PROGRAM INFORMATION

EQIP, WHIP, WRP, CREP, CONTINUOUS CRP and SAFE:  Applications for funding assistance or annual payments can be taken at your local USDA Service Center.  The cutoff date for signing up for 2009 EQIP dollars is Oct. 1, 2008.  WHIP and WRP also have an Oct. 1 cutoff date.

NSWCP: Applications for cost-share assistance can be taken any time at your local NRCS office.  Flow meter and non-irrigation applications are reviewed monthly for approval.  Irrigation applications are reviewed in September, December, February and May.  Flow meters cost-shared through NSWCP are required to read in acre-inches and cannot have a resettable totalizer.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Sept. 2: CNPPID Board of Directors meeting, 9 AM
Sept. 3: Irrigation and Energy Conservation Field Day. Link to http://events.unl.edu/ianr/2008/9/3/
Sept. 9: TBNRD Board of Directors meeting, 7:30 PM
Sept. 9-11: Husker Harvest Days.  Link to Husker Harvest Days.
Sept. 18: Improving Crop Water Productivity Conference.  Link to CropWatch.

Take No-Till Further with Cover Crops!

Why cover crops?  Don't you want to save the moisture?  Why waste time and additional money?  Here's why.

1.  To protect soil from wind and water erosion.

2.  To capture deep nitrogen before it leaches out of the root zone and becomes unavailable to the crop.  This captured nitrogen is stored in the cover crop residue and is released to the crop as the residue decomposes.

3.  To fix nitrogen with a legume cover crop to be utilized by the following year's crop.

4.  To increase water infiltration by creating new cavities, especially from larger-rooted cover crops.

5.  To provide additional grazing opportunities for livestock.

6.  To preserve moisture later by creating a cover that will prevent soil evaporation.  Especially important when cutting silage or removing stover.

7.  To increase the overall soil health.  This is done by keeping the soil alive with microbial activity.  If nothing is growing, the soil becomes "dead."

8.  To utilize moisture that would normally be lost beyond the root zone, thus protecting soil from erosion, capturing nitrogen, fixing nitrogen, increasing infiltration for those large rain events, providing grazing, and improving the overall health of the soil.

If you have questions about cover crops or no-till in general, you can contact Dan Gillespie, NRCS no-till specialist, at 402-675-2745 or at daniel.gillespie@ne.usda.gov.

ACROSS THE TRI-BASIN NRD

Subsurface Drip Irrigation, Part 1:  Cost-Share

It seems like there has been more interest in subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) lately.  I want to answer the main question I hear:  Is cost-share available?  I know of three programs that offer cost-share:  EQIP, Energy Efficiency Grant, and NSWCP.

EQIP:  In the Tri-Basin NRD, the local work group has kept gravity conversions to pivots as the highest priority.  This doesn't mean SDI is not eligible.  It means that it doesn't rank as high.  How it plays out depends on how many applications we have, what kind of applications and how much money we get.  Bottom line is it never hurts to apply.  Once your application is on file, it remains on file and is ranked each year.  You can sign an application at your local NRCS office.

Energy Efficiency Grant:  This is a grant that cost-shares 25% of the system and other eligible components.  They will start taking applications for 2009 dollars later this fall/winter.  This grant is through USDA Rural Development out of Kearney.  The contact phone number is 308-237-3118, ext. 4.

NSWCP:  In the Tri-Basin NRD, cost-share is 50%, not to exceed a county average.  Maximum cost-share is limited to $3,500 ($7,000 project).  Other NRDs may be set up differently.  Sign up at your local NRCS office.

Stage of Growth:

Corn (Beginning dent to full dent stage):  Corn roots can be taking water from the third and fourth foot of the root zone unless other factors such as compaction have prohibited roots from reaching these depths.  Full dent is when the milk line is halfway down the kernal.  At full dent, corn starts using less water and it takes about 2.25 inches to carry it through to maturity.

Soybeans (beginning seed (R5) to full seed (R6) stage): Soybeans still need water at these stages.  They can be taking water from the third and fourth foot of the root zone, provided no other factors limited root growth.  At full seed, soybeans need 3.5 inches of water to reach maturity.

Irrigation:

Depending on whether or not you caught some rains, irrigating corn is pretty much done for 2008.  CNPPID was done delivering water as of Aug. 26.  Pipe is pulled apart on gravity systems with corn.  Soybeans are still needing water.  Depending upon the crop stage and moisture in the profile, hopefully more rain can end irrigation on soybeans as well.

Using the atmometers over the last week, corn and soybeans have been using 0.14 to 0.18 inches of water per day.

Lake McConaughy is at 33.2% capacity versus 25.9% a year ago. Inflows to Lake McConaughy are 675 cfs compared with 720 cfs a year ago.  Flows in the South Platte River at North Platte are 106 cfs compared with 141 a year ago.  You can track these flows on Central's web site.

Rainfall:
The following rainfall amounts (inches) come from NeRAIN which can be found at NeRAIN.

Nebraska Water Management Demonstration Network (NAWMDN) Crop ET Information
Additional atmometer sites and Weather Station Data can be found on CNPPID's website

Inches of Crop Water Use (ET) = Evaporation x Kc

Crop Coefficients (Kc)

Additional ET Information Sites:

Nebraska Water Management Demonstration Network (NAWMDN) Sites
KRVN radio broadcasts
KRVN.com
Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District
Water Use Hotline: 1-800-993-2507

Check out these web sites:

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish philosopher, statesman

If you would like to receive this newsletter via e-mail, or have any questions, comments or ideas, feel free to contact Curtis Scheele at the NRCS office in Holdrege or your local NRCS office at the addresses or phone numbers listed below.

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