04/18/05 NRCS gets wind erosion model

Farm and Ranch April 18, 2005 A computer model that forecasts wind erosion damage has been transferred from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service to the department's Natural Resources Conservation Service. The Wind Erosion Prediction System, or WEPS, can be used by NRCS and Extension Service personnel, as well as individual farmers, to formulate specific wind erosion control practices. It may also be used in the future to determine land eligibility for the Conservation Reserve Program. But having been developed in the Great Plains, does it really apply to the Pacific Northwest? Brenton Sharratt is with the ARS at Pullman where a project began last year to field validate how well WEPS predicts soil loss and PM-10 emissions. He says climate, soil type, and cropping and tillage systems can all vary among regions affecting soil properties and their susceptibility to wind erosion. Sharratt: "The interesting point in our region is that we feel that our soils, because they are less derived, they have a higher proportion of PM-10 compared to other regions around the U.S. Much of that PM-10 is freely available, in other words it can be directly suspended into the atmosphere where as in other regions you don't have this high amount of PM-10 that is available at the soil surface to be suspended." Sharratt says they need two or three years to have sufficient data to validate the WEPS model and researchers are dependent upon nature to create the wind events they need to do that. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.