Bringing old bottomland pasture into production

I recently purchased a farm that has about 5 acres of land that has been in pasture. I subpose the area is 300 feet wide by 650 feet long. The primarly reason it has not been farmed boils down to the fact that it 1) connects some lower timber/pasture with the upper part of the farm, and 2) at one time it was probably wet. During the early 1980's it was tiled. This is some of the best land on the farm. Both sides of this relatively narrow stip are continuously cropped. One side by a neighbor and one side by me. A small waterway (ditch) goes down along one side to a creek. I would like to bring it into production. I know it really isn't a sodbuster issue as it is not highly erodeable. It is very flat. I don't know if it could fall under a wetland. As I mentioned it is fairly well tiled. No water sits on the land and there are no reeds or catails growing. I would like to have your ideas and knowledge before I go into the Farm Service Agency to propose bringing this into production. What do I need to know????

I'd tell them the acreage and your intended use with the ground. What are you wanting to get the Farm Conservation Agency to change, the taxes or are you wanting them to help pay for fencing or strips? If its cleaned up (brushhogged) the next thing would be to take a soil sample to get lime on it as well as fertilizer and possibly get it disked up before spring if possible.

My experience is they send someone out and if there are no cattails you are good to go.

It probably has no crop history or acre base to collect any FSA payments.

So if you collect no payments you can do with it as you want.

You can go from there. No need to talk to FSA unless you are trying to get payments.

Gary

if you are getting farm payments, sealing grain or buying federal crop insurance ,FHA loans ect.you need to be in complience on all of your land,being out of complience affects your whole farm not just the acres in question. It may or may not have been a wetland in the first place. If it was tiled before 1986 it is considered prior converted and there is no issue ,after 1986 you need to be in complience. Just check with NRCS and they will do a determination, if you have no dealings you can do as you want but if you ever want to sell it being out of complience could cause issues at that time for the new operator.

This five acres is part of a 264 acre farm which has a crop base and continous participation in FSA farm programs. The five acres just hasn't been farmed as it was part of some timber pasture and at one time was probably a little wet before the tile. There are no trees or brush. It is clear.

Find out if it's a designated wetland. Our county has GIS mapping on line for free that identifies not only wetlands but soil types throughout the county. FSA has this info also and you can get the info there free for the asking without mentioning what it's all about. If it is a wetland and it's been "out of production" for 5 years or more you may have a problem.

Depends on your state a lot.

Gonna be heck if there are any trees on it.

If it is grass, have you made hay on it every year? Have you reported that hay as crop acres over the past years? I suggest that you did make hay - a farm crop - on it over the years.....

Be helpful if you can prove it was tiled in the mid 1980's, before 1987 is good, after that is not as good but propblaby ok, after mid 1990's and it could actually be real bad.... I'm not real sure on the cutoff dates, need to look those up.

If you are good on the tiling dates, you need to _tell_ them about the previous tiling, and that you have been farming the land (baling hay). They assume any grass land is wet, not tiled, and not farmed 'here' unless you go over it with them and point out the facts. They survey the land from areal photos, won't see any tile.....

Once they determine it is a wetland & you don't appeal that in a couple weeks/ months, you are stuck even if it is 'previously converted' oh well, so sorry that we goofed, but you have to live with it....

Might pay to talk to a tile survey fella in the area who has delt with this, even if it costs $200 or so of his time, they likely been through it and offer tips for your local county & state on how _they_ do the national laws. Smiling a lot & giving the right answers & 'yes sir' goes a long way to getting good results; they geta lot of gruff upset farmers in their office and then things don't go so well.

You don't want to mention low ground, cattails, or nothin like that yourself, it is previously tiled ground that I been making hay on & is a nice field....

Might wish to wait a year, be sure you are harvesting that hay crop on the land, have it looked at during the dry summer time of the year, point out the tile lines in it that were put in before the no-tile dates.....

You _should_ be able to farm it and have it called previously converted; but have your ducks lined up and don't stumble along the way, the office next to the FSA is the one that will give you grief, their job is to hang on to wetlands if they can. FSA should be a breeze, but don't let them set you up for failure in the next office. You get one chance to breeze through this, they find anything to hang you up and it is your time & money & their deadlines to get it fixed back to what it was supposed to be.

--->Paul

I went did the same thing several years ago. In my case I just wanted to plow up some pasture to re-seed. The pasture is wetland and because of that you're not supposed to bring it into crop production if it hasn't been grandfathered in. This is a bit of a gray area in the law since my wetland pasture has been used for pasture and hay since before the cutoff date. Here's what I did:

1. Sent an email to the US Army Corps of Engineers contact for my area asking him if it was allowed.

2. He passed the buck to the Minnesota DNR giving me contact info. I emailed the MN DNR asking the same thing and CC'ing the Army guy.

3. He passed the buck to the Soil and Water Conservation District contact. I emailed him the same thing CC'ing the Army and DNR

4. SWCD requested an in-person meeting. Met with the SWCD guy at his office and he printed me out the same laws I was asking for clarification on. He gave them to me and said you can't plow within 30ft of the creek without a plan on file, and told me it was OK as long as the plowing didn't effect drainage, but wouldn't give me anything in writing.

I went ahead and did the re-seeding, although nobody would give me anything in writing telling me it was legal. I'm not in prison... yet.