Sycamore Land Trust owns or manages 56 properties totaling about 11,000 acres, mostly in southern Indiana and specifically in the Beanblossom Creek area.
When walking through the 10-acre former crop field at Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve in Monroe County, Indiana its former life is nowhere to be found.
Until a few years ago, corn and soybeans would annually fight the flood waters for survival on this small plot of land surrounded by trees and abutting the Beanblossom Creek. Now, it is slowly being returned to its natural state.
Where the corn and soybeans once grew, native plants have quickly taken over. They have been joined by nearly 3,000 trees in a variety of species planted along one side of the property. Multiple wetland pools have been added to the property to provide habitat for a variety of species. And only a year since the work began, it is working.
Tree swallows and blue birds flit through the air while defending their nests. The sound of frog croaks fills the air while thousands of tadpoles swim through the wetland ponds that are holding water despite a dry couple of weeks in late May. Deer tracks can be found in the mud around the edges of the wetland pools and game cameras dotted throughout the property have spotted turkeys.
This transformation is exactly what was planned by the staff at Sycamore Land Trust, which owns the property as part of its mission to protect and restore natural properties. The entire Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve property encompasses about 30 acres, including forestland and the roughly 10-acre field. It is a small part of Sycamore Land Trust’s preservation effort, though. In all Sycamore Land Trust owns or manages 56 properties totaling about 11,000 acres, mostly in southern Indiana and specifically in the Beanblossom Creek area.
Sycamore Land Trust purchased the land that would become Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve in 2016 but began the restoration work in earnest in 2022. They started with a two-and-a-half-acre tree planting in May 2022 that included nearly 3,000 trees. That fall, they transformed the landscape by constructing macro and micro topography, which are essentially shallow ponds to hold water and create wetland habitat. Then in February they dormant seeded a pollinator planting throughout the property. They have also added native planting plugs from their nursey, built birdhouses and more.
“It’s really exciting to see the wildlife using the ponds already,” said Chris Fox, Sycamore Land Trust’s land stewardship director. “It is rewarding and exciting just to think of what it will look like in a year or two.”
Sycamore Land Trust relied on multiple partners to restore the Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve, but, as has been true on many of their properties in recent years, a major source of funding and expertise was from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Under the 2018 Farm Bill, Sycamore Land Trust has enrolled in five Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) contracts to address natural resource concerns on six different properties in Monroe County, including Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve.
The EQIP assistance has been used for tree plantings, brush management to remove invasive species, wetland restorations, habitat management, conservation plantings, forest stand improvement and more.
“To be honest, we probably wouldn't have done this without EQIP funding and without the assistance of NRCS and many partners,” Fox said of the restoration at Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve. “I've got a list of all the different people that contributed to make this possible, and it's a long list, but the key partner in this project in particular and in so many projects that we've done is NRCS.”
In addition to the financial assistance, Fox said the major benefit of working with NRCS is the access to free technical assistance. Through the conservation planning process landowners such as Sycamore Land Trust are able to take advantage of the free technical assistance offered by NRCS’ team of experts including engineers, soil scientists, biologists, foresters and more. These experts work directly with the landowner to plan conservation practices, ensure they are being implemented correctly and the resources being invested are maximized.
For the Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve, NRCS experts helped Sycamore Land Trust plan the location of the wetlands and design them. This included work by soil scientists to ensure the soils were correct for what they were trying to accomplish and engineers to develop plans for the wetland that contractors were able to implement. Sycamore Land Trust also worked with NRCS to select the seeds for the conservation cover planting and develop a management plan for the plot to ensure it develops correctly.
“I always tell people, you don't have to be a soil scientist to do this, because the NRCS has those people,” Fox said. “You don't have to be an engineer to figure out how to design a wetland. Working with the office to determine what is best, where works best and how to manage it after it's installed, it's all part of the partnership.”
Technical assistance and detailed conservation planning are all part of the “holistic” approach NRCS takes to conservation, said Cara Bergschneider, state urban/small scale conservationist for NRCS in Indiana, who worked closely with Sycamore Land Trust in her previous role as the district conservationist in Monroe and Brown counties.
When a customer, such as Sycamore Land Trust, comes to the office looking for assistance the first step is to compile as much information as possible about the property including aerial images, soils and topography maps, Bergschneider said. They then make a field visit with the customer and work together to build a “road map” of how the landowner can conserve the natural resources on their land. The goal is to set the producer up for success whether or not they apply for financial assistance by providing them the information they need to address concerns and improve conservation on their land.
If they do decide to apply for funding, as Sycamore Land Trust has through their five EQIP contracts and additional contracts through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program’s Wetland Reserve Easement component (ACEP-WRE), their local NRCS office then works with them to create a conservation plan and submit a program application. If their application is selected for funding, then NRCS continues to provide technical assistance while they implement the approved practices.
“NRCS is based on technical assistance. The greatest benefit we can offer a customer is that technical knowledge,” Bergschneider said. “Not every project is going to get funded. Not every landowner or customer is going to apply for funding. So, giving that person or entity, the knowledge, power and support to be able to implement conservation on their own, I think it's an invaluable service that NRCS provides.”
Fox said they have utilized EQIP multiple times to restore properties in part because of the ease of the program and the flexibility it offers. They have been able to implement different practices on different properties depending on whether they are restoring a forest, building wetlands or developing habitat. The EQIP contracts have been “vital” to Sycamore Land Trust’s growth since its founding in 1990, Fox added, because for much of the work they do, such as invasive species removal and tree plantings, EQIP is one of the few sources for funding and technical assistance.
While much of the initial work at Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve has been completed it will be a while before the fruits of their labor are fully realized. The trees are growing, but still are only four feet tall. The seeded conservation cover will take multiple years to fully establish. Sycamore Land Trust is in it for the long-haul, though, and has NRCS by its side whenever they need help.
Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve is just one small part of the work they are trying to accomplish. The 30-acre property now connects to a large preserve also owned by Sycamore Land Trust called Shine Preserve and together they provide 800 continuous acres of habitat and natural ecosystem for plants and animals. Sycamore Land Trust has also been approved for an EQIP contract on Shine Preserve in Monroe County to restore more wetland habitat and implement many of the same practices they undertook at Fix-Stoelting Nature Preserve.
“It's just really powerful for lack of a better word to look at the tree planting and just think, 'Hey, 50 years from now this is going be a little woods in here and we'll still have this open wetland,’” said John Lawrence, executive director of Sycamore Land Trust. “That's why we got into this. That's why we're all working for Sycamore and NRCS. That's what we're here to do. It's really exciting to think about.”
For more information about EQIP visit nrcs.usda.gov/Indiana/EQIP or visit nrcs.usda.gov/Indiana/ACEP#WRE to learn more about Wetland Reserve Easements. To contact your local district conservationist, visit nrcs.usda.gov/indiana-service-centers.