Maine Soil Health Project
In partnership with the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry and University of Maine Cooperative Extension, grants up to $5,000 will be awarded to 17 farmers for the purpose of reimbursing approved expenses for improving soil health. Technical assistance will also be provided for participants to develop soil health improvement plans, magnifying the impact of the direct investment.
This grant is designed to help specialty crop growers i.e, growers of fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops (including floriculture but excluding commodity crops) to implement healthy soil practices.
- Maximize Presence of Living Roots
- Cover cropping
- Greater diversification of crop rotations
- Double cropping
- Minimize Disturbance
- Organic reduced tillage approaches (roller-crimping, deep compost mulch, frost seeding, etc.)
- Adopting zone tillage or strip tillage
- Adopting new and/or longer crop rotations
- Maximize Soil Cover
- Apply organic mulches
- Leave more crop residue on soil surface if rotation is not allowing a cover crop to be planted….
- Maximize Biodiversity
- Interplanting
- Diverse cover crop mixes
- Diverse crop rotations
- Integrate livestock
Deadlines
November 1: Application available, apply below!
December 31: Application deadline, apply below!
Need more information? Connect with Anna Mueller: [email protected], (207) 568-6017.
