research
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TX
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2014
Wastewater and solids manure handling are two of the most important environmental issues confronting animal production facilities in the U.S. Limited technologies are in place to solve the issue of scarce water resources as well as proper handling of manure that could become a resource for the animal facilities. The main goal of this project is to demonstrate a proven water treatment and recycling technology and a biomass conversion system for electrical power. In addition, nutrient loading will be reduced and the wastewater holding structure will simply become a holding pond with reduced solids loading and hence nutrient loading. Several trainings, workshops, field days and demonstration will be organized and implemented through this project leading up to the final demonstration of the combined water treatment and reuse as well as possible net metering of the power generation output.
Copper River-Ahtna Inter-Tribal Resource Conservation District
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AK
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2014
The Natural Resources Conservation Service has recognized Alaska Native Corporation as agricultural lands and subsistence food production and harvest as an agricultural product. Native private corporate ownership in Alaska is over 44 million acres. This has created a significant number of historically underserved and beginning farmers. In addition, tribal conservation districts are being developed to help serve these landowners in Alaska. Many of the traditional NRCS EQIP and other practices need to be adapted to Alaska and applied in new, innovative ways. In addition, tools such as ecological site descriptions are needed in Alaska to help effectively link NRCS programs and practices with beginning farmers and their unique subsistence resource production issues. This project will develop technical expertise on wildlife, Habitat and forestry and provide advisory services to land managers for two native corporations and eight regional tribes. These activities will help NRCS better serve its primary clientele in Alaska and will help other tribal conservation districts recognize their opportunities to positively support sustainable subsistence food production in their districts.
Winrock International Institute of Agricultural Development
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AR
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2014
Individual farmers have experimented with rotational livestock grazing on Cover Crops across the country, primarily as a means of improving their financial bottom line. The economic gain associated with this innovative enterprise stacking is estimated at $66 per acre, a figure that does not account for productivity gain or reduced nutrient inputs. Combining rotational grazing and multi-species Cover Crops also significantly build soil health, increases water infiltration, reduces erosion and increases the productive capacity of the land. This project will establish and monitor approximately 50-acre, side-by-side control and treatment plots within corn fields on eight farms. Demonstrations will span two full years of cropping/cover cropping. Current management practices will be maintained on control plots. On treatment plots, the project team will work with farmers, first to introduce multi-species Cover Crops and then to strategically release and rotate cattle across the plot, which will graze down and trample the cover. Detailed profit and loss data and soil health and fertility measures on each pair of plots will be collected. All existing analyses indicate this practice will generate more direct revenue than it costs to establish. Over time it will re-build soil health, reducing the need for nutrient inputs, decreasing flooding and erosion, increasing drought tolerance, and ultimately, increasing crop and livestock yields and revenue from a single land base.
Willamette Partnership
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OR
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2014
Floodplains are a source of critical ecosystem services, including flood storage, improved water quality, fish and wildlife Habitat, open space and groundwater recharge. They are also a nexus of regulatory and economic pressures. This project will take the best available science, combined with policy innovations, to create a package that communities and producers can use to better manage floodplains, including marketbased incentives. The Nature Conservancy has built Floodplains by Design, a tool for urban floodplain planning that the City of Portland has effectively implemented in several areas, and that could be adapted to prioritize floodplain restoration opportunities on working lands. The Freshwater Trust is building tools to quantify nutrient and temperature reduction from floodplain restoration on farms, which can be adapted and supplemented with Habitat and other metrics to inform local comprehensive planning. Willamette Partnership has built tools to assessment Habitat functions with U.S. EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that can be adapted to streamline permitting for floodplain conservation practices with farmers and cities. Those same tools can also be used to help farmers and conservation practitioners communicate how restoration benefits their neighbors in cities and can help cities communicate how their practices benefit agriculture downstream. This project will also help NRCS better leverage investments through the Wetland Reserve Program, Floodplain Easement Program, Environmental Incentives Quality Program and other initiatives by coordinating with local, city and county planning agencies and state natural resource agencies to target investments, quantify outcomes and create additional incentives for landowners to participate in these programs and contribute to floodplain health.
Navajo Nation
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AZ
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2014
Many unknowns exist regarding baseline data for natural resources on Native American reservations. Existing technologies to examine and assess wildlife diet are becoming more costly, time-consumptive, and inefficient in their abilities to produce reliable results. This project will help alleviate both issues by introducing a new and innovative technology for assessing wildlife diet for a Native American tribal wildlife resource. The new conservation technology may prove more efficient at producing results for wildlife than the old method, will provide baseline data for the Native American tribal Fish and Wildlife Department, and will provide knowledge that can then be transferred to Native American tribal natural resources personnel for future use in conservation efforts. The main objectives of this study are to 1) use an innovative conservation technology to assess wildlife diet for a socially and economically important natural resource: mule deer, 2) provide baseline wildlife diet data to the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife for said natural resource, 3) compare results from the new diet assessment technique to an older, well used technique and 4) transfer the knowledge from the innovative diet technique to the Navajo Nation Department of Fish and Wildlife for future conservation use.