Extension
It Starts With Us
Author: Heather Graham
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Wolfe County, like many counties, has seen its share of drug "issues." To celebrate those that have made it to recovery, the Wolfe County Extension Office partnered with Wolfe Countians Against Drugs to hold a Recovery Week. Part of the Recovery Week was to hold a community wide clean-up, people could celebrate being clean while cleaning up the county. Of course, those in recovery were not the only ones that participated. Family members and community supporters also participated. Becau
Author: Reed Graham
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
“What should you do with old/partially used pesticides once a farmer retires or passes away?” This is a question regularly asked to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent in Breathitt County. It is estimated that 5 farmers/year retire or pass away in Breathitt County.Keeping streams and waterways clean is always a priority at the Breathitt County Extension Office. With fear that aging pesticide containers could possibly leak or get poured into streams, Agent Reed Graham, in part
Author: DJ Scully
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
I received a thank you letter from a recent Highlands High School (Fort Thomas, KY) graduate. I had the opportunity to mentor her by providing her with opportunities to improve the environment through volunteer cleanup events that I organize. She chose an Advanced Placement (AP) Research project on what motivates students to protect the environment and volunteer, in which I assisted her with the survey design and data analysis. "DJ Scully,Thank you for everything that you have helped m
Author: Daniel Allen
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
A lot of conversation of late has been around sustainability and how everyone can be good environmental stewardship. The website greendreamer.com currently lists 35 nonprofit membership organizations where people may participate in the sustainability cause. For residents and homeowners many want to play a part in good stewardship practices that aid in environmental sustainability. Kenton County Extension receives a lot of inquiry about reducing lawn fertilization and composting for g
Author: Lacey Kessell
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Many community members are often overwhelmed by the idea of managing their pond on their own but do not have or want to spend the money on hiring a professional. Pond goals usually vary from owner to owner and could be used for watering livestock, fishing, swimming, or aesthetics which can all be negatively impacted by improper management. Often times these ponds have been inherited through land purchases or have not maintained sustainably. In these cases some of the more preventativ
Author: Brad Lee
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Over one-million soil test results collected over three decades from the Commonwealth revealed that phosphorus levels in lawns and gardens are exceedingly high and levels have been increasing at an alarming rate, while phosphorus levels from agricultural fields are considerably lower and have decreased over time. This is of particular interest to the > 100 EPA regulated Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) communities across the state which make up approximately half of Kentucky&
Author: Brad Lee
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Dog excrement in urban environments is one of the primary sources of nutrient runoff that can lead eutrophication of Kentucky waterways. We developed an outreach program, supported by the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, to bring awareness to this important issue. A baseline was established by counting the number of people that pick up their dog’s excrement at four popular dog parks in Lexington in September 2019 over a four hour period each day for 7 days. Foll
Author: Lacey Kessell
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Boone County Cooperative Extension partners with Boone County Conservation, Sanitation District No. 1 of Northern Kentucky and Northern Kentucky University to provide a unique experience for youth ages, 11-16, to learn about the ecological importance of algae in water ecosystems as well as the negative impacts of having too much algae. This program is one lesson from a series of monthly meetings of the Stream Team. The Stream Teams overall goal is to create water quality stewards in
Author: DJ Scully
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The Kentucky Community Assessment indicates that Campbell County residents desire less illegal dumping and littering in our community. Many items that are illegally dumped are household hazardous waste and cannot be disposed of in traditional landfills. According to the EPA, the average household generates more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste per year. Products, such as paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides can contain hazardous ingredients that can catc
Author: Eric Baker
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
In Cooperative Extension’s over 100-year history of helping farmers with sound, research-based knowledge, it is known our rural community recognizes the benefit of land grant institutions like the University of Kentucky. Farmers utilize all the resources available to them to accomplish practices needed in their farming operation. In this example, a farmer made application and received an acceptance letter for a local cost share program. He was approved 50 percent cost share for tiling an 1
Author: Robert Smith
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The City of Bardstown is growing and the growing pains come in many forms. The city has recently been designated a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) community. This means that the city now has to comply with the rules outlined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Bardstown is considered a small (phase II) MS4 community and Phase II regulation requires small MS4s in U.S. Census Bureau defined urbanized areas, as well as MS4s designated by the permitting author
Author: Curtis Judy
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Todd County has little or no infrastructure for recycling. The problem is that in a rural area the cost of recycling is typically greater than the value recovered from recycled items. A few years ago, this agent became interested in the opportunity to recycle cell phones and rechargeable batteries from electronic devices. According the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are several benefits to recycling batteries. They include: (1) a reduction in the
Author: Jamie Dockery
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Homeowners have few unbiased resources when looking for solutions to lawn and garden problems. Many automatically turn to applications of chemicals or fertilizers that may not be necessary for treatment or consult local businesses that are motivated to sell products. Excess products ultimately become groundwater contaminants contributing to pollution concerns. Greener gardening practices was identified as an area where Fayette County residents need education in a recent county assessment. T
Author: Linda Hieneman
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Phosphorus is an essential element for plant life, but when there is too much of it in water, it can cause a reduction in dissolved oxygen in water bodies caused by an increase of mineral and organic nutrients of rivers and lakes. This can cause algae blooms that can be dangerous for human water consumption and kill fish and marine life. In Kentucky many farmers conduct a water quality plan to reduce the amount of Phosphorus that is leaching into the streams and rivers. One part
Author: Samantha Anderson
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
According to the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, planting trees provides a multitude of benefit to local ecosystems. These benefits include protecting soil from rill and sheet erosion, protecting water quality by filtering excess nutrients and chemicals from surface runoff, increasing infiltration rates and providing long term wildlife habitats. In partnership with the McCracken County Soil Conservation District, McCracken County Agent for Agricult
Author: Jessica Barnes
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
National Ag Day was celebrated on March 23, 2021 and here at the Harrison County Extension Office we decided to celebrate all week by doing some educational grab bags for our clients everyday that week. Over the course of the week we were able to hand out over 100 grab bags that contained information on things such as water safety and usage, rain barrels, rain gardens, forages, livestock handling, flower and vegetable gardening, pesticide safety and much more. All of the grab bags included publi
Author: Raymond Cox
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Findings from the PRIDE campaign indicated students in Harlan County were unaware of the effects of pollution on the environment and ways of correcting the problem. Upon the recommendation of the 4-H and Extension Councils, the one day program with a couple of schools turned into a three day Environmental Camp targeting every 4th grader in Harlan County public and private schools. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic we presented a Virtual 4-H Environmental Camp. With the cooperation of the UK College o
Author: LaToya Drake
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The Mammoth Cave Biosphere Region is home to the world’s largest cave system. The Region, that was founded in 1990 as part of the UNESCO Man, exists under a cooperative agreement between Mammoth Cave National Park, the Barren River Area Development District, and Western Kentucky University; it is composed of a 25-member Advisory Council with members from federal, state, and local governments, community groups, conservation groups, universities, local businesses, and agriculture.
Author: Suzette Walling
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The EPA estimates that nutrient pollution is one of America's most challenging environmental problems and leading the list of contaminants is phosphorus (P). Research has demonstrated that two of the major contributors of P to urban area stormwater are fertilizer and dog waste. A 25-year assessment of soil tests collected from Fayette County home lawns and gardens from 1990-2014 through the UK/Fayette County Cooperative Extension Service, revealed that 84% exceeded the high-risk
Author: Chelsey Anderson
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
On May 4th, 2021, Cumberland County suffered from major flooding across the area. Producers lost crops, structures, livestock, etc. In the immediate aftermath, the Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) agent worked along with the county emergency manager (EM), the local Farm Service agency (FSA), and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to access the damage. Producers were notified via social media and word of mouth to take photos and send them to the local FSA office to document
Author: Thomas Miller
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Tiling of soil, placing drainage pipes underground to improve surface drainage of crop land has been a common practice in many parts of Kentucky for years, but has not made its way to far western Kentucky until the last few years. Myths about our soil types and the predominance of smaller fields has slowed the adoption. The 2020 growing season was a perfect example to show the benefits as well drained sloping fields had plenty of water all year long and yielded well over 200 bushels
Author: Amanda Gumbert
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Building on the foundation of an in-person farmer exchange held in 2020, land-grant partners in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River basin pivoted due to the pandemic to offer a series of virtual farmer exchanges in winter 2021. These events were part of an EPA-supported, multi-state project to facilitate peer learning among farmers about conservation. The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service led the planning of this event, which brought together farmers and natural resources manage
Author: Amanda Gumbert
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Kentucky has over 90,000 miles of streams and rivers, with many of those stream miles passing through urban landscapes. To help address homeowner concerns related to backyard streams, University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service water specialists developed a Backyard Streams program. This program includes an online course with 12 learning modules, publications, workshops, videos, and a website housing these resources. For several years citizen volunteers have completed the modules and ha
Author: Amanda Gumbert
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The Kentucky Agriculture Water Quality Act (AWQA) states that all landowners with 10+ acres involved in farming or forestry must complete a water quality plan. This law was passed in 1994 and has been enforceable since 2001. A water quality plan consists of best management practices, or BMPs, that will be used to protect water quality on the farm. Since the development of the AWQA the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service has played a key role in delivering science-based informati
Author: Shawn Lucas
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Organic agriculture has seen tremendous growth since the National Organic Program (NOP) was implemented in 2002. According to the Organic Trade Association, organic is the fastest growing agricultural sector, seeing an average of 9% annual growth between 2010 and 2019. In 2020, despite economic impacts of COVID-19, organic sales reached $61.9 billion, a 12.4% increase over 2019 sales. Kentucky has seen similar increases in demand. The USDA-NASS 2019 Organic Survey showed organic sales in Kentuck
Author: DJ Scully
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
384 Campbell County residents responded to the Kentucky Needs Assessment Survey that was completed in 2019. Focus Groups were held to provide additional data for the community assessment. Since then, County Extension Council and Environmental Advisory Council meetings have identified composting education and implementation as a need in the county. The Campbell County Extension Service and the Campbell County Conservation District agreed to collaborate to address the issue and develo
Author: Beau Neal
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Feeding horses and livestock during the winter in Kentucky can prove to be difficult due to wet and muddy conditions. These conditions lead to soil erosion and disruption of soil structure, in-turn decreasing its ability to sustain adequate forage growth in future years. This program was developed for Fayette County farmers to educate them on matters of soil structure breakdown and particular farm practices they can put in place for prevention of that degradation. Decreased soi
Author: Lacey Kessell
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Kentucky has over 91,000 miles of rivers and streams and more than 225,000 acres of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. These water resources not only play a vital role in Kentucky’s drinking water systems, but also are imperative to our agriculture industry. Each day in Kentucky, 81 million gallons of surface water and 4 million gallons of groundwater are withdrawn for agricultural use. In addition, these resources are a source of recreation for
Author: Tammy Brewster-Barnes
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
On going efforts with CD, Agents, producer associations, FSA to provide farmer education and environmental compliance plans to protect or improve water quality in Kentucky. Education and technical assistance was provided via Zoom, phone, email or in-person. Since the KY Division of Water has shifted funding for KY NMP development from Cooperative Extension to CD, education focus has been on trainings that enable CD staff and agents to produce conservation plans that will be accepted by FSA for l
Author: Tammy Brewster-Barnes
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
In collaboration with Steve Evans and others at the KWRRI, two projects have been started to improve water quality in the Glenns Creek watershed (Versailles, KY) and the central Bluegrass region. The first project goal is to provide water quality data to Versailles so the city can develop a Watershed Protection Plan (WPP) for Glenns Creek. A WPP will enable the city to apply Federal dollars to improve their sanitary sewage infrastructure. Our community partners are Versailles Mayor, Woodford Cou
Author: Adam Leonberger
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
According to the EPA, nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading remaining cause of water quality problems. NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground waters, where they cause harmful effects on drinking water supplies, recreation, fisheries and wildlife. Excess fertilizers, herbicides a
Author: Matthew Futrell
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Water Quality should be one of the most important values held a in a community. In 2012 the Little River water Quality Consortium formed to address water quality in Christian County. Little River is the main body of water that flows through Christian County. Every couple of years the Division of Water scores streams all across the state. Prior to 2012 the Little River had been deemed a hazardous water source as it had elevated levels of E.coli and nutrients.The LRWQC made
Author: Lee Moser
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The University of Kentucky has a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) for the main campus in Lexington, Kentucky. An MS4 is a permitted system that requires education and outreach efforts as a part of the minimum control measures outlined within the permit. As a part of our partnership with UK Environmental Management, we developed website content for the new UK Stormwater website, developed multiple videos related to stormwater topics on campus, developed and piloted a drain marking and
Author: Lee Moser
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The Kentucky Master Naturalist Program is an extension program with a curriculum designed to engage and educate participants with materials related to various topics such as water resources, archaeology, soils, entomology, outdoor safety, and multiple other naturalist related topics. The program began as a UK course and as an extension program with two offerings (one in Louisville and one in Lexington). The efforts over the past year have involved developing a framework and foundational document
Author: Lee Moser
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Over the past year our working group has partnered with the Friends of Wolf Run to develop a demonstration and outreach program related to residential stormwater management. Surveys were conducted with both Lexington residents and local contractors related to residential stormwater needs and the potential for best management practices to address some of the stormwater issues experienced in residential settings. Friends of Wolf Run has selected partner residents to implement residential stormwate
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
Farm visits to producers’ farms to help diagnose production issues are sometimes very beneficial, very beneficial to the producers needing help solving their production issue and very beneficial to extension agents fostering relationships with clientele. I was involved with several farm visits with agents that dealt with hay production, nursery production, and row crop production issues. I had four different agents relay information to me that the visit to their clienteles’ farm was
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
A shift in delivery methods occurred when normal operations were disrupted by COVID 19. The format shifted from hands-on to virtual. The Coffee KATS video series was started and resulted in 18 YouTube videos covering many aspects of production agriculture from soil testing and fertilizer recommendations to pesticide applications and effectiveness. The Spray Clinic is a staple program of KATS. This year it was presented in an electronic format via Facebook Live. There were over 600 views for this
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
The UK Wheat Field School was initiated in 2016 to provide real life scenarios for crop advisors, managers, and others in the agricultural field. In 2018 the Wheat Field School was changed to KATS to include other crops commonly grown in Kentucky and surrounding states. The spring of 2020 started out with two in-person, half-day meetings and then COVID 19 resulted in the cancellation of in-person meetings. We had to switch to a virtual format to continue offering trainings. Since COVID restricti
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
This publication was developed in 2015 to supplement the 4-H Land Judging in Kentucky publication (4BA-08MH) and provide greater guidance in determining soil texture. It is used by 4-H students and coaches, but also extensively by other clientele throughout the nation and world. According to UKnowledge Author Dashboard, this publication has been downloaded 20,924 times, up 10,000 from the year before. It has been downloaded by 1,417 institutions and in 169 countries since originally developed. T
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
I became the UK representative to the Kentuckiana Certified Crop Advisors (CCA) Conference in 2011. This program is a joint effort between the University of Kentucky and Purdue University This joint effort is approaching a 30-year anniversary. This longstanding program provides current information for crop production common to Kentucky and Indiana agriculture. Approximately 200 CCA’s attend this conference annually from Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, and Missouri. Many of the participants r
Author: Edwin Ritchey
Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation
A small group of county ANR agents, extension faculty, and college administration met with the Energy and Environment Secretary Goodman at Elizabethtown to discuss how UK and the local commodity boards provide support to Kentucky producers. This tour was arranged by the Soybean, Corn, and Small Grain Commodity Boards. We were successful in providing the evidence that UK and local extension efforts are well used and often relied on by the producers of Kentucky. Secretary Goodman left with a great
