CCCWC members walk the Burke family’s newly planted hazelnut orchard at our Oct. 2025 meeting in Timber Coulee. Cost share for planting trees like hazelnuts, as well as other perennial crops, is available through the end of 2025 through the CCCWC
Sydney Widell | Watershed Coordinator, CCCWC
We still have funding available to support Coon Creek Watershed residents’ 2025 conservation projects, thanks to grants from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, and The Nature Conservancy.
The conservation cost share funds practices including planting alternative perennial crops like trees and hedges, cover crops, prairie, and riparian buffers. Practices like these, which establish year round ground cover, are critical to maintaining healthy, productive soils, and enhancing flood resilience.
We will compensate watershed residents and other members for conservation practices they have already adopted in the 2025 season, and it will also fund purchases for projects to be completed in 2026. These practices include:
- Cover Crops: $25/acre for up to 30 acres.
- Trees: $10/tree, for up to 200 trees. Note that trees must be planted with tree tubes.
- Hedges: $3/hedge, for up to 500 hedges.
- Prairie and Riparian Plantings: $200/acre
Community members who purchase seeds or trees to plant in 2026 are also eligible for this round of cost share. We will administer 80 percent of the cost share at the time of purchase, and will award the remaining 20 percent once the project has been completed.
This cost share is administered on a first-come, first serve basis, and must be requested by Dec. 29, 2025. To request cost share, visit https://cooncreekwatershed.org/cost-share/, and complete the form linked on the webpage. Alternatively, you may email us at council@cooncreekwatershed.org to make their cost share request.
In past years, our members have used this cost share to plant cover crops like winter rye and red clover, to help them establish hazelnut orchards, to add windbreaks to their landscaping, to improve wildlife habitat, and more. Last season alone, we awarded $6,000 in cover crop cost share to nine producers, which funded 304.6 acres of cover crops in the Coon Creek Watershed.
Additional cost share, including the CCCWC’s new Project Maintenance Program, will also be available in 2026.