Conservation reserve tree planting: Can we improve upon success?

If one thing is certain, it is that the Conservation Reserve Program presented foresters and landowners with both an opportunity and a challenge. Of a vast array of practices that can be applied on CRP acres, including grasses, windbreaks, trees, wildlife habitat, diversions, structures, and shallow water areas for wildlife, only one of these—tree planting—has a goal that's etched in the language of the law itself. The law requires, “to the extent practicable,” that “not less than one-eighth of the number of acres of land that is placed in the conservation reserve…in each of the 1986 through 1990 crop years shall be devoted to trees.” To date there have been five signups for the CRP. Total tree planting now stands at nearly 1.3 million acres, of the 23 million CRP acres. This amounts to about 5.5 percent in trees; a good bit short of the 12.5 percent called for in the law. Looking at each of the signups separately, there is an interesting trend. Disregarding the fourth …