2-7-11

Today we had a field visit in the Santa Cruz mountains. Rich picked me up as well as Angie, the new soils conservationist working with the NRCS. She is a masters student at Cal Poly so she isn't going to be full time till April. As we continued our drive into the mountains, Rich talked about the invasive acacia lining the road and how it had originally come from Africa. It was perfect that he talked about how despite it being invasive, many people wanted to plant it for its appearance, because we were about to go to a property dealing with invasives. We also passed over a couple of creeks and I got to see the RCDs creek signage.

Once we got to the property, I realized what a beautiful place I live in. We zigzagged up their driveway and saw what 95 acres in the Santa Cruz mountains look like. We passed a paddock with goats and sheep, as well as a couple of sheep dogs before we got to the house. The client was interested in doing the EQIP to get funding for switching to organic and the removal of invasive species from her property. We went outside to look around the key parts of her property.

The first field we looked at was overrun with Broom plant. Broom spreads quickly and is a dangerous plant to have in fire areas. Being in the Santa Cruz mountains, fire was a large concern. It was also on a slope so complete removal during the rainy winter wasn't the best option. Right now, to prevent the spread of fires, the best thing was to remove the broom under the trees. Eventually she was hoping to use it as a grazing area and use hedgerows as fences and start rotation grazing.

Another area we were looking at was a possible field for grazing, but it was missing a top soil. There was also a slope with good erosion control but they were using Coyote Brush which is highly flamable. This was a problem because it was up against the barn. There was also an erosion problem down one of the driveways, creating ravines. She could also apply for the forest management plan because there was a large amount of forestland that was occasionally used for lumber.

This was my first big client visit and it was not only a beautiful property but it provided a wide array of land problems for me to learn from. Most of this job is problem solving, so it was really good experience for me to observe the problems and try to find solutions. Its perfect for applying what I have learned in the classroom to the real world.