Monthly Archives: July 2013

Lovewell State Park to Host Annual Fun Day August 3

For the price of a daily park permit, visitors at Lovewell State Park can enjoy outdoor activities to keep the whole family entertained

Lovewell State Park staff, in conjunction with Lovewell Marina, will host the 2013 Lovewell Fun Day, Saturday, August 3. The annual event, which runs 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m., will kick off with a 5K walk-run and all-new 10K walk-run, open to all ages. Registration for the walk and run will begin at 7 a.m.

Following the race, there will be a co-ed mud volleyball tournament starting at 10 a.m. Pre-registration is required for the tournament and must be turned into the state park office no later than August 1. The cost to participate in the tournament is $20 per team, with a 10-team limit.

For those interested in more family-oriented activities, visitors can enjoy a minnow race at 10 a.m., a sand pile treasure hunt at 11 a.m., a rock-paper-scissors tournament at 12 p.m., and a log race at 2 p.m. The Just-For-Fun Waterslide will also be open from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

All events are open to park goers of all ages and require no pre-registration, with the exception of the mud volleyball tournament. A vehicle permit is required to enter Lovewell State Park. Daily permits can be purchased for $5.00, annual permits for $25.00.

For more information, contact the Lovewell State Park office at (785) 753-4971.

Timely information for ‘bluebird landlords’

by SeEtta Moss

Birds & Blooms Birding e-newsletter

When someone puts up a bluebird house they become a ‘bluebird landlord.’ The North American Bluebird Society’s Facebook page provides information needed on a timely basis to be a good ‘bluebird landlord including the following important information (headers and emphasis are mine):

Bluebird Monitoring Tip: By Day 13-14, males have bright blue feathers. STOP ACTIVE MONITORING NOW to avoid premature fledging, unless you suspect a problem. You can still check the box from a distance to verify that the parents are feeding the young. One way to tell they are at this age is that the parents tend to only dip their heads into the box to feed (but may still enter to remove fecal sacs. Females have white edging on outer tail feathers.   
By this stage, babies are strong enough to cling to the entrance of the nestbox to look out. They have a narrow ring of white feathers around each eye, and their breasts are speckled with gray.

Mealworm & suet precautions:  Natural food is plentiful in most areas of the country this time of year and should make up the primary source of nutrition for wild birds. Supplemental foods such as mealworms and suet mixtures should be offered in limited amounts, if at all, as baby birds need the nutrition of insects and berries for their bodies to be healthy and strong. Supplemental foods can be helpful during extended periods of rainy weather (when insects are not available) and during the colder months when natural food sources are scarce. Supplemental feeding also depletes calcium from the diet of egg-laying female birds. resulting in weak, thin-shelled eggs. If you do feed suet or mealworms to your wild birds, please limit the amounts so that they can also obtain necessary nutrients from natural food sources.

The North American Bluebird Society has a great webpage with lots of information about bluebirds including a number of ‘Fact Sheets’ with plans for bluebird houses, mealworms, monitoring and more.

Are you a ‘bluebird landlord’ this year?

Morphing Chicken Pathogens Behind House Finch Deaths

Scientific detective work has partially reconstructed how a bacteria causing respiratory illness in domestic poultry jumped to the wild House Finch population and morphed to cause an eye disease, killing at least half the population of that songbird in eastern North America. Wesley Hochachka, assistant director of Bird Population Studies at Cornell’s ornithology lab, talks about the importance of understanding how diseases evolve and jump to new hosts.

Hochachka says: “Even a zombie apocalypse needs a good backstory, because no disease emerges out of thin air. Learning these backstories is important because we expect that the same general process of disease emergence will occur repeatedly.

“One of the major causes of new diseases is when a bacterium or virus switches hosts. For a new disease to emerge this way, the pathogen must physically travel between different host species and likely also mutate genetically so that it can reproduce and spread in the new species.

“All the lineages of bacteria that have successfully spread in House Finches can be traced back to a single progenitor. The descendants from this progenitor traveled from east to west across North Americaand adapted to changing conditions by becoming either more or less virulent.

“These results do more than reveal the origins of the House Finch eye disease – they show that it is often easier than people think for a disease organism to come into contact with one or more potential new hosts, with emergence of new diseases limited by the ability of pathogens to adapt to new hosts.”

NOTE: This research, from a collaboration that includes the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

More at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ 

Kansas Wildscape Foundation Challenges Kids to get Outdoors

Resident youth can win cool prizes for being active outside through WildLifer Challenge Program

For a lot of youngsters, summer can mean unlimited video games, all-day snacking, and 24/7 air conditioning – it’s a time to sit back, relax, and do a whole lot of nothing. In an effort to buck the status quo and redefine area youths’ perceptions of what summer should be like, the Kansas Wildscape Foundation is hosting the 2013 Kansas WildLifer Challenge Program. This program is designed to get youth active, outdoors, and engaged in all the wonderful outdoor fun that Kansas has to offer ­– no electrical outlet needed.

In order to be dubbed as an official Kansas WildLifer, participants are required to complete a total of 15 outdoor challenges from an approved list of 20 activities. They are then required to take a picture of themselves completing the task and answer a few questions regarding their experience. Some challenges may take an hour, while others may take an entire day. Activities include things like pitching a tent, planting a tree, hiking a trail, shooting a 20-yard target, enrolling in a Kansas hunter education course, bird watching, catching a fish or even something as simple as getting muddy.

Challenges can be completed simultaneously when possible, and can be done outside the state as long as the participant is a Kansas resident. The program is free, and there is no age limit or participant limit per household.

Participants who successfully complete the program will receive an official WildLifer t-shirt, poster, certificate of completion, sticker and car decal to proudly proclaim their accomplishment. The first 500 participants to successfully complete 15 of the 20 approved activities will win an exclusive Coleman gear pack in addition to the aforementioned prizes.

For more information on the WildLifer Challenge, or to register a participant, visitwww.kansaswildlifer.com.

Anglers interested in becoming certified to teach fishing techniques in Kansas can still sign up for Aug. 10 class

Anglers interested in becoming certified to teach fishing techniques in Kansas can still sign up for Aug. 10 class

A joint effort of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism and Fishing’s Future, the Kansas Angler Education Program will enlist qualified volunteer instructors to teach fishing techniques throughout the state. And with just a little more than two weeks left, the registration period will close soon.

Anglers interested in registering for the Aug. 10 class can sign up by visiting fishingsfuture.org and clicking “upcoming events,” then “Kansas Angler Education Training Program.” The first class will be held at theGreat Plains Nature Center, 6232 E. 

29th Street North

 in Wichita, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Although the class is not a requirement to teach, those in attendance will be given sample curriculums, valuable information regarding working with children, and how to prepare for a class or clinic. Other subjects covered in the four-hour class include current fishing rules and regulations, species identification, fishing ethics, equipment, knot-tying, casting, fish habitat, aquatic nuisance species, and conservation.

For more information, contact Fishing’s Future local coordinator Kevin Reich at[email protected], or by phone at (785) 577-6921.

Kansas Chapter of the Wildlife Society Host 40th Anniversary

                          Happy 40th to the
The Kansas Chapter of the Wildlife Society (KCTWS) will be hosting a 40th year anniversary event on Friday August 23rd, 2013. The event will recognize all charter members and past presidents for their dedication and leadership in the Chapter’s 40 year history. Family members are welcome and encouraged to attend!! A guided tour of Konza Prairie Biological Station will be held on Saturday the 24th for those interested.

            Agenda for the event:

            Friday August 23rd 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm @ Camp Tomahshinga. http://tomahshinga.com/finding-us/

            The Chapter will hold a brief business meeting followed by a raffle and auction to raise funds for the newly established Dr. Robert Robel scholarship. Charter members and past presidents will be recognized for their contributions to the Chapter. Elk burgers will be on the grill and all other food and soft drinks will be provided. If it rains indoor facilities will be available.

            Directions: Tomahshinga is just south of Junction City, From Interstate 70, Exit at the Marysville/Herington exit, exit 295. Head south on highway 77 for approximately 2.8 miles. Turn left (east) on Lyon Creek Rd. Proceed about 1.5 miles. The camp’s drive will be on your right. From the South, Proceed to highway 77. Travel north on 77 until 

Lyon Creek Rd.

 (If you reach Interstate 70 you have gone too far.) Turn right (east) on Lyon Creek Rd. Travel approximately 1.5 miles. The camp’s drive will be on the right. Follow the road into the camp until you get to Gobber Pavilion located just past the swimming pool.

            Saturday August 24th, 8:30 am @ Konza Prairie Biological Station.http://kpbs.konza.ksu.edu/location.html

            Join researchers for a guided tour of Konza Prairie and learn about the latest research on patch burning and other aspects of prairie management. A bus will leave Konza headquarters at 9:00 am for the tour and will return around noon. Lunch is on your own after the tour. 

            In order to plan for meals and the tour, please RSVP to Matt Smith: [email protected](785-658-2465 ext. 204) by August 16th.

            For those needing lodging on the 23rd, a block of rooms has been reserved at the Hampton Inn (785-579-6950) in Junction City. http://hamptoninn3.hilton.com/en/hotels/kansas/hampton-inn-junction-city-MHKJCHX/index.html Rooms will be held until August 14th at a rate of $85 per night. Hampton Inn is located off of exit 296, on I-70. From the roundabout exit onto 

Washington Street

, travel one block to the hotel.

House Passes Partial Farm Bill on Second Try

By National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

The House of Representatives on July 11 passed a farm bill, minus the nutrition title, by a vote of 216-208. No Democrats voted for the bill, while just 12 Republicans voted against it. Six Republicans and five Democrats were not present to vote.

The bill approved today contained all the titles of the farm bill other than nutrition, and was inclusive of all the amendments that passed on the floor of the House when they defeated the farm bill earlier. The historic payment limitation reform provision, championed by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), was thus included in the measure.

NSAC had earlier urged the House to not split the farm bill, as did most farm and commodity groups.

Removal of the nutrition title, including the SNAP (food stamp) program, led to the purely partisan vote and to the hyper partisan nature of the floor debate.

The bill proceeded under a closed rule that allowed for no amendments. The vote to adopt the rule was223-195, again with no Democrats in the affirmative, joined by just one Republican.

What happens next for nutrition programs, and for the bill as a whole, is one great big question mark.

Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Agriculture Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) alternatively described the plan going forward as:

(a) passing this farm-only bill (which they strangely referred to repeatedly on the floor as the “farm bill farm bill”) and going immediately to conference with the Senate-passed comprehensive bill, with the result that the Senate nutrition title (and its modest cuts to SNAP) would likely prevail and be included in the final bill, and

(b) the House Agriculture Committee going back to the drawing board and crafting an entirely new nutrition-only second farm bill that would be brought back to the floor of the House and presumably include even bigger cuts to SNAP than those included in the bill defeated by the House earlier.

These would appear to be mutually exclusive options, yet were spoken about openly as if they could logically both take place at the same time.

NSAC’s position on how to move forward is clear. In a statement issued after passage of the bill today, we had this to say:

NSAC wants a new, comprehensive five-year farm bill that is signed into law this year. It is unclear whether today’s passage of a portion of the farm bill in the House of Representatives is a step toward that goal or not. If it was merely a face-saving effort following the defeat of the new farm bill a few weeks ago – with no intent to move the entire process forward – then today’s vote was quite simply a travesty. If instead the House intends to immediately enter into conference with the Senate on a comprehensive farm bill and proceed to a final vote later this summer on a comprehensive bill, then this is a step forward – despite the bill’s very serious flaws and despite the deeply flawed process that produced it. We urge an immediate start to conference, with a goal of producing a final, comprehensive bill, including nutrition, that can be passed and sent to the President for his signature later this summer.

Another option — one that was not clearly articulated in the debate but was at one point hinted at by Chairman Lucas — is that in return for voting for the bill, Republicans who had earlier voted against the farm bill were promised a rule and set of amendments during the upcoming floor debate on the Fiscal Year 2014 Agricultural Appropriations bill that would allow for cutting SNAP spending and changing SNAP policies.

Bait and Switch Changes to “Permanent Law”

The bill passed today included a set of changes that were not included in the bill as reported by the House Agriculture Committee and were not adopted earlier on the House floor.  Instead, they were simply added by the Rules Committee last night, without debate and never having been adopted by the Agriculture Committee.

These changes would remove a long-standing feature of the farm bill commodity title.  Farm bills historically have happened on a very regular schedule, spaced about four to six years apart, in part because if a new bill is not adopted, farm commodity law automatically reverts to the farm bills of 1938 and 1949. Those anachronistic laws are considered so unworkable now that the mere threat of reverting to them is viewed as a spur to congressional action on a new farm bill.

The bill passed today would repeal most of those laws and would, instead, make the changes to commodity subsidies included in the new 2013 bill permanent law. Hence, from the standpoint of commodity subsidies, a new farm bill in the future would never be needed, as the commodity subsidies enacted by law in 2013 would become permanent, with no sunset date. Crop and revenue insurance subsidies, moreover, already are permanent under existing statute.

Thus, under the House bill passed today, all commodity subsidies would be permanent and would never need to be reauthorized or modified. That would not be true for the rest of the farm bill — conservation, rural development, renewable energy, research and extension, etc. Those would require periodic renewal, and could quite possibly be left in the lurch in the absence of a pressing need to renew production subsidies.

Many of the same conservative right wing think tanks and action groups who were beating the drum for weeks in support of splitting the nutrition title off from the farm-portions of the farm bill suddenly did an about-face and opposed the measure passed today once they realized that there would be no subsidy reform amendments allowed and that, adding insult to injury, subsidies would be put on autopilot.

With classic DC irony, most of the same Republicans who a few weeks ago voted unsuccessfully to unravel the decades-old sugar program today voted for a bill that not only keeps the old sugar program in place, but now makes it permanent law, meaning it need never come up for a vote again in order to remain in place.

Amendments Submitted

Despite the closed rule which allowed for no amendments to be offered, several Democrats and one Republican nonetheless filed crop insurance reform amendments. These of course were never voted on, but included among others an amendment to cap annual crop insurance subsidies at $50,000 per farm and limit beneficiaries to farmers actively engaged in farming, submitted by Reps. DeLauro (D-CT), Blumenauer (D-OR), Petri (R-WI), and Kind (D-WI).

Groups Take Differing Positions

The two major general farm organizations – American Farm Bureau Federation and National Farmers Union – both opposed the bill. The National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Producers Council, and National Council of Farmer Cooperatives issued statements in support, and groups representing cotton, rice, sugar, and peanut growers were also supporting passage according to Capitol Hill staffers.

As mentioned above, most of the major conservative think tanks and major conservative taxpayer groups opposed the bill, after originally supporting splitting the farm bill into two bills.  In one of the more humorous moments in an otherwise highly charged floor debate, Rep. Blumenauer (D-OR) said to the Republican side of the aisle, “You have managed to unite the Environmental Working Group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Club for Growth in opposition to this bill.  Congratulations!”

Equity Statement

Following passage of the bill today, 80 organizations, including NSAC, joined forces and issued aStatement of Community Based Groups on State of the 2013 Farm Bill expressing outrage at the failure of the bill to address food security and to include significant farm safety net reform. The letter nonetheless urged the House to immediately appoint conferees to work with their Senate counterparts to adopt a full and fair Farm Bill by the end of this summer. The statement opposes SNAP cuts, supports farm subsidy reform, and urges inclusion of robust funding for programs that assist under-served segments of the food and agricultural system.

What’s Next?

The short answer is no one knows, or perhaps those who do know are not talking about it yet. NSAC will be pressing the case for the House and Senate to appoint conferees next week to begin a conference committee to hash out a final, comprehensive bill.

There are only 20 legislative days left before the current farm bill expires on September 30. That is enough time to conference a bill and approve a conference report and send a bill to the President, but only if they get started right away.

Whether that move – spoken about affirmatively by Chairman Lucas during the debate today – is in the cards or not remains to be seen. The only thing that is clear is there is precious little time to decide if there is going to be a real chance of finishing a new comprehensive bill this year.

New USDA Guidelines on Crop Insurance and Cover Crops

by Dr. Rob Myers

In late June, new guidelines were released by USDA pertaining to cover crop management and crop insurance. The new guidelines came about as a result of concerns expressed by many farmers who had difficulty terminating (killing) their cover crops by USDA-specified calendar dates, especially when weather conditions prevented field operations. If farmers using cover crops failed to terminate a cover crop by the applicable date, they were at risk of losing their eligibility for crop insurance on commodity crops such as corn and soybeans.   These concerns led USDA leadership to form an interagency task force that worked during the spring to gather the latest information on cover crop management and turn that into a revised set of policy guidelines.

The biggest change in the new guidelines is the move from a calendar date-based requirement on terminating cover crops to a more flexible policy that ties termination times to the planting date of the relevant cash crop (corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, etc.). Under the new guidelines, the US is divided into four management “zones” for cover crop termination, with the requirements for termination varying based on the zone where the farm is located.

For all zones, there is no limitation on termination time for irrigated crops. For non-irrigated crops, the cover crops can be left growing up until at least the date of planting any “early spring” cash crop, such as spring cereals (eg., wheat, oats, or barley) or corn.

For the eastern portion of the US, farmers can terminate cover crops at or within five days after planting summer cash crops, though it should be before the cash crop has emerged.

For drier, western areas of the U.S., farmers may need to terminate their cover crop fifteen days or more before planting a summer cash crop (e.g. soybeans or dry beans), on the presumption that managing soil moisture carefully is more critical in those areas.

Farmers using no-till are allowed up to seven days of extra time to terminate their cover crop, though it should be before the cash crop seedlings emerge from the soil.

The new guidelines, which take effect for the 2014 cash crop year, also provide clearer definitions on practices such as overseeding cover crops or interplanting cover crops. Where farmers are trying innovative approaches with timing their planting or control of cover crops, that practice will be allowed if the farmer can document their “new technology” approach is designated as acceptable by at least two agricultural experts in their area.

Also, grazing of cover crops is allowed within certain limits, but not haying of cover crops (at least if crop insurance is to be provided).

Another way flexibility is provided is by acknowledging that special cover crop management situations can fall under “good farming practices,” including crop management designed to meet organic certification.

Overall, the new guidelines will provide much more flexibility for farmers using cover crops than was the case with the previous rules pertaining to crop insurance. While not likely to be perfect for every farming situation, these guidelines represent a major step forward in acknowledging the increasing use of cover cropson American farms and the important conservation and soil health benefits they can provide. Perhaps in future years, the restrictions on cover crops related to crop insurance eligibility will be reduced even further as more information about the performance of cover crops in various regions of the country becomes available.

Full details on the new guidelines can be found on the USDA-NRCS website.

Dr. Rob Myers is a University of Missouri agronomist and Regional Director for Extension Programs with the North Central Region of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. Dr. Myers was a member of the USDA interagency task force that worked on development of the new cover crop management guidelines in the spring of 2013.

Outdoor Insights: Bees and Bee Trees Vanishing

                            Outdoor Insights: Bees and Bee Trees Vanishing
“The problem of dying bees ought not to be limited to environmentalists. Bees are major pollinators for many crops. Their absence could send prices for some produce soaring.”
               

Craig Regnier’s top bar bee hives thrive because he has planted a pollinator plot nearby to assist the bees. Photo by Craig Regnier.

For an excellent and informative article on this topic by Elby Adamson, published in The Dispatch,
 visit http://www.ccenterdispatch.com/news/local/article_5b0bdc60-cd46-11e2-a666-001a4bcf6878.html.

   

USDA Announces Results for 45th Conservation Reserve Program General Sign-Up

Offers Received for 1.9 Million Acres

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on July 22 announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will accept 1.7 million acres offered under the 45th Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) general sign-up. The Department received nearly 28,000 offers on more than 1.9 million acres of land, demonstrating CRP’s continuing appeal as one of our nation’s most successful voluntary programs for soil, water, and wildlife conservation. Under Vilsack’s leadership, USDA has enrolled nearly 12 million acres in new CRP contracts since 2009. Currently, there are more than 26.9 million acres enrolled on 700,000 contracts.

“For 27 years, lands in CRP have helped to conserve our nation’s resources and played a part in mitigating climate change,” said Vilsack. “American farmers and ranchers continue to recognize the importance of protecting our nation’s most environmentally sensitive land by enrolling in CRP. As the commodities produced by our farmers and ranchers continue to perform strongly in the marketplace — supporting one out of every twelve jobs here in the United States — it is no surprise that American producers continue to recognize the importance of protecting our nation’s most environmentally sensitive land by enrolling in CRP.”

In addition to today’s announcement, over the last four years, USDA has set aside significant acreage under CRP’s Continuous enrollment programs to target habitat conservation on especially important lands. For example, in March, 2012, President Obama dedicated 1 million acres of CRP to Continuous Enrollment Programs to conserve wetlands, grasslands and wildlife. This year, farmers and ranchers have already offered more than 370,000 acres under Continuous CRP signup, a figure that is impressive given that the lack of a Farm Bill extension last fall meant that CRP enrollment only reopened this spring in May. Lack of a comprehensive Farm Bill this year has resulted in uncertainty for achieving further enrollment objectives under continuous CRP.

CRP is a voluntary program that allows eligible landowners to receive annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish long-term, resource-conserving covers on eligible farmland throughout the duration of their 10 to 15 year contracts.

Under CRP, farmers and ranchers plant grasses and trees in fields and along streams or rivers. The plantings prevent soil and nutrients from washing into waterways, reduce soil erosion that may otherwise contribute to poor air and water quality, and provide valuable habitat for wildlife. In 2012, CRP helped to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous losses from farm fields by 605 million pounds and 121 million pounds respectively. CRP has restored more than two million acres of wetlands and associated buffers and reduces soil erosion by more than 300 million tons per year. CRP also provides $2.0 billion annually to landowners—dollars that make their way into local economies, supporting small businesses and creating jobs.

In addition, CRP sequesters more carbon dioxide than any other conservation program in the country, and also reduces both fuel and fertilizer use. Yearly, CRP results in carbon sequestration equal to taking almost 10 million cars off the road.

USDA selected offers for enrollment based on an Environmental Benefits Index (EBI) comprised of five environmental factors plus cost. The five environmental factors are: (1) wildlife enhancement, (2) water quality, (3) soil erosion, (4) enduring benefits, and (5) air quality.  
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