Christine HallState Resource Conservationist

USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service

United States Department of Agriculture is an equal opportunity provider and employer.

• In the 1920s wheat prices were high and the precipitation was generous. Families looking to cash in moved to Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and other mid-western states.

• These homesteaders turned over 5.2 million acres of fertile prairie grasslands to plant wheat.

• Exposed soil and drought created conditions that caused 850 million tons of topsoil to blow away in just one year (1935).

Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Implements Used on the Farm

From the West to the EastSediment blew across the entire nation. Sediment from the Dust Bowl Region settled on ships as far as 300 miles out in

the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo credits:Dust storm in Dodge City Kansas, 1933http://www.miamisci.org/blog/the-dust-bowl-man-and-nature-cause-and-effect/Dust storm in Hooker, Oklahoma, June 4, 1937. Credit: Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical SocietyLincoln Memorial in dust cloud March 21, 1935: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2010/11/remembering_the_dust_bowl_of_t.html

Our Agency Was Created In Response to The Crisis on the

Plains• As part of Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Soil Erosion Service was created in

1933, and the conservation of soil and water resources became a national priority.

• In 1935 Congress passed Public Law 74-46, in which it recognized that "the wastage of soil and moisture resources on farm, grazing, and forest lands . . . is a menace to the national welfare," and it directed the Secretary of Agriculture to establish the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) as a permanent agency in the USDA.

• In 1994, the Soil Conservation Service was renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service to reflect the broadened environmental concerns of the agency.

South Dakota 1934

Not Just For The History Books

Arizona 2011

Photo Credits:Dust storm in South Dakota, 1934: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/ngp_farm_harrow.htmlDust storm in Phoenix, 2011: http://framework.latimes.com/2011/07/05/phoenix-dust-storm/#/7

A.C.T.

A “systems approach” to address priority natural resource concerns using a selection of practices that address the concept for Avoiding, Controlling, or Trapping pollutants, or “ACT.”

• A (Avoiding): Avoidance helps manage nutrients and sediment source control from agricultural lands, including animal production facilities. Practices help producers avoid pollution by reducing the amount of nutrients available in runoff or leaching into priority water bodies and watersheds.

• C (Controlling): Land treatment in fields or facilities that prevents the loss of pollutants. Many practices such as Cover Crop will also do double duty by helping with Avoidance as well as Controlling.

• T (Trapping): The last line of defense against potential pollutants at edge of field, or in facilities to trap or treat. Practices such as Filter Strips, Riparian Buffers and the suite of wetland practices to enhance and/or restore wetlands all serve to trap and uptake nutrients before entering water bodies.

A.C.T - Control Practices

We can Avoid the application of nutrients

A.C.T - Control Practices

• In 2014 New Jersey NRCS created an initiative focusing on increasing the sustainability and health of our soils.

• Cover Crop is the keystone practice for this initiative

– The cover crops planted must have three or more species from three different groups (cool season grasses, legumes, forbs, warm season grasses).

The New Jersey Soil Health Initiative

Cover Crops

•Warm Season Grass: Millet, Sorghum Sudangrass

•Warm Season Broadleaf: Sunnhemp, Buckwheat, Sunflower

•Cool Season Grass: Annual Ryegrass, Cereal Rye, Oats, Barley, Winter Wheat

•Cool Season Broadleaf: Austrian Winter Pea, Clover, Hairy Vetch, Radish

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2014 NJ Soil Health

Initiative

As a participant in the Soil Health Initiative, the NRCS-NJ Soils Team will establish a baseline condition and continue to perform analyses for the next 3 years to monitor changes in soil health over time.

2014 NJ Soil

Health Initiative

Quick Facts:• Set aside $400,000 and

contracted $356,000 in 2014

• 17 Contracts funded• Aerial seeding attempt

in Central NJ• Continuing for 2015