As a Conservation Planner in the Will County field office, Wyatt Dozier has had the opportunity to work on everything f rom raised beds in a vacant lot in Chicago to grazing plans for livestock in Kankakee. Wyatt’s enthusiasm for conservation began at an early age, as he grew up in a home surrounded by several acres of restored native prairie and frequently visited his grandfather ’s farm. He said, “It instilled the importance of taking care of the land and being grateful for the resources that it provides. Having that imprinted on me f rom an early age made quite an impression and got me to where I’m at here.” As a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he worked on many cover crop projects in the agronomy labs. After graduating, Wyatt worked for a remote sensing company called Intelinair, where he provided agricultural training to the machine learning department.

Explaining the work of Intelinair, Wyatt said, “It was all about trying to figure out different agricultural patterns from aerial imagery to make a diagnosis—say if a farmer has a particularly large operation where they are not able to scout everything in person—we would be able to take imagery of the field and sort of identify problems f rom there. Say we picked up on a nitrogen deficiency or a weed outbreak. It was a way to diagnose those issues so they could more efficiently run their operation. So, I worked there for a number of years prior to coming where we are at now with the Planner position.”

In January of 2023, he joined the Conservation Capacity Building Initiative, and his colleagues began taking him on site visits during his very first week. He said, “Whatever would help me get experience, they have been gracious enough to let me tag along. I’m just trying to keep my eyes and ears open and soak up as much as I can as far as knowledge of the programs.” Due to his location in Will County, he has had the opportunity to work with producers in a variety of different settings. Comparing this to the area where he grew up in central Illinois, he said, “Going from that relatively straightforward landscape to coming up here and seeing all these smaller and specialty operations… it has been pretty eye opening to see all the different approaches.”

The Urban Service Center is temporarily being housed in Will County, and Wyatt explained that he has learned a lot f rom being able to participate in some of these site visits as well. He said, “It has been quite an interesting mix because one day you’re on a city block standing in a lot between two buildings talking to somebody about putting in some raised beds, and the next you’re out on a several hundred-acre farm with nothing around you.” Along with raised beds, Wyatt has also assisted with irrigation, high tunnel, and nutrient management plans in urban locations. He said, “Meeting somebody who is trying to start a community garden versus the typical conversation you would have with a large-scale conventional farmer… it’s a very different conversation. It’s exciting and inspiring for me to see people in what you wouldn’t think of as an agricultural setting… to get something started on a small scale to help better their immediate surroundings and the community.”

According to Wyatt, many farmers in Will County have adopted cover crops wholeheartedly. During one of his first weeks on the job, Will County SWCD held a meeting for growers to discuss cover crop adoption, and attendees were very enthusiastic about sharing their ideas and success stories. He said, “ There wasn’t any convincing that needed to be had. People were already on board, and they had been doing it for years. And it felt to me like they were all ahead of the curve.” Wyatt explained that in his college years, he spent a lot of time advocating for cover crops and receiving quite a bit of pushback, so he was very pleased to see how many growers are now implementing this practice in his district.

Wyatt spends a lot of time working with NRCS Soil Conservationist Technician Kevin Culver, who has a background in water protection and participates in RiverWatch, a program that was initiated by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to measure water quality by training people to collect data on macroinvertebrates in local rivers and streams. Earlier this year, Wyatt assisted Kevin in conducting this research in the Kankakee River. Wyatt said, “those were some interesting field days, wading out in
the water and scrubbing rocks. That is probably something I would wager not a lot of other planners have gotten to do.” According to Kevin, “We do three different sites within the Kankakee State Park, collect samples at the same place about the same time of the year and see if there’s any trending data or if it stays the same based on the bug populations there.”

Along with CRP reviews, Kevin said that Wyatt has helped him quite a bit with surveying. He said, “Wyatt helps us with anything we’ve asked. He helps go out when we do surveys… that’s mainly what I have him working on… So, we go out in the field, and he’s learning how to survey, along with the rest of us.” Wyatt explained the value of getting this hands-on experience with his
colleagues. Describing a recent grassed waterway training, he said, “Some of the planners were taking notes, and it was their first experience with survey equipment or that kind of note taking. It was helpful that I had several instances under my belt before going there because otherwise I felt like I would have felt overwhelmed or lost. So, the fact that I had done it a couple of times made it a little less daunting.”

He also spent quite a bit of time assisting with organizing CRP documentation. Prior to having a standardized spreadsheet, Wyatt explained that it was challenging to keep everything in order. He said, “It ended up there wasn’t much documentation f rom the past seasons, so I ended up building a sheet f rom the ground up… last season, we thought we had all the f ields together, and then we would f ind another batch of them that was in a different f iling cabinet. So then, I would have to go back out there and get a few more.” Now that NRCS has provided their own spreadsheet, along with a map tool, he said it has been much easier to complete reviews and keep everything in order. During CRP season, Wyatt spends most of his time in Kankakee County, where there is comparatively more acreage for CRP.

Wyatt said being outdoors is his favorite part of the job. “I don’t mind CRP necessarily being such a big portion of what we do, because those status reviews mean getting out and going to all those sites. It’s especially rewarding whenever you go out there and see that people are taking care of what they are supposed to, especially with the land because that means the local wildlife is going to benefit, and it makes you feel good that things are going according to plan.” Even on extremely hot days, Wyatt prefers being outdoors. With a chuckle, he said, “I spent a lot of time in high school and college doing marching band, so it was lot of being outside roasting in the sun, so I got used to it. And my first job was pollinating corn in July in high school, so I got used to hot temperatures.”

He also expressed an appreciation for learning about producers along with his colleagues. He said, “Especially when I was f irst on the job… Everyone we were working with at that point was just a name on a folder. So, you start putting more faces to names, you start learning more about each person, and it makes it that much easier to get things done next time you see them, because you feel like you have built up more of a rapport.”

This article was originally published in our January 2025 Newsletter, click here to read the full newsletter.