Natural Resources Conservation Service

Massachusetts

United States Department of Agriculture

To the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, sweetgrass is more than an common-looking grass with a nice aroma. It’s an important ceremonial and medicinal plant. They have been losing access to this native plant, so they teamed up with the NRCS Plant Materials Center to bring sweetgrass back.

Chuckie Green, Natural Resources Director for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe

It’s conservation for all seasons at Mill River Farm

Steep land and a short growing season? Not a problem for Jan Johnson, owner of Mill River Farm, a 32 acre certified-organic produce and livestock farm in New Marlborough, Mass., in the heart of the Berkshire hills. She’s tackling those challenges with a little help from NRCS.

A symphony of songbirds at Red Apple Farm

Early one morning, Bill Rose was walking through an area of his family’s farm in Phillipston, Mass. that had been clear cut in a forest conservation project. The land looked very different. But, it wasn’t what he was seeing that got his attention. It was what he was hearing.

Bill Rose in his early successional habitat project area.

Aerial Cover Crop Seeding

Aerial seeding takes soil health to new heights by establishing a cover crop before our short growing season ends. A helicopter drops winter rye seed over fields before the main crop is harvested. A cover crop helps to build healthy soil.

Employee Spotlight: Lisa Barnes, Soil Conservationist

When a landowner was nervous about clear cutting a swath of her forestland in a conservation project to establish early successional habitat, Lisa Barnes, Soil Conservationist in the Greenfield, Mass. field office, calmed her concerns by putting herself in the landowner’s shoes.