Green Lands Blue Waters Partnership
2012 Conference, 15-16 October
Memorial Union
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa
Contacts: Richard Warner
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jeri Neal
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
|
|
2012 Conference Report(PDF, 60 kb) |
Conference Overview:
- Conference Goals & Introduction
- Agenda
- Continuous Living Cover Session Description
- Continuous Living Cover Sessions & Leaders
- Watershed Sites Session Description
- Watershed Sites Sessions & Leaders
Printable PDF version (17 kb) of Conference goals & agenda
Conference Goal:
Build partnerships among organizations and individuals working to increase acreage of continuous living cover in the U.S. Midwest.
This year, Green Lands Blue Waters (GLBW) is expanding our annual meeting to engage collaborators from regional working groups supported by GLBW and from watersheds where GLBW partners are supporting adoption of continuous living cover. In this conference, we will: 1) strengthen the regional working groups by expanding their network of participants, 2) expand collaborations among working groups, 3) exchange information and build relationships among practitioners from different watersheds, and 4) strengthen relationships between regional working groups and watershed-based partnerships.
AGENDA
Monday, 15 October
11:00 – 12:00 Registration/networking
12:00 – 3:00 Sessions on continuous living cover (description below; lunch provided)
3:00 – 3:30 break/networking
3:30 – 5:00 Breakout group presentations and plenary discussion on continuous living cover
5:00 – 6:30 Reception
Dinner on your own
Tuesday, 16 October
7:30 Registration / networking
8:00 – 8:20 Watershed sites, assignment for the morning breakout sessions
8:20 – 10:00 Watershed sites breakout sessions (description below)
10:00 – 10:30 break / networking
10:30 – 12:00 Presentations by three groups followed by plenary discussion
12:00 – 1:00 Lunch (followed by annual report from the GLBW Director)
1:15 – 3:30 GLBW Partners’ Meeting: Priorities for 2012 (all participants are welcome)
Continuous Living Cover Session Description
More continuous living cover (perennial crops and cover crops) on working farmlands in the Midwest is the overarching objective of Green Lands Blue Waters (GLBW). GLBW is supporting five strategies for implementing continuous living cover: perennial edible grains, perennial forage (hay crops and pasture), perennial biomass crops, agroforestry, and cover crops. GLBW is supporting regional working groups for the latter four of these strategies. Members of the working groups include researchers, extension educators, farmer organizations, businesses, government agencies, and farmers. The four groups are each unique, but share a mission to increase the acreage planted to continuous living cover in our region.
The Monday afternoon session will build on the experience of four groups: Midwest Perennial Forage Working Group, Midwest Perennial Biomass Working Group, MidAmerican Agroforestry Working Group, and the Midwest Cover Crops Council. Leaders from these groups will present a summary of the group’s current work and lead participants in a discussion of opportunities: to expand the portfolio of the working group; for local organizations that promote more acreage of continuous living cover to receive training and access to expertise from the working group; and for development of value chains and markets needed to support these crops.
In a plenary session, each breakout group will present a summary of their discussions, highlighting the most promising opportunities. We will also hear a report on the status of perennial grain collaborations in the region. The presentations will be followed by a plenary group discussion to identify potential synergies among the working groups.
Continuous Living Cover Sessions & Leaders
| Perennial Forage | Laura Paine, Wisconsin DATCP Terry VanDerPol, Land Stewardship Project |
| Perennial Biomass | Emily Heaton, Iowa State University Carol Williams, University of Wisconsin |
| Agroforestry | Michele Schoeneberger, National Agroforestry Center, USDA Diomy Zamora, University of Minnesota |
| Cover Crops | Tom Kaspar, USDA-ARS Dale Mutch, Michigan State University |
Watershed Sites Session Description
GLBW is building support for watershed programs where GLBW partners and affiliated organizations are helping to implement continuous living cover in sufficient density and over large enough areas to show measurable environmental, economic, and social results. In this session, we will discuss the GLBW approach to supporting site-based programs, which includes the affiliate regional working groups, represented in the previous day’s sessions. There is overlap in geography, mission, and individuals involved among the watershed-based partnerships meeting today and the working groups which are meeting on the first day of the conference. Members of the working groups may live and work in one of the selected watersheds, and also serve as trainers and technical experts at events throughout the region.
Each of the Tuesday morning breakout sessions will consider two sites. We have paired sites from different states to encourage geographic diversity in the breakout groups. We will try to have experts representing each continuous living cover strategy (representatives of the four working groups of the previous day) participating in each watershed breakout session to provide input and answer questions. The watershed breakout sessions will discuss strategies to increase adoption of continuous living cover.
In a plenary session, each breakout group will present a summary of their discussions, highlighting the most promising opportunities. The presentations will be followed by a plenary group discussion to identify potential synergies among the watersheds and with the regional working groups.
Watershed Sites Sessions & Leaders
| Boone River Watershed, IA Upper Sangamon River, IL |
Eileen Bader, The Nature Conservancy Steve John, Agricultural Watershed Institute |
| Upper Cedar River, IA Greater Blue Earth Basin, MN/IA |
Laura Jackson, Northern Iowa University Mary Beth Stevenson, Iowa DNR Linda Meschke, Rural Advantage |
| Chippewa River Watershed, MN Southwestern Wisconsin |
Kylene Olsen, Chippewa River Watershed Project Angie Wright, Southwest Badger RC&D |