A healthy habitat Amwell couple get top county farming honor
Jack and Carole Kirschner are Washington County Conservation District’s farmers of the year for 2014.
Carole Kirschner is shown in the barn on her farm where members of 4-H keep their animals.
This wetlands was created at CJ Livestock in Amwell Township to improve the habitat, improve Ten Mile Creek and pump water to a pasture where the cows spend the winter.
A concrete-lined manure storage area was built beside this barn to control the distribution of fertilizer at CJ Livestock in Amwell Township.
MARIANNA – Bald eagle, black bear and just about every other indigenous creature down to the dragonfly are known to visit a beef farm in Amwell Township to dine on its diverse habitat.
The grandchildren of the owners of C.J. Livestock also enjoy playing at the farm’s wetlands to see frogs and salamanders, said Jack Kirschner, 75, who operates the farm with his wife, Carole.
“We’ve actually seen everything there because of the variety of the habitat,” said Jose Taracido, supervisor of the farmland habitat program at California University of Pennsylvania.
The wetlands, including a pond, and a host of other environmental improvements to the 328-acre farm along Iams Hill Road prompted the Washington County Conservation District to name the Kirschners its 2014 farmers of the year.
“Jose just sort of came along with the conservation district,” Jack Kirschner said. “He wanted to build a wetlands.”
Taracido has earned national recognition for cleaning up land by educating farmers about how to rotate their livestock from pasture to pasture and take other measures to keep their animals from polluting streams with their droppings.
His program has secured millions of dollars to help farmers fence off their streams and replant their banks with grasses and wildflowers. It took some convincing, but farmers began to embrace his program after those who followed his plans began to save money on veterinary bills because their animals were drinking healthier water and profited by harvesting warm-season grasses for feed.
Taracido installed 10,000 feet of fence at C.J. Livestock, Jack Kirschner said.
The Kirschners also built a covered heavy-use area where the cows are fed in the winter and a concrete-lined dry manure storage area for fertilizer. The pond, meanwhile, has a pressurized system that pumps water up a hill for the cows in a pasture they use during the winter. A fenced trail also was constructed for the animals in order to control erosion.
Taracido said Cal U.’s partnerships with the conservation district, the National Resource Conservation Service and the Partners for Fish and Wildlife program help to provide the material to perform the work in a cost-sharing agreement with farmers.
The project has protected the entire watershed at C.J. Livestock and eliminated farmland pollutants that otherwise would have drained into nearby Ten Mile Creek.
“It’s one of the greatest places I’ve ever worked,” he said.
The Kirschners married in 1993 after their spouses died and eventually moved to Amwell after she sold her 10 acres of land in Eighty Four where she raised sheep and he sold his Carroll Township farm.
Carole Kirschner, 77, already had owned a 155-acre section of their farm, which they enlarged by purchasing a neighboring dairy operation. They have eight children and 21 grandchildren.
They raise Limousin/Maine-Anjou cross cattle and sell their calves to support the farm. They have been involved in 4-H for a combined 76 years.