A new study will track the health of dryland soil and wheat yields in lands entered into or just coming out of USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

CRP pays landowners to take land out of production for the duration of a contract, typically 10 to 15 years, with the option for contract renewal.

The study will use ground at Washington State University’s dryland research station in Lind, Wash. that’s been in CRP for at least 40 years, station director Surendra Singh  told the Capital Press.

They will convert some of that ground into a no-till cropping system, tilled land and untouched land for comparison.

“We want to see how long these benefits actually last which have been built up over the last three to four decades,” Singh said. “Can we extend those benefits?”

Singh has visited farmers and could detect a difference in their farm soil and the soil that had recently come out of CRP.

The study covers microbial changes without adding fertilizers or inputs, or removing nutrients. The difference will vary depending on how deep the researchers dig, Singh said.

The researchers are also sampling 16 farm sites in Adams and Lincoln counties where agriculture land is side by side with CRP, and some CRP land has recently been converted into production.

Singh welcomes other farmers who are willing to volunteer land recently entered into or taken out of CRP, or land that has been in CRP for 10 years, for the study. 

Research into the buildup of CRP benefits has largely been in areas with relatively higher rainfall zones, Singh said.

“The buildup of all these benefits vary based on the kind of soil you have, the kind of rainfall you have and kind of CRP mixtures you use,” he said.

Dryland CRP hasn’t been as examined as closely, until this project, he said.

“We don’t know that rate of change between when we take (land) out and put it into a no-till system or tilled system,” he said. “Maybe those benefits will last longer in dryland if we were to compare to a higher rainfall area.”

The three-year study is slated to receive $800,000 in funding from the USDA Farm Service Agency.

“The whole goal of this project is to provide farmers with research-based information,” Singh said. “So that whether they are thinking of retiring land into CRP or take land out of it, they have all the information they need to make an informed decison.”