2019 SWCS International Annual Conference July 28-31, 2019 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1. First Findings from Two
Maryland Healthy Soils Initiatives
Alisha Mulkey
Soil and Water Conservation Society
Annual Meeting
July 2019

2. MDA’s Office of Resource Conservation
• Chesapeake Bay restoration as our primary driver
– Once voluntary state efforts, now a mandated TMDL effort through
2025
• MDA leadership:
– Technical Assistance – voluntary
– Financial Assistance – voluntary
• Agricultural Water Quality Cost-Share
– Cover Crop
– Capital
– Manure Transport
– Federal Programs with NRCS and FSA
– Regulatory Oversight of Nutrient Management

3. Conservation adoption significant
Nationally, the 2017 Ag Census ranks
MD #1 for cover crop acres and #2 for
no-till acres, as a percentage of
available cropland
Figures courtesy of Soil Health Institute’s PROGRESS REPORT: Adoption of Soil Health Systems

4. 2017 Healthy Soils legislation
• Establishes the Department as the state lead on healthy
soils
• Charges Department to develop a program:
– Improves health, yield, and profitability of soils
– Increases biological activity & carbon sequestration in
agricultural soils
– Promote further education and adoption of healthy soils
practices
• Consider incentive-based program including research,
technical, and financial
• Bipartisan
• No new funding
• Coincides with state’s increased GHG reduction goals

5. Marrying “co-benefits”
• With strong adoption to-date of core soil
health practices, state is evaluating producer
goals and barriers related to soil health
practices
• MDA’s goals are implementation focused
• Two recent initiatives informing program:
1. Extended season cover crop pilot
2. RCPP grant focused on soil health in targeted
counties

6. Cover Crop biomass pilot
• 2018-2019 season
• Poor weather resulted in decreased acres fall planted.
Additional funding available
• Launched mid-November with a December 1 planting
deadline
• Criteria:
– $45/acre payment available
– cereal grains only – wheat, rye, or triticale
– performance based!
– Kill-down post May 1, 2019
• ~15,000 acres (970 fields) enrolled. Field inspected with ARS
developed tool.

7. Results
• 626 of 970 fields “passed”
– Curious if planting method or planting region potentially
impacted the performance of the biomass cover crop. No
significant results or trends were found
– Ultimately the late planting date allowed in 2018 was the
greatest factor in biomass cover crop performance
• Will adhere to our planting date deadlines for the 2019-2020
season to maximize seed establishment and growth of the
cover crops.
• An extended season incentive had been added for the 2019-
2020 program of $15/acre for cover crops killed after May 1,
2020
• Strong response during recent signup!

8. USDA Soil Health grant
• “Taking Soil Health to the Next Level” RCPP
– 5-year, $1 million for 4 counties on Maryland’s mid-
shore with highest acres of cropland
• Initiated in late 2018 with University as research
partner
– field-level carbon mapping tool that would be
validated with NRCS COMET tool
• Outreach events
• Collaborating with NRCS and SCD staff on priority
practices and ranking tools

9. Results
• Initial rounds completed in early Spring 2019
• NRCS still obligating funds and executing
contracts but 2/3 of funds likely committed
• Most requested practices: multi-specie cover
crops, adaptive management, and precision
nutrient management
– Farmer meetings over next few months for adaptive
management details
– Assess knowledge gap between soil health principles
and nutrient management

10. Next Steps for MDA Program
• Stay implementation focused & seek co-
benefits
• Adhere to NRCS principles
• Innovative grant funding
• Support research
• New partnerships
• Advisory Committee
• Outreach, outreach, outreach!

11. Thank you
Alisha Mulkey
Manager, Program Planning & Development
alisha.mulkey@maryland.gov
410-841-5873

12. 2018 commodity acres were provided by FSA Small Grain report
146,065
266,857
303,061
255,991
274,397
321,540
359,815
448,455
395,862
56,640
128,672
117,722
158,940
145,724
150,828
140,278
110,343
161,332
-
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Cover Crop acres by Fiscal Year
Traditional Commodity

13. 13
Agriculture Developed Wastewater Septic Natural
42%
17%
20%
6%
15%
41%
8%
38%
2%
11%
Maryland Nitrogen Loads (1985 – 2017)
Where did the
Nitrogen reductions
come from?
1985 (84.1 M lbs/yr) 2017 (54.2 M lbs/yr)
35%
65%
Source: USEPA Chesapeake bay Program
Maryland has made the most progress in reducing nitrogen since 1985 compared to the other 6
Bay jurisdictions