Neshanic River watershed has the highest percentage of agricultural lands in Raritan River Basin (Reiser, 2004). Built upon the Raritan Watershed Agricultural Committee, a Neshanic Farmer Group will be established to evaluate current farming practices and BMPs. The information regarding farming practices includes the crop or grass types, crop rotation, tillage, fertilizer and pesticide application, and harvest methods in the watershed. Examples of BMPs are changes in the usage of fertilizers and pesticides, riparian buffers and vegetative filter strips. NRCS will provide the information regarding the implemented agricultural BMPs at the watershed level. We will collect additional information regarding the implemented BMPs in the watershed through aerial photo interpretation and field visits and from the farmers on a voluntary basis through formal or informal meetings of the Neshanic Farmer Group. The information will be used to build input files for biophysical modeling and evaluate the potential of achieving pollutant load reduction from agricultural sources in the watershed restoration plan. The information on the implemented BMPs collected through various ways may be not detailed enough to reveal any site-specific information of land and farmers, but be sufficient at the subwatershed level for biophysical modeling and watershed management planning. The costs of farming practices and BMP implementation will be estimated through NRCS and the Neshanic Farmer Group.

There are numerous horse farms in the watershed, which historically have not taken advantage of the NRCS technical and financial assistances, but generate substantial pollutants that go to streams. We evaluate the various BMPs for controlling horse farm runoff.

North Jersey RC&D and NJIT will be responsible for this task and operation of the farmer group.

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