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Today holds special significance for those who appreciate the vital roles played by soil and water in our world. We join the global United Nations World Soil Day (WSD) celebration. This year's campaign theme, "Soil and water: a source of life," brings to the forefront the profound interdependence of these two fundamental elements and the pressing need for integrated management to address their global challenges. The Essence of Soil and Water in Our Lives It's a fact that over 95 percent of the food we rely on begins its journey on the land, taking root in the soil and nourishing itself with water. Water, in particular, plays a pivotal role in facilitating nutrient absorption by plants, a process essential for food production. However, the health of our soil is under threat, exerting immense pressure on our precious water resources. Soil Degradation and its Impact on Water Soil degradation, a growing concern, has far-reaching consequences for water resources. Soil erosion and compaction disrupt the soil's ability to store, drain, and infiltrate water. As a result, water infiltration and retention are compromised, leading to decreased water availability for both plants and organisms. The stark reality is that the fate of our water is inexorably tied to the well-being of our soil. The Power of Regenerative Management Amid these challenges, there is hope. Regenerative management principles emerge as our allies in preserving the vitality of soil and water. The principles, namely minimum disturbance, keeping soil covered, keeping a live root in the soil as many days as possible, managing for diversity (warm and cool seasons cash and cover crops, perennials and annuals) and reintroduction of livestock into the system (with appropriate adaptive grazing management) not only mitigate soil degradation but also offer a myriad of benefits. These practices enhance water retention, increase soil organic matter, increase nutrient recycling thus improving soil fertility, and promote biodiversity (think wildlife, especially valuable birds like pheasant and grouse). Soil: A Valuable Ally It's clear that soil, when nurtured and cared for (i.e., management).., becomes a valuable ally in ensuring food and water security. Beyond this, it plays a pivotal role in climate mitigation and adaptation. Healthy soil contributes to the fight against climate change through carbon sequestration, aligning with our global efforts to address this pressing issue. On this World Soil Day, let's commit to integrated management practices that preserve and rejuvenate our soil and water resources. As we do so, we not only secure food and water for future generations but also take meaningful steps towards a more sustainable and resilient world. Join us in celebrating World Soil Day 2023 and championing the cause of "Soil and water: a source of life." Together, we can make a difference. Happy World Soil Day! ____________________________________________________________________ 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

We’re excited that Dakota Farmer has published an article (11/3/2023) by veteran journalist Kurt Lawton on adaptive grazing. Lawton draws you in in the first line (you’re going to have to read the article) and from there takes the reader through the nuanced world of adaptive grazing. He draws from the principles of adaptive management set out by grazing management practitioner, consultant, and former academic, Allen Williams. Still, he applies this to a real-world picture that Rancher, Justin Thompson (Mobridge, SD) paints for us based on his experience with the cool season invasives, namely smooth brome, crested wheatgrass, and especially Kentucky bluegrass. Learn why sticking to prescriptions may get us into trouble, why sometimes, more hoof action (disturbance) is called for, and why observation is key to adaptive management. Here are a few quotes to whet the reader’s appetite: “I’ve never been more passionate and excited about agriculture now because of adaptive stewardship,” Williams says. “Good observation creates a keen intuition that makes producers far better decision makers.” Justin Thompson says: “There are no cut-and-dried answers, but I have the responsibility to improve and do the best I can while raising a family with this livelihood” Kurt Lawton used materials produced by GrowingResilienceSD including the ‘Adaptive Grazing Masterclass’ podcast, the ‘SD Rancher's Unique Approach to Manage Cool Season Invasives” podcast, and video material from a feature on adaptive grazing that GrowingResilienceSD will soon release. Read the full article [here] and start implementing these valuable insights on your own land. Your pastures will thank you for it! ____________________________________________________________________ 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

While we talk a lot about the loss of grasslands to cool-season invasive species, the conversion of grassland to cropland is another significant source of loss of grassland habitat. The 2023 Plowprint Report highlights the extensive plowing of grasslands in the US and Canadian Great Plains. Using data from the USDA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the report shows that in 2021, 1.6 million acres of grasslands were converted to cropland, totaling nearly 32 million acres since 2012. However, hope remains as 377 million acres of grasslands are still under various forms of management. To protect these crucial ecosystems, policy interventions are essential. Enforcing policies that promote conservation can help preserve the remaining grasslands in the Great Plains, benefiting both people and wildlife. The entire Plowprint Report is available at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/projects/plowprint-report ____________________________________________________________________ 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

(AKA… the new Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry (CSAF) Mitigation Activities List) By Buz Kloot For those of you swimming in the alphabet soup of acronyms, you are not alone (full disclosure, I am a state employee, so I should do better…), I just found out what CSAF stands for… it’s “Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry”. OK, the word “climate” can be controversial, and I get that, but the good news is that I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t think more soil organic matter and improved soil structure are a bad thing, at least I haven’t heard of any arguments on these subjects around the Thanksgiving dinner table! My point is that farmers and ranchers have a huge opportunity to make big changes to their businesses with the 2024 EQIP and CSP programs (remember, the sign-up deadline is November 3). We have a link below to what is called the “Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry (CSAF) Mitigation Activities List”, sounds kinda boring, but there are a few CSP enhancement activities added to the activities list that caught my eye: · Cover crop to improve moisture use efficiency and reduce salts · Strategically planned, patch burning for grazing distribution and wildlife habitat · Improved grazing management through monitoring activities · Contingency Planning for Resiliency (Grazing and Pasture) · Grazing-maintained fuel break to reduce the risk of fire (Under Fuel Break) These additions caught my eye because we have so much expertise in South Dakota that can make these activities really work on the ground and if the producer is being rewarded for these activities, so much the better. So take a dive into the alphabet soup and check out the CSAF Mitigation List for 2024. If you are a producer, I’m pretty sure there are going to be a few things that work for you! Here’s the link to the list ____________________________________________________________________ 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 we talk about resilience, we are talking about the land’s ability to rebound and be productive even under the harshest conditions. South Dakota is no stranger to extremes in temperature and moisture; sometimes, the land needs a little help. We think the most important investment a producer can make is in education. For example, do you know how granular soil structure is created and how it may affect your land’s resilience bottom line? South Dakota is blessed with many grassroots organizations that work to educate farmers and ranchers who may be interested in rangeland, farmland, or wildlife; to mention just one or two would mean we’d leave others out, so take a look at the list of organizations below. While education will allow producers to stretch their dollars on the ground, programs like EQIP and CSP can provide essential funding for farmers and ranchers to help their lands become more resilient, and when the lands are more resilient, it translates to improved farming and ranching businesses. We think the 2024 EQIP and CSP funding is a huge opportunity to change or to add value to any farming or ranching operation. This is a reminder to all of our producer friends out there that the sign-up deadline for 2024 EQIP and CSP funding consideration is on November 3, 2023. If you’re thinking about applying, please don’t delay getting to your USDA field office to sign up – help the NRCS help you to help the land! Link to the SD announcement is here. Organizations that are Currently Partnered with NRCS South Central RC&D, SD Grassland Coalition, National Fish and Wildlife Federation, SD DANR Resource, Conservation and Forestry, SD Stockgrowers Association, American Bird Conservancy, SD Discovery Center, National Wild Turkey Federation, SD Soil Health Coalition, SD Association of Conservation Districts, Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, Ducks Unlimited, Inc., The Nature Conservancy, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Society for Range Management. ____________________________________________________________________ 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

We wanted to make you aware that yellow bluestem, a non-native, invasive bluestem, was first found this year near Mitchell, South Dakota, and subsequently in several other locations and is a new threat to South Dakota rangelands. The yellow bluestem is one of a number of Old-World bluestems (OWBs) that was introduced into the US for erosion control and as a forage. A few characteristics of the yellow bluestem: · It’s non-native and highly invasive warm-season grass · It’s not as palatable or nutritious as native bluestems · It reduces rangeland diversity · It changes the soil carbon to nitrogen ratio and affects soil microbial communities like mycorrhizal fungi The end of the growing season is probably the best time to identify the plant, so if you do suspect yellow bluestem, getting a positive identification is important. Do not transport the plant but contact the NRCS or SDSU to help with identification. Once a positive identification is made, contacting SDSU extension specialist for control methods is appropriate. For more information on the yellow bluestem, it’s impact and how to identify it, please go to the following resources. SD Grassland September 2023 Newsletter page 4, article by SD NRCS’s Rod Voss USDA Forest Service webpage on Yellow and Caucasian bluestems ____________________________________________________________________ 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 week’s “Resilience Rodeo”, Barry Little tells how his shift to soil health practices immediately impacted his crop yield, and not in the way that you might think. Barry Little (left) of Castlewood, SD, pictured here with his son, Eli, is heartened to work in tandem with Mother Nature. To him, a strong indication of success is the return of wildlife on his farm– bugs, cottontails, deer. This means that he is successfully building a habitat for the animals of the land. To him, resilience calls back to the 1800s; imagining what the land looked like before it had ever been plowed. To get in touch with that, he listens to Mother Nature– “she has built in the systems to bring back what was here when white folks first crossed the plains, and I think we're making progress to bring that back,” explains Barry. Since beginning to follow nature’s lead, water is now going into the soil that used to run off, his pastures stay green through the summer where they used to turn brown early in August, he’s reduced machinery, fertilizer and chemical costs, and his yields are going up. A major misconception he has observed regarding regenerative practices is that in the first years of implementation farmers will witness a dramatic fall in yields. Barry didn’t witness that– but rather has seen a steady increase in his yields. 1) What is the one thing you've done that has been the most important to the success of your operation? You know, there's a lot of things, but I'm just going to say integrating livestock on every acre. 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? I think that's happened every time I've gone to hear someone like Gabe Brown or Jim Gerrish speak, or at least one or two speakers at every soil health conference. There's always something that someone is doing or has thought up that is completely foreign to me. And it's just like, I don't know why I didn't know that. 3) What surprised you the most when you started implementing soil health practices? I think probably the first surprise for me was that my yields weren't going down. The conventional wisdom is you do these things and you're going to lose some yield right away, but our yields actually continued to go up. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their crop farming systems for soil health and resiliency? I'm going to go back to my last answer. The misconception is that you do this and all of a sudden, you're not going to raise as much grain as you did. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet done to improve soil health on your farm? We've been dabbling with grass-finished beef for many years now. I would like to purposely plant a full season cover crop on some acres and then graze it with the yearlings and pull them off in the fall and have them be finished and ready to go to market. Because there's folks that are doing that. It's just my mindset, the idea that I could plant a corn crop here, but I'm going to plant a whole season cover crop and graze. 6) What advice would you have for someone who is considering changing their farming system to one that's better for building soil health? I would say that if you're going to make the change to start with a small grain, preferably winter wheat seeded in the fall, that's a good place to start because there's a lot of things you can do with it. 7) When you walk across your crop lands what do you look for as an indicator or as indicators of soil health? Bugs. And kind of going along with that, I guess what I like to see is some wildlife, whether it's a songbird, or a cottontail, a deer, or whatever it is. If the wildlife is there it means we're making a habitat for them. 8) What change have you made that you at first thought would never work? Oh, that's a difficult one, because just about every change I’ve tried somebody else said they did it. And since they said they did it, I believed that it would work. 9) What does resiliency mean to you and what signs are you seeing in your cropland that your croplands are getting more resilient? For me, I take a more long-term view on resilience and see, I like to imagine what our area looked like in 1850 and how it had been thousands of years of migrating ruminants that had created this vast grassland that was teeming with wildlife and just, you know, like a paradise. Then in a very short time, my ancestors plowed it up, and some would have you believe it's been destroyed. But what gives me hope is the fact that Mother Nature is much wiser than we are. She has built in the systems to bring back what was here when white folks first crossed the plains and I think we're making progress to bring that back. Water is going into the soil that used to run off. Our pastures stay green through the summer where they used to turn brown early in August. We're going down the right road. We've got a long way to go. 10) What indicators do you have that healthy soil practices also make sense economically to you? Well, that's the easy one. I mean, all you got to do is go through your corn budget and see that we've reduced the machinery side of things and we reduce the fertilizer side of things and we've reduced the chemical side of things. But our yields are going up. ____________________________________________________________________ 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