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 691 - 700 of 1802 projects
Environmental Defense Fund, Inc
|
NY
|
2013
Nutrient exports from agricultural landscapes are contributors to hypoxic zones in the Gulf of Mexico, Western Lake Erie Basin and elsewhere. The goal of this project is demonstrate and document how NRCS and partners can design and implement a systems approach to agricultural conservation that builds upon and connects current efforts to achieve greater water quality improvements. The value of organizing conservation efforts at a watershed scale will be demonstrated, as it bridges the field and farm scale of traditional conservation efforts with the community and/or regional scales at which drinking water impairments and downstream hypoxia must be solved. This is a systemic and strategic approach at a larger scale, which is better suited to addressing larger water quality challenges. In addition, by incorporating downstream practices that can improve the storage and management of water, such an approach creates increased resiliency to drought and flood, helping producers cope with climatic variability.
The University of Tennessee
|
TN
|
2013
Cotton, soybean, and corn are the major crops in Tennessee and the Mid-South region. Increasing the competitiveness of these crops in global markets and minimizing the adverse impacts of their production on natural resources and environment remains a big challenge. The objectives of this project are to: 1) demonstrate and quantify the long-term impacts of Cover Crops, crop rotations, and no-tillage systems and their interactions on soil chemical, physical, and biological properties; 2) demonstrate and quantify cover crop relationships with nutrient cycling, soil water availability, and cotton, soybean, and corn productivity; 3) demonstrate and quantify the differences in nutrient and available water holding capacity of soil systems under long-term no-tillage with Cover Crops compared with systems using tillage with no cover crop; and 4) disseminate the results of this project to NRCS, farmers, university extension agents, private consultants, and other interested groups and individuals in Tennessee and other mid-southern states. The long-term goal is to encourage the adoption of conservation management practices and systems to improve soil health, environmental quality, crop productivity, and grower profitability.
American Rivers
|
NV
|
2013
Increasing the area of frequently inundated floodplains is an important element in state and federal plans to restore endangered species and reduce flood risk in the Central Valley of California. Restoring some 100,000 acres of floodplain Habitat is a major focus of these efforts because of the demonstrated benefit for juvenile salmon and the other ecosystem services that floodplains provide, including flood attenuation, nutrient cycling, groundwater recharge, and Habitat for other fish species. Collaboration with private landowners is essential to achieving the massive restoration goals of these state and federal plans. Establishment of a market, called the Central Valley Habitat Exchange, will provide a mechanism to compensate growers and ranchers for land stewardship activities that create quantifiable floodplain Habitat benefits. The model and practices developed by this Exchange will be broadly applicable to floodplains and agricultural lands across the United States.
Women, Food and Agriculture Network
|
IA
|
2013
Women now own or co-own 50 percent of the farmland in Iowa, and the percentage of those who are sole landowners is rising as they inherit land from spouses and fathers. Comparable data are not available in neighboring states, but similar demographics and agricultural systems are present. A typical Midwestern female farmland owner is 65 and older, leases farmland to a tenant, and is highly interested in conservation and preserving her farm for the next generation. Women, Food and Agriculture Network has been working with Midwest women farmland owners for 16 years. The project goal is to improve soil health across seven states in the upper Midwest by increasing soil health literacy among area women farmland owners, and supporting their efforts to improve soil health on the land they own and lease. The women landowners will learn the basics of what constitutes healthy soil, some simple soil testing methods, and best management practices to support healthy soil that they can discuss and adopt with their tenants. A set of publications for women farmland owners about managing for healthy soil will also be developed in consultation with an advisory group of women farmland owners.
U. S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities
|
SC
|
2013
Forestland in the Southeastern U.S. is threatened by alternative land uses and historically underserved landowners are in some cases losing ownership of historic rural family land. Through introduction of new forestry technologies, creation of comprehensive systems of land owner outreach and support, increased access to Farm Bill programs such as those administered by NRCS, and increased access to traditional and emerging forest products markets, the project will restore, enhance, and conserve privately-owned African American forestland in the southern U. S. Well-managed forests increase income, asset value, and long-term land retention. Land returned to healthy forests will also have beneficial conservation and environmental impacts.
University of Georgia
|
GA
|
2013
The current inability to develop credible, accurate nutrient budgets when using Cover Crops in a rotation limits adoption and use of Cover Crops, resulting in continued soil health degradation and excessive fertilization/water quality impacts. This project will demonstrate the effectiveness of a new tool (MinImob) to manage nitrogen from Cover Crops. MinImob calculates how much nitrogen should be available based on soil type and other localized parameters. Demonstrations will be established at five farms over two years. The benefits of using Minlmob will be transferred and communicated to producers using factsheets, field days, workshops, newsletters, and websites.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
|
VA
|
2013
The Chesapeake Bay and its watershed have been the focus of much public attention and substantial conservation efforts. However, despite four decades of efforts to reduce non-point source nutrient pollution, excess nutrient delivery continues to persist in many parts of the watershed. Controlling nutrient loss from artificially drained agricultural lands on the Atlantic Coastal Plain requires a comprehensive approach that includes field and drainage management practices to address production and water quality concerns. This project seeks to integrate field and drainage management practices to develop, demonstrate and test a comprehensive approach to drainage management that can be readily adopted by producers on the Coastal Plain. Working closely with conservation personnel and producers, comprehensive drainage/ditch management systems will be installed and effectiveness demonstrated on the Coastal Plain of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Technologies to be incorporated include gypsum curtains, biofilter curtains, biofilter reactors, active drainage management, and low-disturbance ditch maintenance practices. These field activities will be closely coupled with educational activities aimed at producers, drainage districts and conservation personnel. Feedback from producers, drainage districts and conservation personnel will be used to adjust the practice development and implementation.
North Carolina State University
|
NC
|
2013
Nitrogen management on corn silage and grain acres is costly and risky for producers. Inefficient crop nitrogen use limits yield and results in increased water and air pollution. Nitrogen application is generally the largest fossil fuel input on corn grain acres. Excessive nitrate levels in groundwater and nitrogen-induced hypoxia in estuarine areas from agricultural sources are persistent concerns for human and ecosystem health. Nitrous oxide lost from soil, which traps about 300 times more heat per molecule than CO2, constitutes agriculture’s largest global warming source. As the largest user of nitrogen fertilizer, corn production is the principal contributor to these problems from cropping systems. The primary project objectives are threefold: 1) to improve the accuracy and value of NRCS nutrient management investments through the 590 Standard in NC by updating the data upon which recommendations for nitrogen (N) rates are made--the realistic yield expectation (RYE) table for corn; 2) to determine whether Adapt-N, an in-season tool developed in the Northeast United States, can be used to make improved corn N-rate recommendations in the South and thereby reduce N loss to the environment; 3) to provide expanded corn N-rate information to the Multistate Coordination Committee and Information Exchange Group, NEERA-1002 (Adaptive Management for Improved Nutrient Management), as the group moves towards its vision of developing a national database that will use meta-data analysis to increase the reliability of N-rate recommendations for corn
Iowa State University of Science and Technology
|
IA
|
2013
Research shows that Iowa contributes 10 to 17 percent of nitrogen and 5 to 10 percent of phosphorus delivery to the Gulf of Mexico. The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy’s science assessment has indicated Cover Crops have the potential to mitigate nitrate-nitrogen losses by up to 31 percent as the living Cover Crops will readily take up residual fertilizer nitrogen and mineralized soil nitrogen between maturity and planting of cash crops. Cover Crops also have the potential to reduce phosphorus export by up to 29 percent through reduced soil erosion. This project will demonstrate and evaluate cover crop mixtures using emerging technologies and implement on 15 demonstration sites throughout Iowa; identify and address cover crop establishment and management challenges to help farmers achieve concurrent goals of a healthy ecosystem and maintaining top-end cash grain crop yields and profitability; and educate extension and outreach specialists, state and federal agency field staff, crop consultants and farmers about the soil and water quality benefits of Cover Crops.
North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation, Inc.
|
NC
|
2013
This project will focus on the development of a Habitat exchange system framework for wildlife species mitigation at an ecosystem level with an emphasis on market-based conservation and Certainty Program models within the traditional range of the longleaf pine ecosystem in eastern North Carolina. The integration of these approaches will present a substantial innovation in the delivery of wildlife Habitat conservation on a landscape scale and provide a pilot model approach that can be expanded and replicated regionally within the ecosystem and nationally to address other ecosystem needs.