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Invasive Plants Management Project 2007

EQIP Special Project - Alabama

Kudzu growing up trees.Objectives

Alabama USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is funding a new Invasive Plants Management Project.  This special project, designated by the NRCS State Conservationist, is now funded by 2007 Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) funds at the state level.  

Invasive plants can be eliminated in many Alabama counties if action is taken now.  This will result in greatly increasing the productivity of the land resources. This project has three main objectives: 

  1. Increase the overall awareness of the problem of the following targeted invasive species:
     

    • kudzu
    • cogongrass
    • Chinese tallowtree
    • Japanese climbing fern
    • mutiflora, Cherokee, and macartney rose
  2. Provide an incentive to landowners to control these invasive species on their lands and therefore protect the land resource and its productivity. 
     
  3. Prevent the spread of invasive plants to non-infested lands.

Description

Cogongrass in seed.The project will provide incentive payments to landowners willing to control the targeted invasive species on their property. Incentive payments will be made to participating landowners for three years with contracts ranging from three to five years. 

Landowners will be expected to treat invasive plant infested acres according to treatment plans developed with the assistance of technical experts. Payments will be based on actual treatment (infested) acres.

Guidelines

The following guidelines should be followed to determine applicant qualifications and administer this project. 

  1. Eligible lands are those infested with the targeted species. 
  2. Eligible landowners, producers, or operators are those which will have control of the eligible land for the period of the contract and meet other eligibility requirements of the EQIP.
  3. Only infested (treatment) acres are eligible for the incentive payments. Acres will be rounded to the nearest 1 acre. Areas of 0.1 to 1 acre will be funded at the 1 acre rate. A minimum of 1 acre is required for participation in this project. Payments will be limited to a maximum of 50 infested (treatment) acres.
  4. Payment will be 3 years of incentive payments based on the species being controlled.  
  5. The tract, field, or management area will be included in each contract and conservation plan. For example if an applicant has 10 acres of treatment area within a 40 acre tract which he manages as a unit, the contract and associated plan will include the 40 acre tract. The boundaries of the tract and the treatment areas will be shown on the contract plan map.
  6. An initial treatment and follow-up treatments are required where needed. Contracts will be for a minimum of 3 years to a maximum of 5 years with a limit of 3 years of payments.
  7. Land currently enrolled in CRP is not eligible for participation in this project.

Contact the local Service Center for further guidelines and details of the program.
 

Additional information

These documents require Adobe Acrobat.

Invasive Species Control Fact Sheets (*for information only - species not funded under EQIP)

Adobe Acrobat Document*Chinese/European Privet  (232 KB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentCogongrass (214 KB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentJapanese Climbing Fern  (214 KB)
Adobe Acrobat Document*Japanese Glossy Privet (193 KB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentKudzu (205 KB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentNon-Native Roses (211 KB)
Adobe Acrobat DocumentTallowtree (Popcorntree) (205 KB)
Adobe Acrobat Document*Tropical Soda Apple (216 KB)

Posters of Invasive Plant Targeted Species 

Adobe Acrobat Document8x11 (1.43 MB) 
Adobe Acrobat Document11x17 (2.83 MB)

Cogongrass Information (all will open in a new window)

Cogongrass identification photos

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