From its headwaters near Bloomington, Illinois, the Sangamon River flows through the cities of Decatur and Springfield on its way to meet the Illinois River. The Upper Sangamon River Watershed covers about 1425 square miles. The Lake Decatur dam, built in the early 1920s, impounds the Sangamon to create a lake used for recreation and the city’s domestic and industrial water supply. The watershed area upstream of the dam is about 925 square miles.
Decatur businessman A. E. Staley played a significant early role in transforming the agricultural landscape of Central Illinois and much of the Corn Belt when his company opened a “plant for grinding and extracting the oil from the soya bean” in 1922.
This conference will be held on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at the Macon County Extension Office in Decatur, Ill.
The conference will be highlighted by several panel discussions that will be of interest to farmers and landowners. Four local farmers will discuss their experiences with “Cover Crops”. Another panel will discuss the important issue of “Drainage Water Management”. “Strip Tillage” will be the focus of the last panel of three local strip-tillers.
In addition to the three panel sessions, Dr. Shalamar Armstrong, assistant professor in the Dept. of Agriculture at Ill. State University, will discuss how this year’s drought will affect your nutrient management plans. Dan Schaefer of the Ill. Council of Best Management Practices will review the “4R’s of Nutrient Management” and present the Illinois “Keep It in the Crop (KIC) 2025” program. This meeting has been approved for 5 CCA CEU’s (NM-2, SW-2, CM-1).
A lunch will be provided to attendees and during the lunch hour there will be time to talk to local vendors, who will have displays present. The cost of the conference is $20. To register, go to http://web.extension.illinois.edu/dmp.
The Heart of the Sangamon Eco-partnership is the sponsor for this conference. Its members are: the SWCD’s of DeWitt, Macon and Piatt Counties, the NRCS, the U of I Extension, the Farm Bureaus of Macon and Piatt Counties, the City of Decatur, the Macon County Conservation District, Reetz Agronomic LLC and the Agricultural Watershed Institute.
