Cherokee County Soil & Water Conservation District held its Annual Conservation Tour 

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, interseeding 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 second stop on the tour was at the Tim Bierman farm located north of Larrabee. Mr. Bierman explained how the Biovator equipment that he had installed, which allows him to compost his swine mortalities and provide an improved level of biosecurity for his swine operation.  Tim’s woodchip and mortality compost is applied back to his cropland improving soil health.    

   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.

The tour concluded at the Grainery Lodge with a meal, compliments of the Cherokee SWCD and the many local farmers and businesses that have contributed to the SWCD programs.