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Lovelock Shows Some Love For Soil Health: A Cover Crop Story video - Duration: 8:10.
[intro music] >> NARRATION
In the West, water is precious. In Nevada, the last several years of drought severely
affected what farmers and ranchers produced. About 100 miles northeast of Reno lies Lovelock,
Nevada. Formerly a stop for settlers on their way to California, and later a train depot,
the town's economy remains based on farming, mining and some tourism. While almost all
of Nevada's counties had been designated as drought disaster areas, this valley, which
flood irrigates its fields, has been hardest hit.
When fields go fallow, it's not only devastating to landowners, it's devastating to the land.
At NRCS, we are here to help landowners find solutions, and Lovelock is a great example.
Christie, the NRCS district conservationist in Lovelock, reached out to landowners to
offer assistance by way of cover crops. Cover crops are grasses, legumes and forbs
planted for seasonal vegetative cover. At NRCS, this practice is applied to support
one or more of the following purposes: -Reduce erosion from wind and water
-Maintain or increase soil health and organic matter content
-Reduce water quality degradation by utilizing excessive soil nutrients
-Suppress excessive weed pressures and break pest cycles
-Improve soil moisture use efficiency -Minimize soil compaction
>>CHRISTIE Last Fall, Ronnie came in and he was concerned.
He had a bunch of fields, due to the drought, that were at risk of blowing and he wanted
to incorporate some fertilizer and manure into his soils, but he didn't want to be in
non-compliance with his HEL, so he asked me if there is anything he could do through us,
or that would help with that. So, I took it to our state office, and kind of worked with
our agronomist and different people there to see what possibly we could help these guys
with that had been affected by so many years of drought And in talking with them, we thought
cover crop might be a good viable option and just look at it as if it was a dryland cover
crop. Because we don't know if or when we'd get water again. I talked with Ronnie about it
and it kinda went from there.
>>RONNIE
We're all flood irrigation, so precipitation doesn't really mean a lot to us unless we
can irrigate it. Snowpack's everything for us and storage in the reservoir and streamflow. In 2013, producers had 0.3 acre feet irrigation allocation. In 2014 and 2015, it was zero. And in 2016 it was 1 acre foot.
Over that time period, the alfalfa stands have died, and the plant counts were thinning,
and we were looking for something to hold the soil in place.
I just wanted to keep the soil intact. We have some NRCS contracts and we have to stay
in compliance with highly erodible lands, and with plant counts diminishing, we needed
something, so planting wheat was just an obvious decision.
I told her what I was thinking of doing, wanting to plant some wheat in the fall, hoping that
we would get some fall moisture to bring it up so that we wouldn't have the soil erosion
problems and she looked into this program and said it was available.
>>CHRISTIE We decided to do winter wheat. It's a common
crop grown here in the valley as part of a rotation. With Ronnie we did a little under
1200 acres total and then I had a couple of other people decide to do some also.
[Risk vs. Reward] >>RONNIE
I mean, risk, you're just spending money. I mean, you're going out planting it, hoping
that it comes up. I mean, there's a risk in farming so, that's what it is. But we needed
to try to do something after three years with no irrigation on most of these fields. . . they're
just gonna blow away. >>CHRISTIE
Well at first, it is a big risk, because you don't know. You're gambling on whether you're
going to get that moisture or not and have the plants germinate, and we were fortunate
we got that moisture and it all started sprouting. >>RONNIE
We're happy. It actually germinated late October, first part of November. We've had the ground
covered since then, since early December anyway, so we haven't had any issues and it's green.
It's a lot better than looking at dirt, like what we've had the last three years. I'm really
impressed and happy that we did it. >>NARRATION
What do several years of drought and blowing fields look like here in Nevada? Albert Mulder,
State Agronomist for NRCS Nevada will show you.
>>ALBERT We're sitting here on the edge of a field
that hasn't been irrigated for the last four years, going on five years. As we see, the
upper field-you can see bigger aggregates on top and the finer sand starting to move
across the field and build up on the edges of the fields. We're starting to see some winds. The wind is starting to move and there's a little bit of residue.
These fields are ideal for some kind of cover. We would like to have 30% residue cover on
these fields. And if we hit it at the right time, in the Fall, put in like a winter wheat,
we were able to catch some of that winter moisture, even though Nevada has a really
low precip, we're trying to get some kind of growth out here. As you can see, the soil
is starting to move around. >>NARRATION
Bob Gibson also lives and farms in Lovelock and was running into the same issue of soil
erosion. >>Bob Gibson
I've been farming in Lovelock Nevada for 53 years. We usually grow wheat, or wheat hay,
alfalfa and alfalfa seed, that's 90% of my crops.
You have to get a little bit ahead to get some of your ground ready to do other things
when you do get water because there's no way you can do all that work at one time, so we
were doing some plowing and ripping and lasering and we decided to plant some wheat for a cover
crop for ourself just so the ground didn't blow and we had problems with the dust, so
then the planning became available through the NRCS and I heard about it, and so I talked
at the county office level here. They told me what it consisted of and that's how I signed
up for it. >>NARRATION
So did it work for Bob, too? Was NRCS 2 for 2 in the gamble for cover crops to work?
>>Bob Gibson I thought it might work if we got the moisture
but it depends all on the moisture; I mean, if you don't have enough moisture it's not
gonna work, but we were lucky last year. It did work.
About 10 days ago, we had a huge dust storm of like 60-70 mile an hour winds and these
fields did not blow where we had the plantings in.
>>CHRISTIE It was a super exciting feeling. I wanted
to do a little happy dance just because it worked. The risk paid off for these guys and
we helped them do something that will benefit their farm, kinda help combat this drought
a little bit. >>CLOSING NARRATION:
Do your fields resemble the one Albert was talking about? Do you battle soil erosion
and want to try to combat it, while maintaining your HEL compliance? Maintaining soil health
is the key to fostering more productive, profitable and sustainable farms and ranches-and cover
crops is one way to get there. So, stop by your local NRCS office to talk about it, or
visit our website at: www.nv.nrcs.usda.gov
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