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N9BOW ... I understand your intent but I can assure you if you tell your FSA staff (the ones that will be responsible for your CRP contract) that you will be planting corn in a CP1 contract you will be opening yourself up to many more questions and likely future inspections. Cp1 is a grass planting intended to reduce erosion. They allow legumes (alfalfa/clover) to be planted with the grass but this is not a contract that will allow you to manage the stand in such a way that you could affectively produce corn, brassicas, or soybeans to feed wildlife.
You would probably have better luck meeting the goals of your management plan by leaving the acres you refer to out of CRP and planting an actual foodplot.
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FarmlandQDM - I just spent about an hour with the NRCS and the FSA office to review what I would like to do. especially with 6 acres of a 16 acre block. I explained to them that I would take it out of CPR entirely if what I wanted to do could not be done. I explained to NRCS that my sole intention with the plan is wildlife centric and that I wanted to make the 6 acres Alfalfa/Clover/and a cool season grass such as Oats (because of the dual purpose of nesting cover for pheasants and food plot for deer). They told me that that was ok, so I posed the next question just to see what they said
I explained that I was told I could have 10% of the CRP in food plot. I asked does it have to be in a plot, if a person wanted to plant the food throughout the crp could they? I gave her an example using intercropping techniques. with corn/sorghum and beans/peas. I asked her if a person was to take a drill in the spring and plant corn/sorghum and beans/peas sparsely (10%) all throughout the Alfalfa and Clover and Oats in a haphazzard manner so that it provided a mixed canopy height and essentially place food throughout the CRP could this be done?
I mentioned that the intergrop of a bean and corn/sorghum will provide platform for the bean/peas to grow up, the mixed vegitation types would open the ground even more for chicks and mixed height and diverse vegetation makes it more difficult for predators to systematically move through the cover among other things.
There response was, I dont see a problem with that
As long as the dominant plantings are the alfalfa clover and oats that should be ok
they said to just be sure lets go ask the FSA office.
Now I am plenty happy with the fact at this point, that I can plant the Alfalfa/Clover/Oat and "Chickory" (I expressely asked about that) and explained that if I could I would be planting "Whitetail Institutes AlfaRack Plus" because that had everything they required but the oats so I would add those afterword seperately. Again they said dont see a problem with that
They walked me down to the FSA office and explained to the person what I was looking to do and the FSA person said we dont see a problem with that either just so long as we have it in the plan. The also went as far as to say, it looks like you would have more freedom if you were in a CP4d program to do some of the other things I was wanting to do with the thornless Blackberries and the Monoculture Switchgrass stand. I said sure. I offered to give them the entire plan and they said great. they are entering it into the books.
This being my first experience with a CRP contract, the NRCS and FSA office encouraged me to keep the ground in CRP and not take it out and seemingly went out of their way to help me out.
It sounds like this is not the norm but I am glad I shared with them my plans. I was not out anything because I was going to take it out but now I can manage the ground within reason and provide the best benefit for wildlife possible.
Just thought I would share
N9BOW