Common Conservation Practices
Erosion Control:
![May contain: soil, ground, land, nature, and outdoors](https://streamline.imgix.net/2097c047-ea64-44bc-9785-f532eca3efdf/3cb8cd6d-6e28-4852-8dcf-325c0804978d/image.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&w=2000&h=2000&fit=max&or=0&s=a5dfc0d21e0cf1dd4d65a81dde5423cf)
Example of a newly constructed WASCB
- WASCB (we say "WAHS-COB") or Water And Sediment Control Basin.
- Though it looks like just a mound of dirt, we can assure you it's much more. WASCBs are used to control gully erosion, by constructing a mound of earth across the slope of a watercourse to form a sediment trap and water retention basin. Typically built to hold a 10 year rain event, these basins are designed to drain all of that water within 24 hours.
- Grassed Waterway
- This is eaxactly what it says, a non-cropped area, specifically designed for water to flow through erosion-free. Waterways are typically for eroison areas with large watersheds, larger than can be held in a WASCB. As opposed to holding and slowly draining water, grassed wayerways collect the storm as it comes and deposits it in the appropriate area.
![May contain: outdoors, aerial view, architecture, building, housing, house, driveway, and nature](https://streamline.imgix.net/2097c047-ea64-44bc-9785-f532eca3efdf/82be0c4b-5927-4099-86c4-302f6c41d4ef/image.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&w=2000&h=2000&fit=max&or=0&s=bb6cdc692120d117920f3c55334ea047)
Newly constructed Grassed Waterway
Soil Health & Farming:
- Cover Crops
- Whether in the fall or spring, cover crops are a great practice for anyone interest in the health, infiltration, and retention of their soils. Used for a variety of different purposes, cover crops are a great addition to any rotation!
- No-Till
- A practice with real benefits to the soil, hydrology, and wildlife, no-till is a sustainible farming technique all about managing residue. No-till is used to reduce energy use, build and hold organic matter, reduce sheete and rill erosion, increase infiltration many many others.
- Strip-Till
- Much like No-Till, Strips till is only tilling and planting into the soil in long strips, roughly 6-10 inches apart, leaving the space in between untouched. Strip tilling can reduce erosion, improve soil health, break up compactions, improve infiltration, and improve soil warming.
![A tractor in a field with rows of freshly planted crops.](https://streamline.imgix.net/2097c047-ea64-44bc-9785-f532eca3efdf/a750339c-3876-4a54-b1d5-69d6f9011a36/build-soil-structure.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&w=2000&h=2000&fit=max&or=0&s=7e7a60a2ce7240895b9601870b3e82ed)
Strip planting into cover crops. Photo by www.covercropstrategies.com