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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

ISU Researchers Recommend Targeting Scarce Conservation Dollars

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Friday, April 24, 2009   

Des Moines, IA – A team of Iowa State University researchers has developed a new model for using agricultural land to the benefit of the environment. The approach assumes that not all land is "created equal" when the goals are cleaning up ground water and reducing soil erosion.

Researcher Lisa Schulte-Moore, Ph.D, says her team's work shows that conservation practices can be strategically targeted to specific portions of land to yield large improvements in environmental quality, while causing only small changes in overall agriculture production. The plan, she says, would result in spending the available conservation funding in a more-targeted way, yielding higher results for the environment, and financial benefits for the farmer as well.

"In this economic climate, we don’t want to refuse funding to anyone, but what we would try to do is provide those with the most sensitive areas with the most incentive to enroll their lands in those programs."

The programs could include planting cellulosic plants such as switchgrass in certain areas, says Shulte-Moore, thereby producing both a source of bioenergy and a species that is better at sustaining soil and water resources than row crops.

Some parts of the agricultural landscape are more in-need of environmental improvement than others, she adds, so it's worth rethinking some conservation practices, such as buffer strips.

"Instead of the typical 100-foot buffer in some areas, maybe the buffer only needs to be 30 feet. Whereas, in areas that are receiving the most water, we may want a 300-foot buffer."

The research shows a new targeted approach could potentially open land now only used for cash crops to other types of money-producing uses, including providing year-round cover for plant and animal diversity, which could allow hunting leases. Perennial crops, such as switchgrass and trees could allow a producer to participate in the emerging carbon markets, while niche markets exist for medicinal and culinary herbs, ornamental stems, mushrooms and fruit.

The report, A Targeted Conservation Approach for Improving Environmental Quality, is available at www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PMR1002.pdf.






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