This week’s “Resilience Rodeo”, we discuss soil health and resilience with Matt Hubers, who shares his personal experience from his own grazing operation, as well as his professional experience working alongside cropland producers as an agronomist for Ducks Unlimited. Matt Hubers began his career as a district conservationist for South Dakota’s NRCS and is now one of two agronomists at Ducks Unlimited, where he is currently focused on implementing the tenets of soil health on croplands that were originally wetland habitats for waterfowl. In addition to managing his own quarter of land and livestock, Matt has been working with Ducks Unlimited and their partner organizations to encourage diverse crop rotations and cover crops, alongside implementation of grasses and utilization of livestock to balance the salinity of the prairie pothole soils. 1) What is the one thing you've done that has been the most important thing to the success of your operation? Two things that I've done on my operation that's really changed things up is cross fencing and water development. 2) Can you recall a moment when the light bulb went on for you to change the way you were grazing? Well, the light bulb that came on for me to change the way that I was grazing was that I had been watching conventional grazing outside of my window for 15 years before we bought the quarter that we're on. I saw that the grazing distribution was horrible. I saw that the species composition was horrible and at that moment I knew there had to be a better way, there should be a better way. Now that I have the infrastructure in place, I see how happy and excited my cows are whenever I move them. 3) What surprised you the most when you changed the way you were grazing? What surprised me the most is that you can read all the books, you can go to school– but the one thing that you're going to realize is that not all the answers are there. You’ve got to work through it on your property for yourself, with your animals, with your amount of measurement you want to put into it and make it work for you. And you can't do that from a distance. You've got to walk across your land and you’ve got to see it. And the more you walk and the more you look and see, the more you'll realize that there's so much more to learn. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing for soil health and resiliency? The biggest misconception I’ve observed when it comes to land management is that people think you can't have soil health and livestock, that you can't have your cake and eat it too. But one operation complements the other and they work together to make it all work better. This entire land that we're sitting on, the land that we drive across, the soil that we walk on, it is a descendant of the natural processes that we've interrupted. The goal is to integrate the processes that are naturally here instead of fighting them artificially. We want to work with them. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet done to improve soil health on your own operation? I’d like to be much more dynamic with grazing, varying livestock numbers as conditions vary. That means when we have a nice wet spring with a lot of forage that you want to jump in and you want to increase your numbers. And then when we have a dry spring, you want to decrease. So, you've can’t be too tied to your own herd and your own genetics, which we all are, and you’ve got to be much more dynamic with the livestock. 6) What advice would you have for someone who is considering changing their farming system to one that's better for building soil health? The advice is that at the end of the day you've got to have a vision for what you want your land to look like. Hopefully that vision includes that you leave it better than when you got it. Have a vision for what you want and work towards it at your own pace and pull in whatever resources you need, take any advice, listen to any advice, and then use it. Discard what you don’t need. Make it work for you. 7) When you walk across cropland, what do you look for as indicators of soil health? When I walk across it, I don't want to have a litter layer that's too thick. I also don't want to have any bare soil. I want to have diversity in my plants, I want to have diversity in my insects, And I want to have diversity in birds, whether it's pheasants or ducks, as well as other animals. I have wetlands and I have uplands and I want those to look vibrant and healthy. That's what I look for; diversity, no bare soil, no erosion, no monocultures, no invasive imbalance. 8) Is there a change you made that at first you thought would never work? The change that I made is that I started burning, and it worked wonderfully. The reason I didn't think it would work is because the time window that we have for putting fire on the landscape is relatively small, and it's always a matter of drawing in enough resources so that you can do a safe prescribed burn. But gosh, getting fire back on that land is amazing, because if you have the stuff we're dealing with, and I've dealt with both professionally and personally, it can look like a desert of Kentucky bluegrass. You run fire across that, and you will see stuff that you never knew you had. And that's a thing of beauty. 9) What does resilience mean to you, and what signs are you seeing that crop- or rangelands are getting more resilient? Resiliency? It's a synonym for sustainability. What resiliency does– it's the ability to bounce back from adversity. And when you have a variable climate like we have and you have plants that are adapted for a certain climate, diversity breeds resilience. You never want to put all your eggs in one basket and have a pasture that's totally cool season or totally warm season because it's never going to work for you. 10) We always talk about rotate, rest, and recover. That's one of the mantras of GrowingResilience. Are there any one of those three words that you favor and why would you fight for it? Well, the thing is, it's a system. Rotate, rest, and recover; it's a system. And a lot of times when you take one cog out of that wheel, the rest of it stops turning. So when you say that, it’s as if I had to choose my favorite dog– I love them all equally. But I do think that if you're going to put me on the spot, my favorite is recovery. Give that grass plenty of time to recover. Because the one thing that's a very good indicator of which direction your grassland is going, is the amount of residual you are left with that next spring. If you overcorrect, that plant's going to try to find energy from somewhere and it's going to suck that energy out of its roots. In an overgrazing event, it's going to lose about 25% of its mass and then it has to make it through the winter and it has to bring up new shoots in the spring. Well, you know what? You don't give that grass enough time to rest and regrow and get enough plant material, you're going to lose it. 11) How do livestock relate to soil organisms in your systems? The biomass below the ground feeds all the microorganisms. They have a world where they prey on each other, where you have others that go around and eat the dead garbage. That process keeps your nutrients cycling. So those microbes underneath the surface are the driver of your entire production. Without them, you're going to be walking on a desert. And whenever you spray, whenever you fertilize, whenever you disturb it, you’re really hitting those microorganisms in the soil and you're setting them back and not letting them do their job. So let them do their job that they’ve been doing for thousands of years alongside grazing animals. The less inputs you have to put on the land when you've got the microorganisms breaking down all the detritus and then closing that loop, the less you depend on inputs. The pounds of beef walking on your topsoil helps it to stay in place, and your hydrology stays intact because every drop of rain you get sinks in. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

On this week’s “Resilience Rodeo”, SDSU Soil Field Specialist, Anthony Bly, shares about all the little moments that have come together to start and continually improve his soil’s health and resilience. Based in Sioux Falls, Anthony Bly supports South Dakotan’s in his role as the SDSU Extension Soils Field Specialist. Through a no-till approach and cover crop integration on his own family property, Anthony aims to find his niche within nature to heal soils while supporting his family’s livelihood in the process. 1) What is the one thing you've done that has been most important to the success of your operation? Success means something different to everybody. To me, success is feeling good about what you’re doing. Definitely the monetary part has to come along with that, but I really believe it will if you make the right decisions for our environmental resources. You know, I didn't realize this until I recently answered a similar question, but my dad saved this farm with conservation. He didn't know soil biology. He didn't know the importance of diversity. But, he knew we had a resource that we had to protect, so he set our farm on that road. My parents bought this farm in the early 80’s, when the ag. economy was going backwards and people were selling out. To buy a farm during that time was difficult, but right away we went into conservation practices– terracing, reducing our tillage, putting straight points on our chiseled plow, trying to make fewer passes. To me, that is success; taking your situation, adapting to it. People get so wrapped up in the annual basis of economic success, and I think that’s getting in the way of seeing the most important things. I believe that hard work and informed decisions will pay off economically. 2) Can you recall a moment when the light bulb went on for you that you realized soil health practices make sense or that you should change the way you were farming? Well, I don't know if there’s any specific moment, I think it happens often. I’ve seen it happen with other people. They would call it an “aha” moment; you can see it in them. I had really good mentors in college, and they really helped me to see things in a different way. It wasn’t all-of-a-sudden, it was bits-and-pieces at a time. Because this is really complicated, we’re talking about physical properties, biological properties, and chemical properties, and we’re all in this business to try to educate agriculture about each of those things, and that’s difficult. I can go to a moment in my career just a few years ago when I traveled the United States on a fellowship and went on a number of organized tours visiting other farms. I could say I had several “aha” moments on that tour. So, I'm constantly trying to pick up new things, learn new things and relate them to other people, and connect people through what I’ve learned. I think it’s so important when you see a producer struggling and you know another producer that has been through that, to connect them. That’s really powerful. 3) What surprised you the most when you started changing the way you farmed? I’ll go back to ‘91, ‘92, when we went no-till, the surprise was the amount of water that soaked into the soil rather than running off of it. That was huge. To hear other people in our family recognize that, and have people coming to the farm and saying, ‘There used to be a lot of water that comes out through here, what happened?’ Then you go to work explaining what we’re doing differently on this farm. So that was the most surprising thing, how the infiltration had improved, and we no longer saw a lot of water running off. The soil structure improvement, the biology, the microbiology consuming the residues; I even started to get concerned that we wouldn’t have enough residue to cover the soil. But it is working out so far. So yeah, I think that’s probably the thing that surprised me the most, that this microbiology can do powerful things. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their farming systems for soil health and resiliency? We could drive around the community right now and I could show you some awesome-looking crops on fields that are tilled in fall and spring, and they just look great right now. On the other hand, some of our no-till crops appear to be struggling. But I think we’re learning more about biology, and that the conception of what looks good or what doesn't look good could be flipped on its side. I think a lot of people that are naysayers about what we’re doing look at what they see in the moment, and they don’t look at or beyond August 1st as much. That’s kind of sad to me because they're all in a hurry to get to cropping, get it taken care of, and then wait for the combine to enter the field. But there’s more to it than that. And so those are the kind of misconceptions I am trying to deal with. Because I hear from other producers the same story; ‘Why does this no-till field look a lot worse than that one over there?’ And I answer the question the same way each time, ‘Well, they’re burning up their organic matter, and the crop is responding to that.’ They all know that when they call, we just have to wait until August, and it will look better than those tilled fields. They all know that, but there’s still something in the psychology of all this that we’re in a rush to have things looking nice. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet done to improve soil health on your operation? Oh golly, I’d really like to do some rotational grazing. My son pushed me hard to bring some sheep back to the farm, and we have a very, very small flock of sheep. So that’s one of these dreams that I think could be a reality, but I'm gonna need help. I'd like to rotationally graze sheep on either annual or biannual pasture situations and just move on that way. I think that would be the next big venture for the Bly farm. 6) What advice would you have for someone who is considering changing their farming system to one that's better for building soil health? Oh that’s easy, you’ve got to start hanging around the right groups of people that are like-minded, and you get that through the Soil Health Coalition, the No-Till Association, or other meetings where those like-minded people go. Then you start listening, you start asking questions, you try to trade phone numbers, you get on the Growing Connections app that the South Dakota Soil Coalition has. You start asking questions and you just build your knowledge, read books, search on the internet. Just get educated and it won’t end, it’ll keep going. I also think it’s important to establish goals, like what you want your farm to look like, and then establish some objectives. You've got to start somewhere and just go with it. That’s my biggest set of advice. 7) When you walk across your croplands, what do you look for as indicators of soil health? Well, I like to see the ground covered. But just because the soil is covered doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Soil cover isn’t a soil health indicator itself, but it leads to improved health and it indicates to me that we’re taking care of some things. I don't like to see bare patches; I like to see the protection. When we’ve dug soil pits and taken soil samples, you can see the mixing of the soil– the topsoil with the subsoil and the subsoil with the topsoil. And that’s nature’s way of doing tillage, of moving those nutrients around, of taking geology and making it soil. Those are the things that I key in on. As far as the crop side, I'm an agronomist at heart so I like to see even stands, I like to see good growth. I've fully recognized, though, that plants don't have to look good all the time to be successful, they don't. They're like people. They get sick and don't feel good but eventually the important moment is the end of the year. I like to see a good cover crop growing. In the last couple of years with the dry autumns it has been very difficult, even here in eastern South Dakota. I like to see different plants growing, and, being an agronomist, I like to grow different plants. So, just being successful with that in this situation is what I look for. 8) What changes have you made that at first you thought would never work? Oh that’s easy, in my graduate student days I was involved with a research project in a no-till environment, and that no-till corn-on-corn situation just looked terrible. That’s what kept me from adopting Dwayne Beck’s rotation that he talked about for a decade or more: planting corn-on-corn in a no-till environment. I had to get over that little anxiety, wondering, ‘am I going to be able to make that work?’ I’m educated, I have two degrees, but it takes more than that. It takes great willingness to take a risk. So, I did that, and it’s worked really well. In fact, this year my corn-on-corn is probably my best corn right now. It's hard to explain why that’s even occurring. I have an idea but even I don't know for sure. 9) What signs are you seeing in your cropland that your croplands are getting more resilient? Well, we talked earlier about nutrient cycling and the fact that the biology on my fields and my soils are cycling residues very well. That’s a sure sign that resiliency is underway. I call that a fire, if you will, because it generates some heat, some temperature on a micro scale. We need to feed that fire a continued supply of carbon; we’re carbon deficient here. So, the first time I heard Dwayne [Beck] say that we should focus on carbon and not nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, I'd really thought he’d lost it. I was thinking, are you kidding me? We should be fertilizing with carbon? It was so radical. Such a thought-provoking statement. But I believe it to be true now. It’s absolutely true. We need those other elements– nitrogen first, phosphorus second, but we need them all. Carbon is the cornerstone or the foundation of how all of those other cycles function and work. There’s another “aha” moment. So, it's all about the carbon. 10) What does resilience mean to you? To me, it started when we first started no-tilling, and we stopped a lot of the water runoff. We stopped the majority of those gullies and rills, and I mean we had serious gullies that we would plow into with our small equipment and farm again. That soil was not resilient. It was going backwards in a fast way. Now we have improved water infiltration, we’ve built our soil microbiology, these soils are building again, we’re actually building soils here, I'm really confident of that. We have a great variety of different soil types, they’re all similar in nature, but some are more eroded than others. Even the eroded ones are turning around and coming back well, but the other soils are doing it more quickly. They're not all moving at the same pace, but I am impressed with the evenness across fields now. We used to have a huge discrepancy between yield on our eroded soils and yield on our depositional soils. That gap has closed. To me, that’s resilience: building soil, being able to overcome five inches of rain in an hour. Being able to stand that, that is resilient soil. 11) What indicators do you have that healthy soil practices also make sense economically to you? Well, I don't know the pocketbooks of many other producers, we can talk about what you have and don't have. We’re a family that doesn't have to have exceedingly nice things, but we like to have fun once in a while. Despite an off-farm income, this farm is contributing to my family’s well-being. We’re not sticking money into the farm. A lot of people have questioned me, saying that I can only afford to farm because I have another job. And I quickly correct them and say no, the farm is supplying income that I need to supplement my off-farm income. So, I guess that's a kind of gauge that we are going in the right direction. We’re not slaves to any corporation or bank or anything like that. We take care of ourselves, and I think that’s a good indicator of economic safety. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

For the “Resilience Rodeo” this week, South Dakota’s Ducks Unlimited manager of conservation, Bruce Toay talks about the overlap in importance of wetlands and cropland in the prairie pothole region, and that fostering the health of soil and wildlife can easily go hand-in-hand. Bruce Toay is the manager of conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited in South Dakota. Ducks Unlimited is a nonprofit organization partnered with the USDA to focus on conserving wetland and grassland habitat for waterfowl. Bruce champions the use of livestock to regenerate land and emphasizes the importance, not only to waterbirds, of preserving natural habitats and landscapes. He encourages the use of perennial grasses and adaptive strategies in order to regenerate perpetually degraded land, such as the saline seep areas in South Dakota. He currently cooperatively manages the Dale Demonstration farmland for Ducks Unlimited with the Beadle Conservation District, NRCS, and a cooperating tenant. The farm is an active demonstration where regenerative land practices are implemented and demonstrated for farmers of surrounding land. 1) What is the one thing you've done that has been the most important thing to the success of your operation? One thing we’ve done that has really been beneficial to the Dale Demonstration farm here is to try to think outside of our comfort zone– let’s try to invite partners in here and generate ideas that we haven’t thought of that might really speak to local producers– we have one shot to get them here and show them what works. 2) Can you recall a moment in time or time when the light bulb went on for you that you realized soil health practice makes sense or that you should change the way you were farming? One thing that I can recall that really opened my eyes was when I saw Dennis Hoyle give a presentation up in Ipswich. He talked about soil health practices on his operation; retaining livestock, adding grasses, reducing tillage, and not relying on drain tile. These were all things that Ducks Unlimited was interested in, and we thought– we need to learn about soil health and how this works for farmers. 3) What surprised you the most when you started implementing soil health practices? One of the surprising things that happened when we started focusing on soil health in croplands in particular was that it really helped us to have conversations we couldn’t have before with landowners. We became interested in not just the wetlands, but the land around the wetlands that farmers utilize to raise income for their families. So it enabled us to have conversations with farmers about what interests them and find a way to manage the habitats that also interest us. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their farming systems for soil health and resiliency? One of the biggest questions we get frequently is, “Why does Ducks Unlimited care about soil health?” Well, we reached a point of realizing that to retain prairie pothole wetlands, we have to keep the landscapes healthy; and to do that we have to manage those adjacent upland areas. So, if we have healthy soils around wetlands, we have healthy wetlands and they remain intact. So that’s often a starting point for our conversations– the misconception that a focus on wetlands excludes a focus on soil health. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet done to improve soil health on your farm? One of the things we haven’t done yet here that I think would be great to get on the Dale Demonstration farm is integrating more perennial species on some of those problem areas. I think we’re getting to the point of comprehending that those soils are simply not suitable for annual cropland production, so I want to try integrating some perennial species and livestock to find ways to raise income on those marginal acres. 6) What advice would you have for someone who is considering changing their farming system to one that's better for building soil health? Some advice I have for producers in the area that have a lot of wetlands and are interested in improving soil health is to reach out to partners. There are all sorts of organizations and agencies in South Dakota that want to help you get that job done. They have experience in your local geography, and they often have opportunities for cost-sharing to help start some of those new practices. So, don’t do it alone, and start out small to find out what works for you on your farm. 7) When you walk across your croplands, what do you look for as an indicator or indicators of soil health? When I walk across the demonstration farm here, the wetlands on this site are really ephemeral in nature and they’re kind of flashy– we call them temporary seasonal wetlands, because they only have water for sometimes a few weeks out of the year. Just last week, every pothole wetland out here was bone-dry because it was a pretty dry spring. You get an inch of water over the weekend and now some of those fill up again. That’s one of the problems we face when raising crops in these wetland-dense areas, so if we can continue to improve soil health on those adjacent croplands, it’s going to help the producer manage those wet areas. When the rain comes here in quick bursts, it soaks into healthy soil instead of running off and carrying sediment and fertilizers into the wetland basins. 8) What changes have you made that you at first thought would never work? A change that we’ve made or tried to make that we weren’t sure about was the integration of cover crops. You know, our growing season in South Dakota can be very small, particularly in a corn and soybean system there’s just not much time in the fall to integrate cover crops. So it’s been neat to integrate small grains and even try to change how we raise corn on the demonstration farm to provide new opportunities to integrate cover crops and improve soil health on this tract. 9) What are the signs of resiliency on your land? Some of the signs of resilience on the Dale Demonstration farm here ultimately are if we can manage those saline areas, if we can get some of those areas back in a condition where they are raising any kind of vegetation, if we can retain healthy wetlands on this site, and if we can have good healthy soils that raise the crops that our tenant needs to make a living. 10) What soil health and wetland health practices also make sense economically to you? A practice we’ve implemented here on the Dale Demonstration farm that financially makes sense to me is the integration of cover crops, perennial species, and livestock on marginal acreage to turn them into something profitable. 11) What does resilience mean to you? Resilience in the prairie pothole region means something unique– this region is really hot, really cold, really wet, really dry, we need land that can manage all of those scenarios, it’s got to capture the moisture when we get it, it’s got to retain that moisture, and we’ve got to have some habitat at the same time to make use of that water. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

By Cassidy Spencer Listen to the full podcast here. Gabe Brown is a powerhouse of soil health. But he feels that he can only have his voice today because he began with failure. When he started out farming, with his wife, Shelly, he was the city boy on the farm with big ideas. At the outset, much to the skepticism of his neighbors and father-in-law, he sold all of his tillage equipment so as to give no-till an honest try and not be tempted to return to the practice. He added field peas to the rotation to bring more nitrogen into the soil. He was unorthodox from the start. Then, the farm suffered two years of devastating hailstorms that wiped out their cash crops, and in the third year, a massive blizzard that claimed many of their calves. When things were at their bleakest, Gabe knelt in a pasture and prayed, “God if you help see me through this, I will dedicate the rest of my life to helping others.” He jokes now that God picked the poorest farmer and rancher around, but the one who has the biggest mouth. In Gabe Brown’s book, Dirt to Soil, he explains, “Those four years of failure were hell to go through, but they turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to us because they forced us to think outside the box, to not be afraid of failure, and to work with nature instead of against her.” Healing Soil Heals All Farmers are not always inclined to diverge from their known methods: their livelihood is on the line. Gabe believes that conventional farming methods and their degradation of the land have bred an inherited perspective of fear and secrecy. In this nuanced way, Gabe has noticed a change in disposition between conventional farmers and regenerative farmers. Under regenerative practices, Gabe finds that farmers are more open; and more inclined to share their experiences, failures, and tactics. Regenerative farmers do not need to guard their farming practices: as they understand there is not one formula or one approach that will work everywhere. Furthermore, diversity as a facet of regenerative agriculture also creates a much more financially resilient operation: if the market for one crop is not doing well, there is much more going on in the farm than just one or a few crops. Suicide rates in farmers and ranchers have been high; it is difficult to make a living trying to control nature. Gabe believes that regenerative agriculture, how it “work(s) with nature instead of against her” offers a more holistic path– to heal the soil but also to heal the livelihoods of farmers. Gabe wants to heal the future and stop the inheritance of destructive, fearful farming. “If your farm is exporting more carbon than it’s bringing in, the next generation is not going to be on that farm or ranch. If your farm is bringing more carbon in than it is exporting, the next generation has the opportunity to stay.” Regenerative practices are the beginning of building a more sustainable life for all who come after you on the land. Incentivize the consumer To change producer behavior, there must be a change in the consumer demands. Gabe is on a mission to inform more of the public of the enormous health benefits of food grown on a regenerative farm. “Consumers must become aware of the phytonutrient compounds: then they will be in a position to demand these qualities. Producers can’t just be pushing– consumers must also be pulling for the product.” Recently, Makers Mark Bourbon put out a press release to announce that their farm has been certified as regenerative. In 5 hours, the press release hit 2.7 million views. There is interest and response to regenerative agriculture. Whole Foods began selling regeneratively farmed eggs; they are now bringing $2.00 per dozen higher than organic prices, and they can’t keep them on the shelves. Gabe recently spoke with a farmer who was being paid $22 per bushel for regeneratively grown spring wheat. Consumers are catching on. It is no secret that the modern world has observed a tremendous decline in human health. Food that is grown in tandem with nature can heal people’s bodies; and can act as preventative medicine. Consumers in the past haven't often stopped to consider the origins of their food; just recently Gabe and Shelly found a pepper in a grocery store in Bismark, North Dakota that hailed all the way from Denmark. Gabe begs the questions: how much energy did it take to get that pepper here? How else could that energy have been used? The nutrient value of something transported so far, something clearly not fresh, cannot be high. Gabe urged consumers to notice how and where food is raised: the positive compounding effects, or the negative cascading effects. How can we change the minds of homeowners and consumers? Gabe expresses that everything you need to know about regenerative agriculture can be illustrated in a garden. Even on that small scale, awareness can be spread, better food can be distributed. Permaculturist Jeff Lawton has said that a garden can solve every problem in this world. Gabe is beginning to see what he meant. Changing the System to Change the World Gabe knows that it will take a lot to change farmers' behavior. That it takes change in infrastructure and incentive to change farmers. He also posits that the consequences of this change can have larger impacts than could have been predicted. Gabe has had a hand in working on a film called Common Ground, which debuted in film festivals in June and Netflix in September 2023. The thesis of the film is: no matter where your interest lies-- soil, climate change, agriculture, water quantity and quality, revitalizing rural communities, human health– regenerative agriculture can help. Gabe believes agriculture has had a hand in the degradation of the world; but that it can be a greater part of the solution. What drives producers toward regenerative agriculture? As Gabe explains, ultimately profitability is the motivator. At this, he emphasizes how regenerative principles have the ability to significantly reduce input costs for producers. “All producers want to do what’s right for the environment. You know, there’s no producer that likes to go out and spray a chemical. Nobody likes to do that job.” NRCS has excelled in offering incentives for farms to go no-till, to plant buffers: but Gabe warns that when the incentive is removed, many farmers return to their original practices– that there is only about an 8-12% independent adoption rate. To make real change, farmers must not only be offered financial motivation but also education: they must understand, why is the change important. One example that Gabe provides is that upwards of 95% of producers would likely not be able to describe how a soil aggregate is formed. Gabe explains that the firm he co-runs, Understanding Ag, is not so much a consulting firm as it is an education firm. This education is imperative for farmers to manage land effectively and holistically. When visiting a farm: Gabe starts by visually showing farmers the difference between their field soil and the soil in the road ditch. Then he shows them the difference in water infiltration in their field and in the road ditch. Then he moves on to proper soil testing, explaining the difference between inorganic nutrients and organic nutrients and how the nutrient cycle works. He runs a Total Nutrient Digestion test to show them they already have plenty of nutrients in the soil. Then he runs a split trial on one of their fields: using the amount of nutrients they normally employ against the amount of nutrients Understanding Ag recommends. 99 out of 100 times, the latter plot will be more profitable, and then you have farmers' attention. In time, the diversity on the land returns. Soil infiltration improves. Gabe says a big change he notices in farmers is they start to see that insects are not just pests posing threats to the crops; that the return of insects to the land can be a good sign. In Chapter 2 of Dirt to Soil, titled ‘Regenerating the Ecosystem,’ Gabe explains: “The first clue that we were regenerating our ecosystem was the earthworms. It was as if a light turned on, and I began to realize what had happened. I had left all that biomass sitting on the soil surface, protecting it and feeding carbon to the microbes in the soil. I had also greatly reduced the amount of herbicide and synthetic fertilizer I used on the crops– because I couldn’t afford it. The results were easy to see. I knew the soil was improving because when I sank a shovel into the ground, in addition to earthworms, I saw darker, richer soil with better structure. This was a sign the organic matter levels were increasing. The soil held more water, too. Even in a drought year, we had produced enough feed for our livestock because the health of the soil was improving.” He goes on to describe more of the diversity they began to see on the land: pheasants, deer, coyotes, and hawks. The UK has rewritten its farming program; previously it was based on pounds per yield– now it is based on holistic outcomes: how clean is the water leaving your farm, how much carbon are you sequestering into your soils, how much biodiversity is on the farm? Improved systems of incentives like this can encourage the evolution of farming practices. Regenerative community gardens and farms can revitalize rural communities. Less chemical input leads to less chemicals in the watershed, which improves water holding capacity of soil, which supports the water cycle and regulates climate. Diverse regenerative farms offer a respite for animals from urban centers. Regenerative crops give vital nutrients back to the human body. By changing our farming systems, Gabe reminds us of the incredible ripple effects of changing the world. Click here to listen to the full interview with Gabe Brown, Buz Kloot, and Joe Dickie. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

by Cassidy Spencer Pete Bauman, SDSU Extension Natural Resources Field Specialist, often emphasizes Aldo Leopold’s approach that “the key to intelligent tinkering is saving all the parts.” Nature has provided the parts: the nutrients, soil aggregation, interconnectedness of organisms, and weather factors to make up diverse, rich landscapes and strong, resilient soils. Pete heeds farmers: in the most dire landscape situations, we currently run the risk of losing some of nature’s parts. Shapeshifting Landscapes Pete grew up on a small family beef farm in Delano, Minnesota. His father worked at a creamery and would come home and get to work on the land; life at home revolved around work. Pete fell in love with the land– with the cattle, with the wildlife. He was aware of the world of conservation beyond his home life, but it was not much of a topic of interest at home. It didn’t take long for Pete to see the ways the land was being affected by his family’s practices. “Now I make the joke– we plowed downhill cause it was faster. And these things shape the land in a way; looking back now that I’m almost 50, you can see the changes. And they’re not random changes.” Pete grew up playing in a creek on their land. He recalls rich diversity; egrets, migratory waterfowl, a gravel-bottom creek with leeches and prairie fishes, frogs and toads and snakes. Now it is depleted. The swamp is filled in, now at best a cattail marsh. The creek is mud-bottom with drainage off the crop fields. The landscape of his childhood does not exist anymore. Though he began his studies in park management, he gravitated toward wildlife and fisheries with this little swamp in mind. When considering how humans can constructively shape land, Pete considers: what shaped the great plains, what shaped the grasslands? The three major factors prior to modern agriculture were grazing, fire, and climate. Farmers can holistically return to a focus on all three. Intensive and rotational grazing that mimics herd behavior. Planned burns as indigenous cultures are speculated to have engaged in. And farmers have an impact on climate– as half of the globe is black at any given time of the year because of worldwide tillage. Pete describes fire as a great truthteller– “If I can rest and burn a site,” he explains, “I can get a much better understanding of what the potential for that site is.” Diversity is key, and prescribed fire offers an opportunity for regeneration of seed viability and can lay refreshed groundwork for diversity to be expressed. The land must be rested prior to a planned burn in order to build fuel load– timing is ideally in late spring. Too early in the spring, and you can offer an opportunity for invasive species to take hold. Pete urges intentionality in the timing of these imperative tools. Humility and Context Pete’s experience uniquely brings a focus and background in South Dakota’s remaining grasslands, but through the SDSU Extension program, he was encouraged to expand his focus and furthermore expand what it means to work in Extension. “Ten years later, I’m trying to take all things learned in my early career and really help be part of the solution to preserving long term relationships with landowners– not only how they understand the ecology on their own ranches but how they can better partner as neighbors with the federal and state lands in SD.” He now specializes in rangeland pasture and grassland management with emphasis on educating producers on how profitability and ecological balance are complimentary. Pete participates in planning and instruction at the South Dakota Grasslands Coalition’s Grazing Schools that are held every year, typically in three locations across the state (East, Central and West). His secondary focus is alternative grassland management tools like fire, biological control, controlled grazing and reduction of inputs for system health. In the past, the County Extension Agent has been a person that has access to information to assist the common populace. But what does the role look like in the modern world? Do we need the traditional Extension Agent now? While the resource of the internet has allowed all farmers to access a wealth of information, Pete explains that his job is now to help farmers to place themselves within that world of information. He likes to say that the ‘sixth principle of soil health’ is context– how do the tenets fit and work with your land, weather factors, landscape? “The truths of sound ecology are not a laundry list– it’s just a few things. It kind of starts with doing the next right thing– but do you know what the next right thing is?... I don’t have to go look at every habitat project to tell them how to burn it; but as complexity rises, I’m part of usually a team and each person in the team can bring a piece of the puzzle in that context. It’s dangerous for any producer to only get their advice from one person– that can create problems.” Pete wants to embody academic humility. You can have a wealth of knowledge, but if you are limited or prescriptive with the knowledge, it can work against you. He has heard people say that we know all we need to know about soil health now– but without a growth mindset, farmers inhibit themselves. Humanity and Flexibility Though we have an ever-rich pool of knowledge to draw from concerning soil health, Pete emphasizes that there is more to the picture to treat land right. Communal collaboration is important to the extent that regional producers learn how to contribute to the regenerative health of public lands. Central also is a sense of flexibility, the creativity and humility necessary to try out new tactics, the ability to admit when something is not working, and the patience that it takes to allow land to slowly heal. Pete sees public land as an opportunity: for large-scale soil healing and for farmers and ranchers to develop productive collaboration with the government. He witnessed South Dakota overgrazing their properties, and Minnesota underutilizing grazing. Though the tenets of soil health remain constant, he had to employ different focuses in these two areas. “This is all about site-specific management-- what do we need at this site at this time? I took a page out of the Matador Ranch in Montana where they were offering grazing opportunities in exchange for ecological services.” Pete is aware that it’s a rare producer that is intentionally doing harm. “Most producers truly believe that they’re doing the right thing or at least the best thing that they’re able. We are not dealing with personality issues in this larger landscape effort for ecological integrity: we’re dealing primarily with knowledge, experience and teaching issues.” Pete wants to respect the human behind the farm: their financial situation, their family history of farming, their current resources. Even just a minor shift in the right direction from all farmers can make an incredible difference. He wants to respect the slow process of education, the slow work of gaining regenerative experience with one’s land. “We can take this message and share it, we can work with people; but we have to be mindful of their situation.” Listen to the full interview between Pete Bauman and Buz Kloot and Joe Dickie at https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/b86c83e1/45-sdsus-bauman-talks-rangeland-evolution-tools-and-future-success Find Pete’s written work at https://muckrack.com/pete-bauman/articles ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

By Cassidy Spencer Barry Little says a lot of folks believe he’s taking ‘the lazy way.’ Rather than hauling feed to the cows and eventually hauling their manure back out to the fields, he started simply rolling the hay bales out in the fields; the cows consumed more total quantity of hay and the field was fertilized in the process. Many tenets of traditional North American farming have convinced generational farmers that much more labor is required to maintain land than is necessary. Many farmers trained in conventional techniques hold closely to their learned practices, contend with new techniques, and subsequently stay attached to methods that create more work for themselves and the land. These lines of contention often fall on generational lines. Fathers who learned techniques from their fathers and grandfathers watched their children attempt to undermine practices many years in the making. But a new generation of adaptive farmers have a lot of addendums to traditional American farming, and this father-son duo is addressing it head-on. Barry and Eli Little manage 1600 acres of cropland near Castlewood, SD. They farm that land along with another 1300 acres of leased land from Barry’s brother. In addition to their to cropping operation, they also run close to 500 head of cattle. While they do have 800 acres of pasture, the Littles are committed to integrating livestock into their farmland. In this episode of the Growing Resilience podcast, Barry and Eli speak with Buz Kloot and Joe Dickie regarding their approach to cover crops, livestock integration, and inter-seeding, as well as the ways that their new adaptive approaches have improved economic and interpersonal facets of farmland operation. Livestock Integration and Cover Crops When Barry got started, he was managing a cow-calf herd with his dad. This was Barry’s first time seeing cover crops grazed, and it was by accident. His dad would harvest the small grain and let the volunteer plants and weeds come back. He’d then put up an electric fence and graze the whole acreage. For the first time, Barry and Eli intentionally planted cover crops in 2011. After a wheat crop, they used a spinner box behind a tractor and a vertical tillage machine to work the seed into the soil. That year they got waist-high volunteer wheat, turnips, and radishes. They weren’t yet aware of paddocks, and just let the cows graze the entire area. It has always been Barry and Eli’s goal to feed their cows as little stored feed as they could; which is what motivated their journey to integrate livestock into cropland. The cows get fresh foliage, the cover crops, and the grazing enriches the cropland soil. “Our cows are a tool we use to help the cropland operation,” says Eli, “As soon as the cows are off pasture, they're onto cropland as much as possible.” Now their approach to cover crops has become much more intentional. They aim to plant cover crops ideally before August. They have found that they can get the most return from their cover crops the earlier they are planted, particularly with the mix they are using that has a wealth of species. “We plant our winter wheat following soybeans. We’ve put turnips, radishes, and clover in with our winter wheat just to add a little more biology to what’s growing in the fall,” says Barry. “When we can grow winter wheat, and we can get it harvested between the 15th and the end of July, there’s a real advantage there over spring wheat, which we tend to harvest between the 15th and the end of August. That extra month that you have for cover crops to grow– that’s the warm season where you can really get stuff to take off.” Some of their best cover crops have been grown on prevent plant acreage that were meant for corn. If they pass the final planting date for corn, they have an opportunity to plant their 14-species full-season cover crop mix and eventually intensively graze the cover crop on the land. “Every time we get some prevent plant acres we find it as an opportunity to plant as many cover crop species as possible,” says Eli, “I kind of get excited to see the mixture.” Inter-seeding and Pastures The Littles have been workshopping their intercropping approach for the last four years. In 2018 they used a spinner to spread turnips, radishes and rye grass into a standing corn field with the urea application; the cover didn’t effectively seed. The next year they modified a rotary hoe to fit the between rows, which also didn’t work well. In 2020 they put a Gandy air seeder on their rotary hoe, with hoses reaching each row and side dressing with 28% nitrogen rather than using urea. This method worked well; the cover crop germinated nicely and the cows had plenty to graze on after he corn. “When we first started interseeding in the corn our goal was to get a lot of forage out of that growth between the rows,” says Barry, “But since then we have learned that because we have those extra species in the soil, they are inviting different microbes to flourish. So just having an inch or two of growth is enough to make the soil biology flourish. Even though it looks like a failure, it’s not. It’s doing a lot for us.” Concerning pasture, Barry and Eli have been stretching the days of pasture rest by grazing cover crops as well as Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land and wetland reserve acreage. They aim to move cows every day in the summer– and after so many years of watching what their cows and their land need, Barry can visualize how many cows he needs for what land, and for how long. Reducing Input, Increasing Yields There are government programs now that offer farmers financial incentives to integrate cover crops, but the Littles were doing so before the government subsidies. “It surprises me that there are so many people that say we need a check from the government in order to focus on soil health when we know that we make more money,” says Barry. “Our return on investment is much higher because of the way we’re operating, even though we are leaving some areas for wildlife and other things, we’re still making more money because it just works.” After the integration of cover crops, they ran some fertility tests– and found that they were cutting their fertilizer use in half and still getting the same amount of bushel per acre. Livestock are also enhancing yields; the microbes in a cow’s gut communicate with soil microbes, so much so that they haven’t put fertilizer on a bean crop in 6 years. Bean yields are only improving, and they have cut corn crop fertilizer to a third of that recommended. “Our thoughts on fertility continue to evolve,” says Eli, “5 years ago we thought we needed to add more fertility to grow a corn crop in the valleys where we were going to get a higher yield, and cut the rate in the hilltops where the yield was always going to go down. We now realize that the soil health in the valleys is so good that that’s where we don’t need much fertility added. It’s the hilltops that are low in organic matter and are missing nutrients.” They’ve also cut their herbicide use. They spray their corn only once and their soybeans usually just once; owing to no-till practices, cover crops reduce the presence of unwanted plant species, and limit their herbicide use so as to discourage weeds from adapting to the herbicide. Their soil structure has improved to the extent that they are able to drive a truck through a field without creating big ruts. There is less standing water on the land, and better infiltration in land that was once muddy in the low spots. Simplifying Decisions, Easing Tensions Decisions on the Little farm always come back to soil health; holistic grazing and holistic management. Every morning they speak over coffee, a conversation that usually comes back to the farm. They both emphasize the importance of flexibility and creative problem-solving. “We’re always thinking about something a little different that might work,” says Barry, “with our many different operations, you can always spin something positive. There were a lot of people complaining a couple of years ago how much it was raining during bean harvest, and I felt– well, it’s germinating our winter wheat.” They took part in an interview a few years ago, gauging the stress they experience running the farm; and found that they have reduced their stress significantly. They owe this to always having a series of backup options. Barry and Eli are both finding more joy in the process now that it has become more creative and collaborative. “My kids love to hang out with grandpa, love to hang out with me on the farm, riding the tractor–” says Eli, “It’s nice to know we’re building something for the future with the soil.” Listen to the full podcast here: https://www.growingresiliencesd.com/podcasts/episode/28fe6212/52-how-fatherson-team-is-cutting-input-costs-and-increasing-yields ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

On today’s “Resilience Rodeo”, Lori Tonak shares lessons she’s learned from working with producers throughout SD on the economic side of farm/ranch management through her role at Mitchell Tech. While not a farmer or rancher herself, Lori Tonak helps producers across SD with accounting software and farm/ranch analysis in her role with the South Dakota Center of Farm/Ranch Management out of Mitchell Tech. In her role assisting producers in tracking various economic measures of success, she has been able to clearly see the benefits that soil health practices can provide to those who adopt them. 1) What is one thing that you feel has been most important to the producers you work with on their operations? The most important things to the success of most of my producers are profitability and rainfall. 2) Can you recall a moment or a time that maybe a light bulb has gone off for some of your producers, that they've started to realize these soil health practices make sense usually? Well, I have one particular young man I'll use in this example. When he took over his family farm the fields were in terrible shape. So, he started with a fall cover on the fields. He would graze it, then he would follow that with a spring cover on the particularly bad fields, and graze it again. The next year, he planted a crop in it. What he found after three or four years of doing this was that his inputs fell dramatically. His chemicals, his fertilizer, the spray, I mean, all sorts of things fell dramatically and it wasn’t impacted as much by rainfall. His production went up. 3) What do you feel surprises producers the most when they start changing the way they farm to include soil health? I think it's the reduction of costs. When we track it by field, we can really see what the inputs are costing them, especially fertilizer and chemicals, because you're going to use those on almost every crop, not all, but there are a lot of them. When they start seeing those input costs really dropping, a lot of times drastically, that sells them and they will spread the word. But, it's sometimes 4 to 5 years before we start seeing that. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their crop systems for resiliency and soil health? The biggest misconception would be that it doesn't work. People think doing cover crops and doing soil health “doesn't work” because they don't see it in the first year, so they quit. I know a lot of farmers; beyond the ones, I work with. I tell guys that if they ask me, they still will often try it for a year and they don't see the benefits, so they quit. That’s definitely the biggest misconception, is they cannot get around that. Sometimes you’ve got to do it for four or five years before you really see it take off. There’s another misconception here where we have so little rain, where we get 18 inches of average rainfall a year. The other thing is they say, “Well, it's going to take up more moisture because it's out there in the fall”. I keep telling them, no, when it rains, it holds moisture. But that's another misconception that they get. So those are the biggest two. 5) Is there something that you think a lot of your producers would still like to try to improve their soil health but haven't tried yet? Most of my producers, once they start working with us, will become part of the Soil Health Coalition or the Rangeland Coalition because they want to try to improve. There are a few older guys that are never going to change their ways. Those guys, you know, we can't convince them. They'll do things like put on more fertilizer instead. My young guys are the ones that are really grasping this. I do have a few older guys, but the younger generation that's working with them has to prove it to them before they'll buy it. I do have some guys who were in their seventies who did cover crops and continue to do so, and they're now 80. So, I mean, there are some of those, but they're not as many as the younger generation. 6) What advice would you have for somebody who is considering changing their farm system to one that's better for building soil health? I would say the best thing is to track what's happening on the field, to track their expenses, to truly make sure that it is working for them. I haven't seen anywhere it hasn't, but that is what I would highly advise farmers to do, which is to track either by crop or by field. Either one, because if they would I think they would see the benefits over three to five years. 7) When you walk across cropland or when your producers are walking across their cropland, what do you think are indicators of healthy soils? We talk about the worms and drifting dirt because if you have healthy soil, your drift of dirt is not as high. You know, you could leave it a little bare and it won't drift because it's got structure. But when it's so overly worked, it's just a powder here. And then that's when we see blowing soils. But the worms are a big one. If you see a lot of worms, usually that indicates that your soil health is excellent. 8) What change have some of the producers made that they really told you they didn't think would work at first? Cover crops. I mean, there's been a lot of no-till and minimum till. And people thought that would make it work the best where they were cropping. Well, then when they went to no-till with a cover crop, they really saw the benefits. It was just that much better. 9) What are signs that cropland is resilient and really what does resiliency mean to you? Resiliency means to me that, when it's been dry like here this time of year, there are guys that can plant and they are getting germination. Then there are some other guys that have planted and there is no germination because the topsoil is too dry. That's the biggest thing I've seen here and that's what I see most of the time. The other thing is flooding. We have seen fields with cover crops that they can get in and plant right away. Then there's tiled fields where, if we get big rains like we had three years ago, they couldn't get into because they were too muddy. 10) What indicators do you have that healthy soil practices make sense economically? I mostly see it in the reduction in fertilizer and chemicals. The weather here is so sporadic, that's not the indicator I usually look at. I usually look at what their inputs are costing them. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

When a farmer takes a drain spade (or “sharpshooter”) and scoops a sample of soil from the field, they produce a composite of all the elements in their land. A soil testing lab would be able to tell them exactly what it consists of phosphorus, potassium, cations and micronutrients, even carbon and nitrogen. All of the necessary components for healthy soil can be present in that single handful, but that does not tell the whole story. Perhaps mere chemical identification would suffice years ago, but researchers like Dr. Andrea Jilling, (a soil scientist and Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of South Carolina[1]) are busy zooming in on the smallest particulars. Dr. Jilling states that the bulk soil gives one “an average of what’s going on… but you’re not catching what’s happening at these fine localized scales or environments.” The fine localized scales and environments that Dr. Jilling is primarily interested in is known as the rhizosphere–that eighth-inch area surrounding a plant’s roots. While bulk soil may contain some root systems, some organic nutrients, some microbial bacteria, and fungi, it is in the rhizosphere that the biogeochemical reaction takes place. It is through zooming in on this specific area that we can better understand the genius of plants and how we can see them thrive. Plants have always absorbed carbon dioxide (CO2) from the earth’s atmosphere and fixed it into their tissues, converting it into biomass; today we know that on average roughly 30% of photosynthetically fixed carbon is allocated to belowground growth. Some of this carbon is respired by roots, some released as exudates (which includes simple compounds like sugars, organic acids, amino acids, metabolites, etc. ) and some enter soil through sloughed-off root cells, root fragments, all of these in some way fueling the rhizosphere processes. At one time, some of these processes were thought to be a waste of resources and energy. When conducting research, it is important to remember Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle–that even with all the supposed components of data that go into claiming empirical evidence, one can only narrow the margins of estimation. A stranger can answer all the banal questions about their name, their occupation, and where they are from, but that does not qualify as knowing. To know that stranger, you would have to ask more detailed and focused questions and know what to ask those detailed and focused questions about. Soil researchers were not asking the right questions. The simple awareness of plants “leaking” CO2 is not sufficient evidence for understanding what is truly going on, no more than pointing out that major cities just happen to have rivers or ports nearby. There is an economy at work in the rhizosphere. Researchers like Dr. Jilling have begun to explore this topic closely and more thoughtfully. Asking why the plants are doing this. “This fueling and pumping of carbon out into the soil is stimulating microbes and fueling their growths and activity, so these microbes are feeding on the carbon from the plants and producing enzymes and growing in their microbial biomass.” When the microbes increase their biomass, they produce more enzymes that provide nutrients, primarily in the form of nitrogen, for the plants to absorb and ultimately increase their biomass. Dr. Jilling explains that the plants are investors. “The plant’s investment below ground is tied in space and in time to the actual supply of that nutrient. So, you have more synchronicity within the soil. Whereas unhealthy soil creates an asynchronous environment and relies more on fertilizer.” Carbon is the energy currency of the soil. Make no mistake, plants are aware of its value. They know that to fuel their processes, they need to absorb carbon, but they are also in tune with the economy of the rhizosphere. For plants to thrive to see fertility, they know that they must stimulate production around the root system. Fertilizer may be compared to the stimulus package of this economy–the investment in the corporations of plants themselves–but a diverse and thriving base of organic life is what yields the most resilient soil and best results for growth. Dr. Jilling and other researchers observe this when plants first take root. Often the early stages of plant growth are when they pump the most CO2 through their root systems, an effort to secure a microbial environment and fortify a healthy economy. The most stable forms of organic matter within the soil (with associated carbon and nitrogen) have been located in these tiny mineral-associated clay and silt particles; this matter has existed for centuries. However, we are beginning to understand that plants and microbes recycle and use even these very stable sources of carbon and nitrogen. These storehouses of carbon, nitrogen, and other minerals are vital to the reduction-oxidation reactions that drive biological processes and energy in the soil, but it has been up to plants to spread the wealth. This is where researchers, like Dr. Jilling, are hoping to affect change. To better understand the economy of the rhizosphere, researchers are exploring ways in which they can better support the processes that are already occurring. While plants and microbes have been observed exchanging nutrients, Dr. Jilling aims to discover where farming methods may be improved. “From the moment a leaf hits the ground, microbes begin to make it smaller and smaller until it can be associated with a silt and clay particle,” she states. A thriving ecosystem of microbial life results in a quicker leaf-to-particle conversion, replenishing the nutrients in the soil. “The nutrients can stay in that form for centuries,” says Dr. Jilling, “You want the storehouse of organic matter, but also a faster cycling form.” Synchronicity is the key. Researchers are attempting to find the optimal balance to promote a synchronous environment. What conditions make these nitrogen stores available to plants? What effect will it have when it also means accessing carbon? Dr. Jilling’s research is dedicated to finding the massive implications of these microscopic questions. To uncover the answers that will improve farming techniques everywhere, she continues to focus on the eighth of an inch around the roots, where plants seem to have a functioning farm of their own. [1] At the time of the interview, Dr. Jilling was an Assistant Professor of Environmental Soil Chemistry at Oklahoma State University but has since moved to the University of South Carolina. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

For this weeks “Resilience Rodeo”, Understanding Ag’s Gabe Brown explains how, if you pay attention and do things properly, you can reap the benefits of regenerative practices in a much shorter period of time than most believe they can. Gabe Brown often references regenerative principles as being what brought his farm back from $1.5 million in debt. A major misconception he witnesses is that adaptive practices will initially place farms under financial strain: he believes that if you’re attentive, observing, and adopting of the principles, profitability will increase quickly. He has consulted with many farmers who witnessed positive returns in just their first year. Gabe says that the most important thing he has done to heal his soil is to cover it: to allow that plant matter to stay on the soil surface as an armor, home, and habitat for biology to start building soil aggregates. His most important recommendations to farmers are to hone their education and observational skills; watch, listen, and adapt. Rather than seeing a weed and spraying it, ask the necessary questions. Why is that showing up? What does this indicate about my operation’s ecosystem as a whole? 1) What is the one thing that you have done that's been the most important to the success of your operation? Cover the soil. We have to keep that armor on the soil to provide the home and habitat for biology to start building soil aggregates. 2) Can you recall a moment or time when the light bulb went on for you that you realized soil health practices make sense or that you should change the way you were farming? Yeah, I remember as if it was yesterday. I had just gone through a second hailstorm. I was looking at a crop that was devastated, wiped out. I was trying to figure out “how am I going to explain this to the banker?” I knelt in the soil and part of the remaining residue of that wheat crop, and just dug with my hands in the soil. I hadn't been able to do that before. It was just alive with earthworms. And you have to realize we had never seen an earthworm in a cropland field here. I knew right then and there that the soil was coming to life. And it was that life that was going to see me through those hailstorms. 3) What surprised you the most when you changed the way you farmed and included soil health practices? You know, I'm so old that soil health wasn't even a buzzword back then. It wasn't that soil health wasn't talked about. We didn't talk about principles and rules and processes. It's not like I suddenly, “okay, I'm going to adopt and implement these six principles”*. It was over time that it occurred on my operation, you know; it was a much slower process. And I tell people now that there's young people today going down this path that accomplished more in five years than I did in 25 years. For me, it was more of a slower process. *Gabe and many others consider the first principle of soil health to be “Context”, in addition to the other 5 more commonly known and accepted principles, which is why he mentions the six principles here. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their operations for resiliency and soil health? The biggest misconception is that it's expensive and they've got to go through a period of time where they're going to make less money and not going to be profitable. Nothing could be further from the truth. You know, if you do this right and observe and adopt the principles and rules, your profitability will increase very quickly. We have people seeing positive returns in the very first year. That's the biggest misconception out there. 5) Is there something that you'd still like to do that you haven't yet to improve your soil health? We want to try new things. Nothing poetic pops into my head of things we haven't tried, but I'm sure there's something. 60-inch corn on my place with covers in between. You know, I'm growing corn on 30 inches with covers in between. I want to try some 60-inch. Things like that. But the fact of the matter is, I just want to try new things every year because it just keeps it fun. 6) What advice do you have for someone who's considering changing their farming system to one that is better for building soil health? Without a doubt the first thing I would recommend is education. Spend the time to educate yourself on the six principles of soil health, the three rules of adaptive stewardship, and the four ecosystem processes. Farmers and ranchers are very good at producing, but they're not the best at educating themselves as to exactly how and why things work and function. Then I would add to that one; hone your observational skills. Most farmers see a weed and all they want to do is spray it and kill it. I see a weed and I'm like, okay, now why is that showing up? It's a symptom of something greater. Why? Why is it showing up? They need to ask why and to observe. And then to be educated and understand what they're observing. 7) When you walk across your land, what do you look for as an indicator of healthy soil? You know, I love that in the question you mentioned when I walk across, that's one of the things. What does it feel like underneath my feet? Is it soft and spongy or is it hard as a rock? And then, I listen. What do I hear? Do I hear insects? Do I hear birds? Do I hear life? So, the first thing I look for is life, because a healthy ecosystem will abound in life. And that's a true joy, working with life and the diversity of life. 8) What change have you made that you first thought would never work? Oh, I would have to say winter grazing in North Dakota. leaving the calves and the cows grazing through 30 inches of snow or whatever the case may be. Now, this year, with 100 inches of snow, that's not working. It's just physically impossible. For years I kept my cattle in a corral during the winter and had to start tractors to feed them every day. You know what, those animals are much happier when they're out grazing. I didn't think that that could be done in this environment. Boy was I wrong. 9) What are the signs that your cropland is resilient and what does resiliency mean to you? Can you infiltrate and capture every raindrop that falls? Okay, that may be more in tune to a brittle or semi brittle environment, you know, but it actually does play true to wet environments also, because can they infiltrate that amount of moisture they receive and then move it throughout their profile due to the aggregations that they have. I really look at that as an indicator. That, and are you capturing every ray of sunlight that falls on your farm or ranch? Are you leaking sun or are you capturing it with a living photosynthesizing plant? Those things are just critical to success. 10) What indicators do you have that healthy soil practices are also making sense economically to you? My biggest indicator is my wife. She's not nagging me about a checkbook with no money in it [Gabe jokes]. But you know, people know my story. At the end of those four years of hail and drought, we were $1.5 million in debt with no idea how to dig ourselves out. And as I said, I didn't know the principles, the rules and processes then, but we were starting down that path. The healing occurred very quickly, and we went from a ranch that was deep in debt and not knowing how to get out of it to one that began to have cash flow. One of my biggest challenges is, how do I not write such a big check to the IRS every year? I can't say I really enjoy writing that check, but it doesn't bother me as much as it used to because I know I'm making a profit and I write checks now that, quite frankly, are larger than what I used to. And it's a good feeling not having to worry about money. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

By: Buz Kloot Recently I had the privilege of attending the SD Grassland Grazing school in Summit, SD based at the Abbey of the Hills also known as the Blue Cloud Abbey near Summit, SD. This event was well worth the visit for a number of reasons – one of the big draws was the people, both the instructors and the students. On the first morning, I got to know Dan Rasmussen; Dan, a rancher, and I, a city boy, could not be more different, but in Dan I found a kindred spirit. As luck would have it, Dan was also my group leader, so I got to know him a little better. Imagine my delight when I saw in SD Grassland’s newsletter that Dan’s family ranch the Rasmussen-Lehman 33 Ranch was featured in August’s “Our Amazing Grassland’s” video, so wonderfully shot by my good friend, Joe Dickie. I say this because in the video, Dan tells the story of how he and his dad transitioned from year-round grazing and what it did to their land. You also see with the younger members of his family how a conservation ethic has been inculcated in them in the most wonderful way. One of the reasons I wanted to share this is not just my admiration of Dan and what he has done, but also to say that, through SD Grasslands Coalition, Dan provides ranchers up to 40 hours of consulting to all ranchers who graduate from the grazing school for a nominal price. The return on investment for the grazing school is already huge, the added benefit of having someone like Dan come alongside you is incalculable. To those of you who ranch and are on the fence (no pun intended... really), I’d strongly encourage you to watch the video, get registered for the next grazing school and benefit from folks like Dan and others who give so freely of what they themselves have learned. To find out more about the grazing school visit: https://sdgrass.org/grazing-school/ ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

By Buz Kloot I am a scientist that works out of Columbia, South Carolina, so I am not a farmer or rancher in South Dakota. The reality is that while I can try to empathize with SD farmers and ranchers, I’ll never be able to experience the anxiety that producers experience when facing extreme weather. Our rangeland science friends, Emily Rohrer and Stand Boltz at the NRCS produce the South Dakota Grassland Productivity Outlook on a regular basis and, I believe that this is a must-read for any producer. Things are looking good in parts of the west, but there are parts where spotty rain showers have left some parts dry. Looking to the east, especially the southeastern parts of South Dakota, things look really dry and no doubt this is cause for some anxiety. Dr. Dwayne Beck once told me back in 2013 “The job of the producer is to harvest as much sunlight and rainfall as possible” (my paraphrase) and it took me a long time to process what he said, but I think I have learned to understand what he was saying. “What does that have to do with the productivity outlook?” you ask me. Ms. Rohrer and Mr. Bolz give us the answer in the final paragraph – what do they say? They are talking about the SD Grassland Coalition Grazing Schools in Chamberlain/Oacoma on September 12-14 and they mention that the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition is also hosting their annual Soil Health School near Garretson, South Dakota. Their message? (again, my paraphrase) “weather will always be unpredictable: you can’t control the weather, but you can educate yourself so that you can learn how to manage so that your land can infiltrate and retain more moisture in the soil, which allows you to harvest more sunlight”. Put another way: if we educate ourselves to understand how profoundly management can change our soils, we can make the land more resilient. I cannot tell you how fortunate South Dakota is to have such an amazing network of devoted volunteer producers, professionals, and partner organizations dedicated to educating producers. I have been fortunate to meet countless producers who have told me how their lives changed when they attended one of these workshops. In these workshops, you will find kindness, empathy, and a great willingness for people to listen to you and who will want to come alongside you and help you. You can’t control the weather, but by educating yourself, you could literally change your ground, and the course of your life for the better. Best wishes for the rest of the 2023 growing season! -Buz Kloot For more info on the SD Grassland Coalition Grazing School, click here. View the SD Grassland Productivity Outlook ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com

This week on the “Resilience Rodeo”, Tyler Moore talks about the benefits of partnerships when time and resources are limited, and how even in partnerships and on rented land, rotational grazing can benefit the land and all of the involved parties. Tyler Moore grazes his cattle on rented land with a close friend, and the appeal of their rotational grazing practice piqued the interest of the landowner as well, who even allowed them to rent the land at a lower bid than some other offers that were made, just from knowing the short- and long-term benefits of Tyler’s grazing management. This pooling of resources has worked out fantastically for all parties, increasing time, manpower, and other resources while benefiting the land, their cattle, and their families as well. 1) What one thing have you done that has been most important to the success of your operation? I think the one thing that we've done that's been most important is cross fencing. 2) Can you recall a moment or time when the light bulb went on for you to change the way you were grazing? Running cattle with a neighbor was one of the main eye openers from grazing school that got to where we are today, I guess. 3) What surprised you most when you changed the way you were grazing? What surprised me most when we changed the way we were grazing is the ease of implementing the rotational grazing system. I am fortunate enough in my two big units of cows to have our grass pretty close together. How quickly cows adapt to getting moved. I call cows to lead them to the next pasture. We do very little chasing. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their grazing system for resiliency and soil health? The biggest misconception is I don't think people fully understand how grass works. To clarify that, how to utilize warm and cool season grasses. Most people look at their pastures and say, "I have grass," but they don't fully grasp when the best time to utilize that grass is. Your cool seasons, early in the spring and late in the fall. Your warm seasons, middle of the summer, and adjust your grazing schedule by the types of grasses you have. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet to improve your soil health and grazing system? I suppose the ideal answer would be to do daily moves. I don't know if we'll get there or not. But that and improve our native plant species. Maybe we do that by leaving paddocks one year and burning them the next with fire to establish maybe what's there. Do we maybe burn some off and try planting some warm season grasses in there? But that would probably be the next step. 6) What advice do you have for someone who is considering changing the grazing system to one that is better for building soil health? Advice I would give to somebody interested in doing this would be, I guess, that grazing school was a huge part of where I got to where I am today. A lot of people with the same ideas on promoting growth, grass health, maybe reaching out to a producer who is currently practicing a rotational grazing system. Those would be the two things, I guess. 7) When you walk across your grasslands, what do you look for as an indicator of healthy grasslands and healthy soil? When I'm walking across my grassland, I look for an abundance of leaf structure. The leaves are solar panels, which create photosynthesis and allow our grass to recover quickly. A dense plant structure and then just a variety of different species. That's been one of the main things I started to notice. You don't just have a monoculture of grass, you have several other different species of grasses starting to show up. 8) What change have you made that at first, you thought wouldn't work, if any? One thing, I ran into little pneumonia issues this year, but I think when I got the pneumonia issues, I was having a real stress on my water infrastructure and a couple of our paddocks. Maybe we didn't quite have the capacity when we went through these real hot days. But that's on me... I was a contributor to that factor, I guess. 9) What are the signs your land is resilient? And what does resiliency mean to you? One of the signs my land is resilient is we are currently in a pretty good drought going on. And as you drive down the road, that grass that has had that 60 days rest is dark green and it's thick and it's even. I think a lot of people's misconception with the grass is they have brome that's tall and headed out, and they say, "Hey, I got all this grass." 10) There are three R grazing management words important to resilient range lands; rotate, rest, and recover. Which of those three words do you relate to most and why? The three R words, rotate, rest, and recover, I would say they all go hand in hand. You can't really put an emphasis on anyone in particular because they were all knitted together, and you can't have one without the other. ____________________________________________________________________ Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages: 1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts and more. 2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture. 3.Follow Growing Resilience on social media: Facebook - Growing Resilience Twitter - @GrowResilience_ Instagram - growingresilience.sd 4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com