Resources
Documents & Websites
SWCS Controlled Drainage Video
This video, in the SWCS Conservation Media Library, shows how conservation drainage provides more control and additional benefits to your fields.
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University of Illinois Woodchip Bioreactor
Simple woodchip-filled trenches called bioreactors can clean nitrogen pollution from water. Find out more from Dr. Laura Christianson of the University of Illinois as she talks about one of her favorite ideas.
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Conservation Tillage and Soil Health
“Conservation Tillage and Soil Health” provides a short, animated outline of the basic principles of conservation tillage. The third episode of SARE’s “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” animation series illustrates how many producers are retiring conventional tillage equipment and turning to conservation tillage to improve soil health and productivity.
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ADMC Bioreactor
This ADMC webpage provides information on bioreactors including considerations for installation and financial impacts.
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NRCS Bioreactor Conservation Practice Standard Factsheet
This one page factsheet from NRCS provides an overview of woodchip bioreactors, how they fuction, and the benefits they provide.
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NRCS Conservation Drainage
The NRCS Conservation Drainage webpage provides an overview of several conservation drainage practices, research, and additional resources.
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Woodchip Bioreactors: A Science-based Option to Reduce Nitrate Loss
This fact sheet answers some of the most common questions about woodchip bioreactors using a recent survey of all published bioreactor research.
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Smart Wetlands
Smart Wetlands, an initiative of The Wetlands Initiative, specifically sites, designs, and constructs tile-treatment wetlands to improve water quality in Illinois. Their website includes several resources for better understanding the impact of constructed wetlands on nutrient reduction.
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National Wildlife Federation: Conservation Champions Network
National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Champions program – formerly Cover Crop Champions – offers grants up to $15,000 for farmers and outreach partners to learn and develop creative outreach strategies that target new farmer audiences and increase the rate of soil health practice adoption in the Midwest.
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Iowa Learning Farms: Constructed Wetland
In this webinar, “Tile Flows, Backhoes and Microbes: Constructed Wetlands for Subsurface Drainage Treatment,” Jill Kostel, Ph.D., senior environmental engineer at The Wetlands Initiative, discusses the siting, design and implementation of constructed tile-treatment wetlands that use the naturally occurring wetland functions and processes to capture and remove nutrients from tile flow.
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