Each year the Cherokee SWCD Commissioners and field office staff conduct a local tour of some of the newer or more interesting soil & water conservation practices that have been installed by local farmers. This year’s tour had over 40 participants
The first stop on this year’s tour was on the Kathy Cosgrove Green farm located north of Highway 3, between Cherokee and Meriden. Kathy’s goal was to enhance or preserve portions of the farm that had never been in row crop production. Megann Schmidt, DNR Private Lands Biologist, explained the many practices the Cosgrove family have and continue to implement, like controlled grazing, interceding of native plants and prescribed burns. Schmidt also explained the DNR’s IHAP program (Iowa Habitat & Access Program) which portions of the Cosgrove land have been enrolled into. This IHAP program allows public walk-in hunting from Sept. 1 thru May 31.

The last stop on the tour was a cover crop seeding demonstration applied with a drone on the Robert and Donna Zahnley farm located northeast of Cherokee. Drone pilot Marc Husman filled the drone’s seed hopper with Zahnley’s prescribed cover crop mix and programed the drone to apply the seed to a small field of standing corn. Colton Barnes, also presented information on cover crop mixes and possible available incentive programs to help farmers defray some of the costs