Jo Daviess County Soil & Water Conservation District
June, 2008Current Events and News:
- For information on the newly approved Federal Farm bill - use this link: http://agriculture.house.gov/inside/FarmBill.html
- New State of Illinois funds for Conservation project cost share have been released. Contact our office for consultation and to submit an application. The general signup is continuous and new projects will be approved over the next few weeks for summer and fall construction. Special incentive funds for nutrient and pasture managment plans are new this year.
Historic
Aerial Photography Special Project
Seamless mosaics of historic aerial imagery for Jo Daviess County have been ortho-rectified for use in Geographic Information Systems and are now available to the public.
This project was funded through a grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation 2000 Ecosystem program. The technical work was completed by the
There are two CD-ROMS. One features a 1946-47 seamless aerial mosaic for county and the other has seamless 1927 imagery of the Mississippi River which covers all of the current lock and dam pool 12. The
Both CD's contain a full featured image viewer and GIS software. The software is easy to use and includes a sample project with additional reference data for the County.
Both CD's contain road data and section and township information. The Mississippi River CD also includes a seamless topographic image of the County, 1998 ortho-imagery in the area of the river, a rectified 1890 map of the Mississippi River for this area, the current wing dam location file for pool 12, and seamless soil survey data for the County along with the featured content of the seamless 1927 imagery of the Mississippi River adjacent to Jo Daviess County
http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/nsdihome/webdocs/ilhap/Thumbnail image of East Dubuque and the
Click on the image
for a larger view
web soil
survey internet site. If you have a reasonably fast
internet connection the web soil survey is a great tool. 
After
selecting the State
and County you should see a modern aerial photo with the
roads outlined. Continue to zoom in for more detail
and navigate to the area where the soil survey information is
needed. Use
the mapping tools to outline your
specific "area of interest", and then click on the soil map tab at the
top of the page to obtain the soil survey
lines. An on-screen report provides the acres in each soil mapping unit within your area of interest. You can customize the reports or
download and print out reports and maps using the shopping cart feature.
Equipment
for Sale and Rent and Strip Till Toolbar Demonstrations
Specialized
equipment for rent through Jo Daviess SWCD includes a 10 foot United
Farm Tools
no-till drill, (reconditioned in 2006) an
8 foot Truax warm
season grass drill, an ATV mounted warm season grass
seeder, a large bale mulching machine and a tree planter. Contact
our office for
rental information.
In addition to the rental equipment the District has been encouraging manufacturers of strip till toolbars to demo these specialized tillage tools in the County. These systems work a narrow strip of soil at the same spacing as the row crop planter while maintaining crop residue levels similar to no-till systems. In many cases fertilizer is applied with the toolbar and guidance is provided with a GPS autosteer system. Watch for additional information on strip till toolbar demonstrations and yield results.
Jo
Check out these links for on-line information about Jo Daviess County
Weather
reports
-Local forecasts - radar and satellite images
Official website for Jo Daviess County Government
University of Illinois Extension Service- Jo Daviess County office
Jo Daviess County
Convention and Visitors Bureau Plan to visit soon
The
Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation
Review
some of the Rich History of the Area on the RootsWeb Jo Daviess County
page
Featured links:
Value Added
Agricultural Production from the
Link
to all the U of I Natural Resources and Agriculture sites
Drop
down for more links to
Illinois Natural Resource web sites
Forage
Quality Project:
Extension educator Jim Morrison will be monitoring alfalfa fields in NW Illinois twice a week and will report the forage quality results on the Internet and local newspapers.
Grape Growers
We
have been receiving more questions on
growing grapes during the past couple of years. University
supported
grape growers site on
the web.
The
Jo Daviess
Streambank Stabilization and
Watershed Features:
Jo Daviess County has hundreds of miles of perennial streams and many have eroding banks.
We are actively seeking financial support from the Illinois Department of Agriculture to help landowners solve streambank erosion problems. Projects have been installed at over 100 different locations in the county during the past ten years. Applications for 75% state cost share for streambank stabilization projects may be made at our office at any time. Approval is based on a field review and priorities are based on costs, potential benefits etc. These projects require state and federal permits and the review and approval process normally takes several months.
Featured links:
Click here for
information
on local rivers and river stages.
Older Special
projects:
Sustainable
crop rotations project 10/3/96
Sustainable
Agriculture Update 10/3/96
Illinois
Association of Soil and Water
Conservation Districts homepage- Representing
the 98 SWCD's across
Illinois Water Quality
Network
website-
Links
for technical resources and local ordinances
Illinois NRCS home page Jo
Daviess County is the
first county in the nation to have the soil survey of the future.
Continuing
information on the soil survey of the future
on CD ROM is at this link.
Apple Canyon Lake Conservation Committee website.
Includes information about the ongoing dredging project and
topsoil sales program. Offers illustrations of bathymetric
maps completed with assistance from Jo Daviess County SWCD.
Champaign
County SWCD Includes links to the Save Our
Illinois Soils (SOILS)
project sites. One of the demonstration plots is nearby in Stephenson
County.
The National Association of
Conservation Districts Homepage
Conservation Ideas from across the Country
Illinois Agricultural
Statistics Service Various
Illinois Department of
Natural
Resources homepage
Illinois
General Assembly-
proposed legislation and links to existing State Statutes
Chicago
Board of Trade -Current commodity prices and
links to
many interesting sites
Illinois
Geospatial Data
Clearing House- Ortho photography and topo
maps for all of Illinois-on line
Weather
reports
-Local forecasts - radar and satellite images Place a bookmark at this weather
page. It's a great
resource for local weather links.
That's all folks - you all
come back and check this page again.