As I start looking for a new farm a consideration to me is WRP ground since I enjoy waterfowl hunting also...I know there will be restrictions but based on what I'm seeing for pricing I can get a significantly larger farm if I go WRP vs standard ground, several hundred acres larger. Appreciation is not a huge thing to me since I'll likely have it forever and while income is nice nowadays with the price of non WRP ground the return isn't very substantial and wont make a payment.
Please share any thoughts/opinions positive and negative or experiences good, bad, or otherwise.
Thanks for any insight.
I'm going to cut and paste my response from the last time this came up;
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Apr 26, 2018
#75
I know some on here have had bad experiences with the WRP program, a lot of that might be how your state is and how your DNR project manager is.
I'm fortunate enough to have a project manager that is very supportive and easy to get along with. Like others have said get in writing and agree beforehand what you can and cannot do with your land once you enroll it and help with the overall design and what will be planted on it.
For my project ground I am allowed to plant native species of shrubs/trees/groundcover after talking with project manager, I'm allowed to cut firewood, trim trails and shooting lanes, have a nice food plot, put as many stands up as I want, put up a shooting house if it's on skids, put up nest boxes, select harvest trees to open canopy every 20 years with managers approval, hunt and fish all we want, chase off trespassers and pay taxes.
I'm not allowed to build on it or farm it or spring mow. The state helped with two nice shallow wetland ponds and the initial tree/shrub/native grass plantings. I had input on shape/depth of ponds and where the spoil dirt was placed...although there are limits to how deep and the slope grade on ponds. I spray any cattails and reeds with a gly/aqua guard mix once or twice a summer so cattails are a non issue for me.
I am not into mowing, I am into raising bunnies/birds/deer/turkeys/bugs/quail on the place..my pasture got mowed the first two years to help the switch and bluestem crown and to keep initial weeds down, now I just mow a strip around the outside of shrub strips in August once so wife can walk her bluebird boxes and the boys and I can slip quiet to our stands.
It takes a different frame of mind having the state involved in having restrictions on your property...you can't think like a farmer. If you think habitat and what benefits all wildlife it is very easy to manage your land and get along with your biologist and turns the property into a paradise for you and wildlife. My project manager checks on mine a couple times a year walking it with me sometimes with other biologists and at least once a year random on his own. I email ideas and future projects with him that I an interested in and discuss how things are going a few times a year.
I didn't sign my place up to make money off it although it did pay off a large chunk of initial cost and got the ponds put in along with initial plantings. Everything that the state did I was going to do anyway, it was a win-win for me.
I recommend for anyone getting into a program to not enroll the whole property into it so that you still have ground to plant any type of orchard or put up a cabin or buildings on or do whatever you want with, that's what we did."