Finishing up my WRP Project.

[H20fwler]

The State came in yesterday and today and finished planting the shrub strips on the North and West ends of my pasture fields. The planted hundreds and hundreds of; pin oak, crab apple, cranberry, dogwood, button brush, red and purple dossier willow. The trees&shrubs were bare root whips from 2'-4' tall, if only half survive I'll be happy. I will be adding Dunstan chestnuts, hazelnuts, persimmons and white pines to the strips in the next year or so.

It rained good last night after they had planted the bulk of the trees.

The State sure does like their flags! I was glad they didn't cut up the pasture with their equipment.

 

[nwmn]

They plant trees in wrp programs? That's pretty cool. Did they do any other modifications to land such as digging in areas to create larger and deeper pools? Were you satisfied with the per acre dollar payment? Did they give you 15/30/perpetual options for the easement

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[H20fwler]

Great questions;
First we started with a forty acre farm fifteen acres mixed hardwoods twenty five tillable, signed up twenty seven acres of it into the WRP including the woods. Yes, they paid for and planted the trees/shrubs and native grasses that the state biologist and I chose for the plan we selected. Yes they dug two wetland ponds for me, one around two acres the other one acre. I was extremely happy with the payment, the easement I chose and why the payment was so good is that it is perpetual.
The restrictions for me are that I cannot build any buildings on it or farm it, what I can do is plant anything I want that is native on it, select harvest timber, hunt and fish on it, pay taxes on it, hand it down to my kids or sell it. But whomever owns it (the 27 acres) has to stay in the WRP. It is basically my own nature/hunting preserve that the state helped me develop.
And the state biologist has been fantastic to work with and bounce questions off of...I went from having a mediocre piece of property to having a place loaded with all kinds of wildlife that I had always dreamed of.

 

[SD51555]

Did they say whether you can mow, spray, plot, or hinge cut? That would be what I'd be looking to get excluded from the deal.

 

[H20fwler]

Yep, I can mow, spray, plot and hinge.

 

[Tree Spud]

Yep, I can mow, spray, plot and hinge.

I would be surprised to hear that you could do all of the above on a WRP easement. On ours, I had to have a CPU (compatible use permit) to do anything.

Cutting of trails had to be approved and trails mapped. Mowing was not allowed until after July 15th because of bird nesting.

Food plots were restricted to 5% of acreage and often declined because of surrounding land food value. Took me over a year to get two 0.5 acre plots approved as it required DNR to review. They found some purple spotted salamander 2 miles from my place and had to do an endangered species audit.

Cutting trees was prohibited and they do satellite survey of your easement to monitor. The ponds they dug were too shallow and became over grown with cattails.

The last straw for us was when they starting requiring that tree stands had to be removed after the hunting season. The NRCS staffers were more eco activists than in support of hunting and land use.

I hope you have a better experience than we did.

 

[H20fwler]

I would be surprised to hear that you could do all of the above on a WRP easement. On ours, I had to have a CPU (compatible use permit) to do anything.

Cutting of trails had to be approved and trails mapped. Mowing was not allowed until after July 15th because of bird nesting.

Food plots were restricted to 5% of acreage and often declined because of surrounding land food value. Took me over a year to get two 0.5 acre plots approved as it required DNR to review. They found some purple spotted salamander 2 miles from my place and had to do an endangered species audit.

Cutting trees was prohibited and they do satellite survey of your easement to monitor. The ponds they dug were too shallow and became over grown with cattails.

The last straw for us was when they starting requiring that tree stands had to be removed after the hunting season. The NRCS staffers were more eco activists than in support of hunting and land use.

I hope you have a better experience than we did.

Your experience doesn't sound like what I've got going on. The state has been extremely helpful and easy to work with on mine. I signed a contract with everything listed exactly on can and cannots and a list of what I am permitted to plant myself on mine. What the state biologist and I were looking for was pretty much the exact same thing. My biggest pond is a little over 4' deep at the deep ends right now and my smaller pond maybe 3 1/2' they will fluctuate during dry spells and I expect them to drop a foot or more, the whole property drains to them so a little rain boosts them right up so far. I will spray any cat tails I see trying to start.
I also have some type of green salimandee in the woods that is supposed to be rare for my area, I haven't seen one yet myself.

 

[Tree Spud]

Your experience doesn't sound like what I've got going on. The state has been extremely helpful and easy to work with on mine. I signed a contract with everything listed exactly on can and cannots and a list of what I am permitted to plant myself on mine. What the state biologist and I were looking for was pretty much the exact same thing. My biggest pond is a little over 4' deep at the deep ends right now and my smaller pond maybe 3 1/2' they will fluctuate during dry spells and I expect them to drop a foot or more, the whole property drains to them so a little rain boosts them right up so far. I will spray any cat tails I see trying to start.
I also have some type of green salimandee in the woods that is supposed to be rare for my area, I haven't seen one yet myself.

H2O ... as I stated, I hope you have a better experience. With us, as personnel changed at the NRCS, so did the level of eco activism & intepretation of the contrat.

What is really critical is the contract language ... "unless otherwise specified & granted to the land owner, all rights, uses, and activities are reserved to the easement holder" ... the NRCS.

If you outsmarted them, good for you, you would be a first!

 

[H20fwler]

I hear you, Unfortunately a lot of it does depend on politics. I am very fortunate to have a good relationship with my project manager who I am very like minded with and he is also an avid hunter. I am all about the farm helping wildlife from deer to ground sparrows to bugs and want it to be the absolute best it can be.

And my uses are listed in the contract.

 

[Tree Spud]

I hear you, Unfortunately a lot of it does depend on politics. I am very fortunate to have a good relationship with my project manager who I am very like minded with and he is also an avid hunter. I am all about the farm helping wildlife from deer to ground sparrows to bugs and want it to be the absolute best it can be.

And my uses are listed in the contract.

Sounds like you have some experienced folks who know what they are doing regarding the 4' depth. Ours were designed to be 0.5-0.75 acres with a depth of 1.5-2.0'. I questioned the NRCS folks stating these ponds were designed to fail. With their 25:1 slope from pond edge, knowing that water level would not reach pond edge, and that cattails would invade to 12" of water ... the ponds would disappear to mud holes which they eventually did.

Their so called experts based the design on the pot hole prairie region, but didn't pay attention to the fact that this region gets 3 times the rain we do annually. The only pond that survived of the 6 on the property was the one I designed and paid for with a depth of 4'.

It was a shame and a waste of tax payer $$ as there was plenty of spring fed water sources on the 640 acre easement which were never used properly. I showed all 3 new district mgrs (each with a stamp of "just graduated college" on their forehead) how the water was bypassing the bermed dikes and the property was not staging & holding water as designed. All told they had over $900k invested in the easement with very little to show.

 

[nwmn]

Great questions;
First we started with a forty acre farm fifteen acres mixed hardwoods twenty five tillable, signed up twenty seven acres of it into the WRP including the woods. Yes, they paid for and planted the trees/shrubs and native grasses that the state biologist and I chose for the plan we selected. Yes they dug two wetland ponds for me, one around two acres the other one acre. I was extremely happy with the payment, the easement I chose and why the payment was so good is that it is perpetual.
The restrictions for me are that I cannot build any buildings on it or farm it, what I can do is plant anything I want that is native on it, select harvest timber, hunt and fish on it, pay taxes on it, hand it down to my kids or sell it. But whomever owns it (the 27 acres) has to stay in the WRP. It is basically my own nature/hunting preserve that the state helped me develop.
And the state biologist has been fantastic to work with and bounce questions off of...I went from having a mediocre piece of property to having a place loaded with all kinds of wildlife that I had always dreamed of.

I want what you've got! I looked into easements last spring, and there was an area specific easement for prairie mixed with Audubon society. It was neat in that we would get our CRP payments until contract was over and then the easement would take place. It wasn't govt based so it would have been sick. I haven't heard back forever now, hoping there's a chance we can still sneak in. Otherwise I want to get into wrp, if the language is like yours!

What state are you in, and what was the per cost that you based the value at? Did they basically take your taxable market value?

Sounds like you definitely scored on that deal. Nice to have that positive relationship with your nrcs rep.

What did you end up doing with the income? Reinvest it into more land, pay off loan, equipment?

Sorry for the pile of questions, but what were the tax implications on the land? Could you apply a 1033? Like land exchange or whatever it is? Since you're selling the development rights, maybe that would fall under that umbrella?

Congrats on getting in, sounds like you're loving it, and are very satisfied!

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[H20fwler]

I want what you've got! I looked into easements last spring, and there was an area specific easement for prairie mixed with Audubon society. It was neat in that we would get our CRP payments until contract was over and then the easement would take place. It wasn't govt based so it would have been sick. I haven't heard back forever now, hoping there's a chance we can still sneak in. Otherwise I want to get into wrp, if the language is like yours!

What state are you in, and what was the per cost that you based the value at? Did they basically take your taxable market value?

Sounds like you definitely scored on that deal. Nice to have that positive relationship with your nrcs rep.

What did you end up doing with the income? Reinvest it into more land, pay off loan, equipment?

Sorry for the pile of questions, but what were the tax implications on the land? Could you apply a 1033? Like land exchange or whatever it is? Since you're selling the development rights, maybe that would fall under that umbrella?

Congrats on getting in, sounds like you're loving it, and are very satisfied!

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I am in Ohio, it ended up being a lump payment $2700 an acre for perpetual and I applied it to the note. Almost everything the state did was what I wanted to do anyway, I bought the place just for hunting and nature watching I am not a farmer.
It would have been nice to have been able to put a full on fruit orchard right in it and to be able to plant spruce but they aren't "native" to the state. So I just put in a legit orchard right next to it and spruce. Still on same property just not in the WRP part.
The taxes suck, I had a big issue with my local county auditor and had it lowered a little from their original bill but the assessment is still like it is productive farm ground that I can somehow make money on, I swear our county just pulls figures out of their ass with no formula whatsoever.
A part of the farm was in CRP the new plan just stopped it at the date of new contract. Another farm I have still has some CRP ground on it but that program is managed by the county.

Getting picked to be in the WRP here is getting a little easier, a lot of it has to do with the watershed and how the land lies, I got very lucky. There are at least a half dozen projects like mine within a few miles of me.

Cat tails being a bother in shallower parts of the ponds are a big concern to me and I will most definitely stay vigilant and not ever let them get established if there is anyway I can help it. I keep a very close eye on that.