The Lycoming County Conservation District now has a no-till drill that county farmers can use to plant cover crops this fall.
The drill was delivered Thursday and 13 farmers have signed up to use it to plant about 500 acres of cover crops this year, Conservation District ag conservation technician Chad Bower said Friday during a meeting of the Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Advisory Committee.
The committee met to discuss progress in a countywide effort to meet state and federal pollution reduction standards associated with cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.
According to Bower, the 7-foot-wide drill can plant about 10 acres of cover crops a day. Cover crops can improve the quality of nearby streams by increasing soil compaction and reducing erosion and the nutrient runoff, he said.
The Conservation District would like to see the drill used to plant about 600 acres of cover crops, but 500 acres is a good start, Conservation District Manager Mark Davidson said.
Davidson said the county chose a no-till drill for cover crops, as opposed to a drill for planting corn, because the planting season for cover crops is longer.
"There's a larger window for cover crops compared to corn," he said.
The county recently purchased the drill through a grant provided by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
The foundation also provided funding that will allow the Conservation District to pay farmers a stipend of $25 for each acre of cover crops planted, Bower said. Farmers may plant a maximum of 20 acres with the drill, he said.
Bower said farmers wishing to use the drill may do so by calling the Conservation District and asking for an application. Applications will be ranked according to criteria that includes whether the farmer has a conservation plan in place and whether a stream is near the field where the cover crops will be planted.
The idea is to promote conservation practices that can be used to generate nutrient credits, Bower said.
The county has been working on developing a nutrient credit trading program. The program would allow nutrient credits to be sold to wastewater treatment plants in lieu of physical upgrades needed to comply with bay cleanup standards.
PennVest, the state agency that will act as a clearing house for nutrient credit trading, is still working the kinks out of the program, county Environmental Planner Megan Lehman said.
The agency will hold a "mock auction" Friday that will precede the actual selling of nutrient credits, Lehman said.
The auction will allow the agency to fine tune the program, Lehman said.
