Cooperator of the Year 2008 AVSWDC

Pulkkinen Dairy Farm

Iris Pulkkinen and Jack Hackett

Iris Pulkkinen owns and operates a small conventional dairy farm in Minot Maine. She milks 25-30 Holstein dairy cows, and raises her own replacement animals.

She also grows and manages forty acres of silage corn and 100 acres of hay to feed her animals. Her son uses four acres of land to grow sweet corn and pumpkins for retail at area farm stands.

Iris has worked closely with NRCS to develop and maintain a conservation plan that addresses her farmland stewardship goals. Maintaining and updating her Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan is a major component of her conservation plan. A rotational grazing plan is another component of her conservation plan.

Working with NRCS and under the umbrella provided by the Environmental Quality Incentive program, Iris, over the past few years has installed and is maintaining several conservation practices. These practices include building a waste storage facility, a diversion to control water flows and stop erosion, animal trails and walkways, a stream crossing for her animals, a watering facility which included rehabilitating a dug well and installing a gravity feed hydrant with trough float and gravel  pad, And fencing.

Iris’s rotational grazing plan utilizes permanent pasture areas as well as grazed hay lands for late season forage and reduces the need for importing feed for her dairy herd. She also improves her pasture forage by clipping her pastures after August to control unwanted and noxious vegetation.

Congratulations to Iris for being chosen as the Androscoggin Valley Soil and Water Conservation District’s Cooperator of the year for 2008.

Annual Reports

2007 (pdf)

2006 (pdf)

Newsletters

Second 2008 (pdf)

First 2008 (pdf)

Fourth 2007 (pdf)

Third 2007 (pdf)

Second 2007 (pdf)

First 2007 (pdf)

Press Releases for Grant Projects

Nequasset Lake Phase 1 Success Story (pdf)

Carbon Credit (pdf)

Nequasset Lake Grant Announcement (pdf)

Nequasset Lake Phase 1 Public Meeting Announcement (pdf)

District Activity Press Releases

Other Events

Congratulations
Edward Little High school

Winners of the Maine State Envirothon

Good Luck at the Nationals!

Lead Poisoning is Killing our Waterbirds

Loons are a symbol of Maine lakes. Most lake residents and summer visitors delight to the haunting calls and the breath-taking visual of these beautiful, majestic and graceful creatures. Many lake associations have a local loon counting program to monitor the health and viability of loon populations.   Of the many threats to loon populations, lead poisoning is the number one cause of death of adult loons in New England. To learn more about what you can do please go to http://www.somersetswcd.org/index.htm and click on loons & Lead. There are easy alternatives that can save lives.   

2006AnnualReport.pdf