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Wednesday,
January 16, 2008
Contact: DeeDee Sigler, Communications
Manager, 317.692.7374
INDIANA ASSOCIATION OF SOIL AND
WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICTS
President: Jim Droege,
Posey Co.
Vice President: Paula Baldwin,
Marion Co.
Secretary: Jon Roberts:
Kosciusko Co.
Treasurer: Jeff Meinders, Ripley Co.
REGION
DIRECTORS:
Board Roster / Region Map
North-Northwest: Larry
Strole, Newton Co.
South-Northwest: Kenny Cain,
Montgomery Co.
North-Northeast: Lyle Burtsfield,
Elkhart Co.
South-Northeast: Bobby Hettmansperger,
Wabash Co.
North-Southwest: Charley
Hendricks, Vigo Co.
South-Southwest: Ray McCormick,
Knox Co.
North-Southeast: Brad Dawson,
Dearborn Co.
South-Southeast: Brad Ponsler,
Jennings Co.
IASWCD STAFF:
Executive Director: Jennifer
Boyle, 317.692.7519
Watershed Information Specialist: Elizabeth Trybula,
317.692.7514
Communications Manager: DeeDee
Sigler, 317.692.7374
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News
Release from the Indiana
Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts
The Power of Conservation Highlighted at 2008 Awards Banquet
Indianapolis – The Power of Conservation was evident as Indiana farmers were honored in Indianapolis last night at the 65th Annual Conference for Indiana Soil and Water Conservation Districts being held at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown.
Five Indiana producers received the 2007 Conservation Farmer of the Year Award. The award is presented to producers who actively practice conservation on the land. It is sponsored by the Indiana Farm Bureau, Inc. and the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts (IASWCD.
 2007 State Conservation Farmer of the Year recipients from the left: Dale E. Moore, Randolph County; Paul & Cindy Giles, Spencer County; Bob Kraft, Indiana Farm Bureau, Inc., award sponsor; Brian & Randy Weisheit, Dubois County; Albert Armand, Decatur County; and Dean & Kathy Rink, Elkhart County.
The Conservation Farmer of the Year winners are:
- V. Albert Armand, Decatur County
Albert and Diane have three children, all of whom are very involved in the farming operation. They take pride in the appearance of their farms. They aggressively control weeds, mow roadsides, maintain houses, buildings and fences in good repair and address runoff issues.
The Armand’s are an excellent example of a strong family farming operation. Albert’s father, George, taught him how to raise crops and livestock, as well as the importance of family and wise financial decisions. The Armand's have attended numerous District-sponsored field days and workshops; IASWCD Annual Conferences; IASWCD Regional Association meetings; many other events related to conservation over the last 20 years.
They actively promote USDA and state conservation program opportunities by participating in EQIP, CRP and LARE. Albert has served as a SWCD board member, and as a district representative to the Sand Creek Watershed Steering Committee, among many conservation-related activities.
- Paul and Cindy Giles, Spencer
Conservation tillage and this Gentryville, Indiana, farm is an excellent fit. The Giles have used reduced conservation tillage since Paul took over the family farm in 30 years ago. He went to no-till in 1984 and continues the practice today. Some of the rented ground has been in no-till for 53 years.
Giles has used diversions, up land wildlife habitat borders, filter strips, tree planting, shallow water habitats, use exclusion, wetland restoration programs, pest management, nutrient management, conservation tillage, crop rotations and cover crops.
The Giles’ want to keep their family tradition of farming with conservation in mind. Paul continues to add new practices every year in the vision of conservation. He has served his SWCD as a past Chair,Vice chair, and Associate Supervisor, among many community activities.
- Dale E. Moore, Randolph County
Dale and his wife, Peggy, live in Greensfork Township in Randolph County. They own 300-plus acres and farm over 350 acres, with 77 acres in woodlands. Moore has a corn, soybean and pasture rotation. He has been no-till farming since 1991. He installed three acres of filter strips, 1,600 feet of grassed waterways, two grade stabilization structures, and 3,500 feet of open ditch. Over the years he has installed 75,000 feet of tile.
Moore practices good land stewardship and maintains his farms appearance. As with most farms, we have buildings to repair and paint, weeds to mow and improvements to make. Conservation practices are maintained. It is his hope to make the farm better when he is finished with it than when he began farming it. He was a SWCD Supervisor for several years. He was on the school board for Randolph Southern for 12 years. In 1980 he was president of the Indiana Land Improvement Contractors Association, and then served as regional vice president for the National Land Improvement Contractors Association.
- Dean Rink, Elkhart County
Dean and his wife, Kathy, Goshen, have raised a family and farmed the Centennial Farm that has been in the Rink family for generations. Kathy plants over 5,000 flowers yearly around the house and barns. Fence rows and roadside ditches are mowed regularly. Filter strips and grassed waterways have been installed where needed to maintain ditch banks and protect streams and ditches from sedimentation and pollutants.
While most of his acreage and rented cropland consists of gently rolling slopes, resulting in 1-3 tons per acre per year over T (for tolerable), Dean has still chosen to adopt no-till on 100% of his crop ground. Rink installed his first grassed waterway sometime around 1997-98, and has since installed waterways in every area of concentrated flow to control erosion and sedimentation into the many miles of ditches that flow through his property and the rented properties he maintains.
- Brian and Randy Weisheit, Dubois County
The Weisheit Bros. Farm has been in the family for six generations, and has been designated as a Hoosier Homestead farm. Randy and Brian have worked for many years to address the resource concerns on their farm and are near to completing several ongoing projects. The Weisheit Brothers’ farm has sheet and rill erosion on some of the sloping land. These acres are worked by using conservation tillage methods that leaves the residue on top for erosion control.
Grassed waterways and water and sediment control basins (WASCOBS) have been installed where needed to control erosion. Some highly erodible areas are devoted to trees, pasture and hay to control the soil loss. The acres on this farm operation are all below the soil tolerance levels for each soil type.
 2007 Master Farm Conservationists of the Year Recipients (from the left): Tom Bechman, Indiana Prairie Farmer Magazine, award sponsor; Jerry Risk, Tippecanoe County; John (seated) and Anna McCall, Daviess County; Dr. Michael Loudon (son) and Mrs. Margie Loudon representing Carman Loudon, Harrison County (honored posthumously); Clarence Buechler, Dubois County; and Don Berger, Wayne County.Five
2007 Master Farm Conservationists of the Year also proved that the power of conservation is strong in Indiana. This award is a lifetime achievement honor for men and women who have dedicated their farming careers to preserving and protecting Indiana’s natural resources. The award is sponsored by Indiana Prairie Farmer Magazine. Winners in this category are:
- Don Berger, Wayne County
In 1977 Don Berger started his farming and dairy operation in Wayne County. In 1994, Berger began using a rotational grazing plan and by 1998 had established paddocks and an improved watering system. He also worked with NRCS to install an animal waste system on the farm due to control run-off from his animal feed lots. Berger has taken extra precautions to keep the river along the perimeter of his property clean. By converting cropland from conventional planting methods to no-till methods, he has been able to meet "T" levels.
His conservation farming practices including nine acres of riparian forest buffer plantings, grassed waterways, and a wetland animal waste system which has effectively reduced surface and ground water pollution. A Wetland Animal Waste System was installed on the Berger Farm in 1998 to collect run-off coming from the barns and feedlots. This two-tiered system design has been effective in reducing contaminates entering the river alongside the farm. Due to this and other conservation practices listed above, Berger received the Indiana River Friendly Farmer Award in 2004.
- Clarence Buechler, Dubois County
Buechler has been no-tilling his crops for the last 32 years. Most of this farm was converted to pasture and hay land over 50 years ago because of severe gully erosion on some fields. Only three fields are cropped on the farm now, and they are no-tilled with a rotation of corn and soybeans. Buechler applied five Water and Sediment Control Basins in 2000. Since then he completed 12 additional WASCOBs in 2005 on his hay and pasture fields to control erosion and water run-off.
Under a 2004 EQIP plan, he also completed over 11,500 feet of tile; 4,600 feet of fencing; two waste storage facility buildings; a one-acre grassed waterways; two watering facilities; 13 acres of pasture and hay land planting; a grade stabilization structure; 1,200 feet water line; and a one-acre riparian buffer. Buechler markets 30,000 turkeys a year and raises 300,000 layer hens for local egg producers. The manure from the poultry operation is all given to local farmers. This practice reduces the potential for excessive nutrient runoff and the resulting contamination of the water resources by distributing the manure over a larger crop area.
The decision to permanently convert the hill ground to pasture many years ago created an established sod layer that has effectively stopped the erosion from the most highly erodible parts of the farm. Further, the utilization of practices such as water and sediment control basins and waterways protects the soil and controls the flow and rate of water moving across the surface.
- Carman Loudon, Harrison County (honored posthumously)
Carman Loudon utilized soil and water conservation on his farm before it was “his” farm. His father and uncle discontinued mold-board plowing and row cropping in the early 1960s. The farms were divided into eight to 10-acre tracts for crop rotation, typically corn/wheat/clover rotation. Both farms had cattle run on permanent pasture.
In the mid-80s he combined his father and uncle’s two farms and became the fifth generation to farm here. He moved to the farm in 1980, retired in 1993 to farm full time. Loudon’s first conservation project was planting 1,500 scotch pine trees on a highly eroded former pasture field.
The cattle operation at that time consisted of purchased feeder cattle in the spring, selling in the fall. Soil conservation is relatively easy with cattle when properly managed. The 100 acres of open land on the Loudon farm consists of many soil types. The farm has many acres of classified forest. Loudon started a program of selective harvesting.
- John Mc Call, Daviess County
The McCall farm based on four different tracts of land covering many different soil types. McCall began installing Berms/Contours as early as 1945. A total of 24 WASCOBS were installed from 1959 through 1963 and are still maintained. Several acres of tile have been installed throughout the years beginning in the late 1940s. A crop rotation of corn/corn/beans and corn/corn/wheat/beans was implemented when he began farming. He began no-tilling in 1985 and a majority of the farm is still no-tilled today.
A portion of the McCall farm was mined for coal, so McCall worked very closely with the mine reclamation team to ensure the soils were removed and put back in a proper manner. New contour terraces were installed during the reclamation process. Subsurface drainage has been installed, further aiding in stabilizing the soil and reducing erosion. The McCall farm is closely observed for neighboring mine reclamation work by the coal industry, as well as by fellow farmers and conservation agencies. He is regionally recognized for his work in revitalizing mined soils to achieve maximum soil quality and crop yields.
- Jerry Risk, Tippecanoe County
In the 1960s Risk utilized the help of the (then) Soil Conservation Service to develop a plan to eliminate gullies and sheet/rill erosion that had taken its toll on the farm. He utilized conservation tillage, grassed waterways and planted permanent grass on some severely eroded slopes. In the 1980s, He purchased a farm in Tippecanoe County that was in very poor condition. A dead-end road in the middle of the tract was a popular place to dump trash. After cleaning up trash and clearing fence rows, Risk concentrated his efforts on eliminating deep gullies and sheet and rill erosion. He began no-tilling this farm in the early 1990s and installed contour grass strips.
A management plan was developed for a 21-acre woods now designated a classified forest. In the 1990s, he enrolled several acres of rolling ground into the Conservation Reserve Program – planting grasses and trees on the erosive slopes. Risk is careful to not do farming operations when ground conditions are not right – As he says “Let the soil be your boss, not the calendar.”
Nearly 500 conservationists representing Soil and Water Conservation Districts, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, ISDA Division of Soil Conservation, and the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service, have participated in the 65th Annual Conference of Indiana SWCDs. The conference adjourns today with the IASWCD’s Annual Legislative Breakfast. State Senator Beverly Gard; Gail Peas, USDA Farm Service Agency; and Mary McConnell, The Nature Conservancy; are on the agenda to highlight state conservation issues on the legislative forefront.
The 2008 Annual Conference also is the kickoff to the 40th anniversary of the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts: 1968-2008. The IASWCD celebrates our 92 county Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the over 460 supervisors and staff connected throughout the state which are the power, strength and character of conservation and our association.
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