Kansas Wheat teams up with K-State under new grant to increase adoption of conservation practices

The echoes of the 1930s Dust Bowl are most evident in the commitment of each subsequent generation of Kansas farmers to care for the land on which their livelihoods depend. A $1 million dollar grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) - recently awarded to K-State and Kansas Wheat - provides dedicated resources to aid these efforts by helping farmers navigate Farm Bill programs and implement proven conservation practices that best fit their winter wheat acres.

"This program is really about conservation programs and practices that include winter wheat as part of a sustainable crop rotation," said Aaron Harries, Kansas Wheat vice president of research and operations. "This is an opportunity that will benefit the farmer and bring attention to the role of winter wheat as a very important conservation tool in High Plains cropping systems.” 

The NFWF grant will fund a three-year project, kicking off in 2025, that focuses first on sharing information about the benefits of conservation practices. Led by Harries and Romulo Lollato, K-State associate professor of wheat and forage production, the project aims to advance crop management priority strategies, including reduced tillage, increased adoption of cover crops and diversified crop rotations and improved nutrient management. These practices have well-documented outcomes in helping improve soil health, reduce erosion and conserve water and carbon. 

Reflective of the private-public partnership integral to the grant, the project also includes working with certified crop advisors (CCAs) to train them on how to advise farmers on conservation practices. Kansas Wheat and K-State will also work with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Kansas to help increase engagement with and enrollment in Farm Bill programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). 

Equally as important, the grant will provide additional capacity to help producers enroll in these Farm Bill programs that provide financial assistance for implementing the practices. The grant provides for two full-time staff members to help work one-on-one with growers and CCAs alike across Kansas. This outreach will complement K-State Research and Extension work by including targeted conservation discussions during wheat-related producer field days, pre-plant wheat meetings and other conferences and meetings. 

"We intend to work with groups like CCAs to set up educational programs to train these experts and help them identify farmers that might have the potential to enroll acres," Harries said. "Some of those programs can seem intimidating, so we're going to help work to make it as easy as possible and work with producers on a case-by-case basis to identify which conservation practices fit best and to navigate the enrollment process."

The new project supplements the existing partnership between K-State Research and Extension and Kansas Wheat, called Wheat Rx, which disseminates the latest research recommendations for high-yielding and high-quality winter wheat to Kansas wheat farmers. The work will also be housed at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center (KWIC) in Manhattan, another tie back to the commitment by Kansas wheat producers to invest in the future of their industry. 

Keep up with the NFWF grant work as the project kicks off in 2025 and find additional resources at kswheat.com/wheatrx. 

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Written by Julia Debes for Kansas Wheat