07.23.2014 NW HUB TELECONFERENCE NOTES

NE REGIONAL HUB TEAM TELECONFERENCE

July 23, 2014

Present:

/ Lisa Holscher, IASWCD / CCSI
Geneva Rawlins, ISDA
Susannah Hinds, NRCS
Marc McCauley, Hamilton SWCD
Notes by: / Lisa Holscher

Sampling

Temperature and Soil Moisture only for soybean fields.

Take about the time corn is tasseling

Don’t worry if don’t have pH meter for moisture. Don’t worry about moisture if moisture probes are installed as part of CCSI-CIG grant.

Workshops

Seed Corn Production

  • Might be good to target GROWER meetings
  • Suggest that staff attend Becknology Days. Sometimes SWCD / Field Office staff gives presentations – ex no-till/conventional till side by side research
  • Most stops are on shuttles.
  • No Cost
  • About 7000 people attend each year
  • Don’t have to agree with all of the content, but it is good to know what is being “preached”
  • See if can coordinate through Hubs + Barry and Hans to reach out to local agronomists. First step is contacting the field and regional agronomists for the various companies

Becknology Days / Specialty Crops

  • For specialty crops in general, need to target companies and agronomists
  • Becks would be open to doing soil health “studies” – especially if see differences
  • Bottom line, have to show the importance to customers – Mark & Co were able to show the differences in biology and infiltration
  • In a meeting last winter, Sonny Beck was talking about conservation, the differences he saw in fence rows vs fields.
  • Always WANT to do something new. Won’t do the same presentation over 2 years in a row.
  • Think long-term soil productivity and soil health

Hoop Houses
Make sure to forward details to DCs so they can forward information to EQIP High Tunnel growers.

Presentation Training

  • Do it again!
  • At least 2 trainings next year. One North and one South
  • Probably will never have enough trainings to reach everyone who needs it.
  • May not be a big concern on timing. Depends on who is targeted to attend. It will depend on the individual’s ability to attend
  • Geneva did Doodle Poll on best time for partnership meetings. November came out on top.

Tile / Nutrient Loading

  • Consider outreach on tile/nutrient loading – Eileen’s work at Rulon’s, etc
  • For watershed coordinators, make sure give personal invitation. Perhaps go through chairman of district. Do see IDEM program coordinators at events, but not watershed coordinators.

Student Outreach

  • Potential is out there. IN has one of highest densities of colleges – has to relate to high schools, too.
  • Hamilton County –3 schools have ag leaders with FFA groups. Have tried to reach out to them. Some have allowed Mark McCauley to give presentations. One of talks he gave was about careers.
  • Maybe we could do a break-out session at FFA National Convention? It will be in Indiana 2016-18

Landowners

  • Susannah Hinds is regularly hearing questions about how to reach private landowners.
  • Can we do something through SARE?
  • Also think about contacting Mike Baise with American Farmland Trust
  • Biggest struggle is how to find the landowners… need to find out who is already talking w/ landowners and go through them.
  • Female Landowners event may already be in the works. Had one this year – more discussion than presentation. Some attendees were farmers, some farm wives who wanted to be more involved in the operation, some widows who hadn’t been involved in the farm – and didn’t know what questions to ask.
  • Find out from farmers what message should be to landowners. Perhaps DeSutter or Rulon would be good sources for the message. Ken talked about landowner messaging at the NACD tour.

County / State Fair Outreach

  • As everyone wraps up fairs, could put out poll from SWCDs on what they did and the effectiveness of the outreach.