Financial and Environmental Impact of Conservation Practices

In this webinar, Greg Goodwin from the Illinois Corn Growers Association provides an overview of the Precision Conservation Management (PCM) program. PCM works with farmers to analyze their farm management data and benchmark the financial and environmental outcomes. The program aims to help farmers understand how conservation practices impact profitability, address water quality concerns, and access incentive programs. Greg covers the program details like the annual benchmarking reports farmers receive, the incentive payments for participating, and how PCM operates across Illinois, Kentucky, and Nebraska. He then introduces Dr. Gary Schnitkey who dives into analyzing PCM's multi-year data on tillage systems, cover crops, and nitrogen management. The data analysis looks at the yield impacts and profitability of different practices like no-till, strip-till, cover crop termination timings, and nitrogen application methods. The webinar provides valuable insights from PCM's on-farm data analysis to help farmers evaluate potential practice changes from both an economic and environmental perspective. Farmers interested in enrolling in the PCM program can find more information at precisionconservation.org