Wow – what a year, 2023!

Thank you to the many landowners who participated in the Healthy Watershed Program by retiring farmland to wetlands and trees, purchasing trees, and helping the overall health of our soils and watercourses! By participating in this program these landowners are creating vital habitats for Species at Risk, improving the quality of water entering our streams and lakes, and providing nutrients to our soil, necessary for food production.

Interested in purchasing seedlings or large-stock trees? Our Spring Program is running now until March 29^th (while supplies last). Please order your tree here: BUY TREES or contact Jeff Sharp at [email protected] or 519-245-3710 ext. 217 with any questions.

EXCITING RESTORATION NEWS!

As successful as 2023 was, we are looking forward to 2024 and another great round of Stewardship projects to implement across the watershed. The SCRCA has been able to secure several funding sources for habitat restoration and agricultural best management practices, one being through Environment Canada and Climate Change’s Carolinian Priority Place.

This program allows the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority, in partnership with Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority, to offer the Carolinian Priority Place Cover Crop Incentive. This program will encourage growers to try new cover crop mixes and techniques and help demonstrate their use around the county. By planting cover crops, farmers will assist in protecting groundwater by promoting biological nitrogen fixation, as well as providing soil protection and reducing soil erosion into local watercourses.

Carolinian Priority Place Cover Crop Incentive Details:

• Focus Area: SCRCA Lambton Shores Watershed (MAP HERE) and the ABCA Watershed (MAP HERE).
• Performance Incentive: $15/acre 
• Acres planted in the fall of 2023 are eligible.
• Landowners may apply every year.
• Each application to the Carolinian Priority Place must be for a different cover crop mixture.
• There must be a minimum of three species in the cover crop. With the exception, that a multi-species mixture is not required for late-season cover crops planted after corn or soybean harvest; these fields will still need to meet the 50% residue measurement.
• Priority will be given to innovative practices and producers willing to demonstrate practices to others.
• Applicants must register their eligible fields with SCRCA staff, providing a location and management plan for the cover crop.
• Crops may be tilled no sooner than the spring of the year following planting (may be chemically killed the previous fall).
• Applicants must notify staff well before spring tillage so the final crop residue measurement can be made.
• A final residue measurement of at least 50% is required prior to planting the next crop in the following spring.
• Cover crop residue will be measured prior to April 1, establishing a firm spring deadline for measurements of success, and achieving the goal of ensuring over-winter cover.
• Cover crops are not to be used for forage or grazing. The project is not eligible for funding if the field is grazed or harvested.
• Applicants with more than 100 acres planted into cover crops can receive payment for the best 100 acres that meet the 50% cover crop residue measurement.

Performance Incentive:

Producers will be paid the incentive after SCRCA staff has confirmed the field(s) were managed according to the guidelines. Producers do not have to produce proof of payment for cover crop seed as would be required for other grant categories. Thus, producers who grow their own seed are eligible to participate in the program.

Contact:

Landowners in the St. Clair Region Watershed (Lambton Shores), please contact Jessica Van Zwol at [email protected] or 519-245-3710 ext. 241

Landowners in the Ausable Bayfield Watershed, please contact Brooklyn Rau at [email protected] or 519-235-2610.

Stay tuned for more exciting Healthy Watershed Program news coming later in 2024.