Bobwhite Restoration Project
My colleagues just completed a multi-state northern bobwhite research initiative. The final report was just published by NRCS and is available online. It summarizes a suite of research projects that will improve conservation on farms. A quote from the Foreward should pique your interest – “You will find clear, concise recommendations and the kind of conservation practices to use on your farm or recommend to others for quail restoration. Much of the bobwhite’s needs are supported by farm bill programs approved by Congress and administered by USDA NRCS.” – L. Pete Heard
Flooded Fields for Birds
National Geographic features “Walking Wetlands” – flooded fields for shorebirds. This has been used for waterfowl in the Mississippi Delta for a long time.
Agriculture and Aquaculture – Chesapeake Bay Videos
Here is a great 3-part series from Terra about agriculture, aquaculture, land development and sustainability in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Disappearing Catch
Farming Forward
Chesapeake Gold
Urban Agriculture II
Another article about the Slow Food movement in Detroit and elsewhere. Having lived in Michigan for a long time, I think this has exciting promise for revitalizing the state’s hurting urban areas. As a wildlife biologist, I can’t help thinking about the potential for urban farming for conserving wildlife diversity. Can it alleviate the pressure to convert natural habitats to farmland? Can it help support biodiveristy in urban areas? Pollinators? Birds even? My research (and lifestyle) are outside the urban farming realm, but I hope someone answers these questions.
Here is another link to Vertical Farming. Below is a video from Urban Farming about this phenomenon.
Urban Agriculture
Lands around airports represent valuable land that can be managed to support agriculture and/or conservation. Two examples below:
The “Garden Boys” farm plots around a major airport – from CNN.
Butterflies protected and thriving at LAX – from the Epoch Times.
How many bee species in New York City?
227 in New York City!! Maybe there is hope for an agricultural urban Detroit.
Web Soil Survey
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has a new web-based soil survey. I quickly was able to define an “Area of Interest” and produce both a soils map and access information about the soil types (RUSLE information, building suitability, flooding potential, etc.). Once you have the soil map for your farm, you can go to NRCS’s new soil rental rate site (which I reviewed earlier) and enroll in Farm Bill conservation programs. NRCS is doing some nice work with their web-based technical tools lately.
Farmer as Conservationist
Premonition of the Farm Bill’s conservation programs ?
“Most of what needs doing must be done by the farmer himself. There is no conceivable way by which the general public can legislate crabapples, or grape tangles, or plum thickets to grow up on these barren fencerows, roadsides, and slopes, nor will the resolutions or prayers of a city change the depth of next winter’s snow nor cause cornshocks to be left in the fields to feed the birds. All the non-farming public can do is to provide information and build incentives on which farmers may act. “
- Aldo Leopold, 1993 as cited by C. Meine in The Farmer as Conservationist: Leopold on Agriculture.
National Pollinator Week
June 22-27, 2009 is National Pollinator Week to recognize the importance of pollinators to our food system. The Pollinator Partnership and US Fish & Wildlife Service both have lots of resources about pollinators in recognition of this week.
Here are two videos for this week.
One about the problems pollinators face:
And one about what NRCS is doing and can do to help:
Establishing Native Grasses and Forbs
A new research advance entitled “Evaluating Pre-emergence Herbicides for Establishing Native Grasses and Forbs” from Mississippi State’s Forest and Wildlife Research Center. And yes, it’s a shameless plug for my own research.
