Abstract |
Under the proposed Lake Jordan Rules, the Basin Oversight Committee (BOC) is tasked with submitting agricultural information on a yearly basis. To obtain a better estimate of agricultural practices, this one-time statistically valid area sampling frame was applied to agricultural fields in the Lake Jordan River Basin in order to collect an agricultural baseline of cropping systems, soil types and currently used best management practices, livestock types and numbers, and producer information. Using a valid statistical sampling technique, random census blocks were selected. The number of maps selected per county in the Lake Jordan basin was based on how much of the county was within the river basin boundaries, as well as the amount of agriculture. Counties sampled consisted of Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Orange, Randolph, Rockingham, and Wake. Most of these counties only had a portion of its area within the Lake Jordan watershed boundary. We collected information on a wide variety of agricultural characteristics, including number of acres in development, wildlife, and CREP/CRP. Other data collected consisted of county, field size (ac), current crop, fertilizer applications (amount and type), tillage type, cover crop use, presence of different types of buffers, buffer widths, acreage affected by the buffers, field slope, receiving slope length, and presence of other BMPs (sediment basin or pond). Slope length was also determined in order to calculate soil loss. The survey instrument is attached at the end of this report. |