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On this weeks “Resilience Rodeo”, Eli Little shares how goals, patience, and bugs are all key to resilient soils. Eli Little (right) of Castlewood, SD, pictured here with his father, Barry, are both holding daikon radishes that they’ve become confident are just one of many pieces to the puzzle of improving the health of the soil on their farm and rangeland. For Eli Little, he has been implementing regenerative practices for so long that their economic benefit is no question. In his area, it’s said that you need 4-5 acres per cow-calf pair. On his pasture they’re using less than 2. They often do not use pesticides or fertilizer and are on the path to not using them at all. The land is richer with crop and insect diversity, soil aggregation and root systems; all adding up to land that’s much more resilient to inclement weather, excess moisture, cold, heat, and drought. This makes for a much more financially resilient operation. Eli emphasizes that the implementation of regenerative practices is a journey that takes time. Even with all his progress, he has goals for his future and emphasizes the importance of always having goals on the farm. Regenerative agriculture a process that is never over, it’s always a growing and changing relationship with the land. 1) What is the one thing you've done that has been the most important thing to the success of your operation? I think cover crops, because that kind of led to everything else, really. 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 about when, in 2015, I was only a couple of years out of college and was trying to get a loan from FSA. I hadn't quite paid off the last one, and they denied me. The guy there told me that maybe farming wasn't for me, and I took that quite personally. Four years later, I went back to them, and I’ve had operating loans through them for the last three years and I'm getting another one renewed. So, things look a lot better now than they did then. 3) What surprised you the most when you started implementing soil health practices? I think just seeing how great our pastures could look, even though we’re not putting fertilizer on them. They're just green and lush using the rotational grazing and soil health practices. It's always fun to see in the summer. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their farming systems for soil health and resiliency? There's a lot of misconceptions. Sometimes I feel like people try to make it fail. You know, they don't give it enough time, they try something and it doesn't work, so that means it just doesn't work. You’ve got to be patient with it, and you’ve got to work with it. It's not a one-year thing, you know, it's a journey. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't yet done to improve soil health on your farm? Yeah, you’ve always got to have a plan or goals. We'd like to be able to get rid of the strip tiller and go a completely no till with our corn planter. We just have to get the right corn planter. We’ve had the strip tiller since 2013. You have to get rid of that stuff and get the right planter to fit all your needs. 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, looking at pasture side of things, if you want to do rotational grazing, you’ve got to have a plan. And a lot of times the NRCS will help you with those things; getting cost share for fencing and things like that, and help with paddocks if need be. But yeah, especially our in our FSA office, the ladies, they're great. They love what we do, and they love helping people get on this track. So, just talk to your [USDA] office. 7) When you walk across your crop lands what do you look for as an indicator or as indicators of soil health? Bugs. That's one thing that we like. We like to see bugs in our soybean fields, something that a lot of people get scared of. For every bad bug there are 1,700 good bugs. If we can get by without spraying an insecticide, which we typically do get by, that's just another year we built towards soil health and regenerative ag. 8) What does resiliency mean to you and what signs are you seeing in your cropland that your croplands are getting more resilient? Well, I would say the ability to handle harsh weather. Last Spring, we were out planting corn and a neighbor of ours came by and asked “how are you able to plant your corn right now? We can't get into a field”. I said, “well, we do no-till, we do a lot of cover crops, we do rotations”. Then the next fall they went and tilled up their field anyway. I think the harsher the weather is, the more you see in our fields that we're able to handle the excess moisture and the droughts and the heat and the cold and all those things. That's where your resiliency comes into play. 9) What indicators do you have that healthy soil practices also make sense economically to you? On the pasture side of things where, in our area, they say you need 4 to 5 acres per cow-calf pair. And we're looking at less than two acres per pair out there. So, we can double the size of our herd and get as much or more out of the out of the pasture. The proof is in the pudding, right? ____________________________________________________________________ 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

Candice Olson-Mizera’s family roots have been in a North-central South Dakota ranch just west of the Missouri River for decades. The fourth-generation rancher from McLaughlin now firmly believes the key to keeping those family roots intact is to nurture the deep roots of grasses native to her ranch. In the last two decades, Candice made it a point to understand her pastures better. She educated herself on how to work with nature to make the most of native rangelands. The changes she made on the 4,000-acre operation were bold––adding the fencing and water needed to divide the four pastures when she took over to rotating through over 20 pastures. The bold moves have doubled the carrying capacity and literally changed how she views the ground beneath her feet. She admits she didn’t know what to look for, below or above the ground, before she began looking into management ideas like intensive grazing and the need to rotate and allow pastures to rest and recover. She didn’t know in detail what was in her pastures. “Well, 15 or 20 years ago, I’m not sure what the pasture was composed of because I didn’t know the differences; even today, I still feel don’t know a lot, there's just so much more to learn. I knew we could do better, be more resilient and more profitable, so we needed to figure it out” While the new management ideas helped the ranch progress as a whole from the changes made, there were still some problem pastures. “Some of those pastures, they're kind of on the farther end of the ranch. We kept having trouble with our neighbor’s bulls getting in with our cows and so on, and we'd have calves earlier than we wanted to. So, we started kind of babying those pastures and letting them rest too much. So they would never get grazed early in the spring. I remember there being more of a monoculture; it just seemed like it wasn't doing as good or the cows weren't doing as good when they'd go up to those pastures, and it would just dry out too fast.” All about the roots What Candice learned was grasses like western wheatgrass and big bluestem could he overrun by cool season invasives like Kentucky bluegrass, crested wheatgrass, and smooth bromegrass. While those cool-season invasives may be able to grow in abundance during the early part of the growing season, they tend to smother the native grasses. Because of their shallow, turf-like root systems (and lack of a mycorrhizal relationship to prairie soil microbes), the cool season invasive grasses soon become unpalatable and dried out as the season progresses, leaving a weak forage base by the time it gets warm and dry. If the deeper-rooted and better-adapted natives are smothered out in rank growth and thatch layers, they slowly begin to disappear, further degrading the forage base and the soil’s resilience. As Candice became more educated through organizations like the South Dakota Grassland Coalition and the South Dakota Soil Health Coalition and worked closely with Ryan Beer, a conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, she began working on a plan to combat the Kentucky bluegrass. Part of this plan required her to graze more than 600 cows in a quarter at a time. This intensive grazing helped break through the Kentucky bluegrass thatch layer that shaded out natives and repelled rainwater. Still, sometimes, grazing was not hard enough. “And then we were only in that pasture, probably, I think it was 12 to 14 days. And then we moved to the next pasture. Ryan [Beer] came out and looked and actually, we hadn't hit the second pasture enough. So he thought we should let the cows back in there. And that really worked out well.” The plan was not always easy to implement. Instead of using yearlings, they turned to their cow-calf pairs. Matching momma cows to calves, finding calves that were bedded down, and moving from pasture to pasture were labor-intensive activities, especially during calving, but Candice’s eyes were on the prize. “In the end, it was just more babysitting,” Candice says. “Our biggest objective was tackling the Kentucky bluegrass problem and improving the rangeland.” As time went by, Ryan Beer suggested they leave the gate open for a day after a move; this solution seemed to work for the pairs. “We found that worked the best,” Candice says. “Even now when we rotate in the summertime, we open the gates and call them and they want to move and come back the next day. Then we shut the gates, and make sure the pastures are cleared out.” While the operation was labor intensive and there were kinks that needed to be worked out, the reward was significant. “We had a lot of big bluestem come in that same year. We couldn't believe the difference and the diversity that came, it was awesome and beautiful!” Candice says. “And I was really happy with the response. It made me a believer, I guess as far as management intensive short duration––get them in, get them off, let's have some hoof impact, you know.” She employs a metaphor to describe the therapeutic and aggressive nature of intensive grazing to control invasives, one we can all relate to: “It’s kind of like getting a massage. Sometimes you have to have a little bit of pain to feel better.” PODCAST LINKS: From this story with Candice Mizera. With Justin Thompson on Adaptive Grazing With Dr. Allen Williams on Adaptive Grazing OTHER LINKS: On Adaptive Grazing: https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/ra101-section/managed-grazing.shtml ____________________________________________________________________ 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

Shaun Grassel weighs-in on this week’s “Resilience Rodeo” about how his experiences as a rancher, farmer, and wildlife biologist for the Lower Brule Sioux tribe have taught him that land management is and will constantly be an evolving process. As a former wildlife biologist for the Lower Brule Sioux tribe, Shaun Grassel sees the importance of grasslands and how they’re disappearing. He’s used this perspective to shape his land management practices so he can reverse that trend on at least a small piece of ground. “To me, cattle are a tool to get the landscape and pastures kind of the way I think they should be in terms of species and soil health” says Grassel. These practices are changing his landscape, improving his ranching operation and wildlife, and helping him reach his goal of leaving the land in a much better condition than when he started on it. 1) What one thing have you done that's been most important to the success of your operation? The one thing that I've done that's been the most success or added the most success to my operation is probably putting some of this crop land back to grass. It just provides more area for cattle grazing, it's added wildlife habitat to this area, and it's eliminated the need to add more fencing around it to keep livestock out. I just like coming out here and looking at the diversity of grasses. So, from the aesthetics part of it, that's really important to me. So yeah, I think it would have to be just putting a lot of this stuff back to grass. 2) Do you recall a moment in time or like when a light bulb went on that made you go, oh, I'm going to think about changing my grazing? Quite often on a Friday night, I'll get on my computer and I'll start up the Our Amazing Grasslands video series (https://www.youtube.com/user/NRCSSouthDakota/videos), and from watching a lot of those videos and hearing some of the stories that those ranchers and farmers have told those are some of the times where I've had the “a-ha” moments like, oh, that's really smart and that's something that I would really like to try here. There's a lot of things that have influenced what I've done, but some of those “a-ha” moments have come from that video series. Also, there's a fella out west, I can't remember his name, but I think he was using mob grazing to try to get use out of an old CRP stand, but then also to kind of restore the native species that are in that area. I remember him saying that he keeps his barbed or his electric fence fairly high. So that allows the calves to go on the other side so if they're bunched up, the calves can get away from the bunch, they can access fresh grass. And so that's something that I've always tried to do here is keep electric fence really high. So calves can go through it. He has some really unique ways of making sure his cattle have water. He's got a portable trough and things, and I don't have that here, but I remember thinking that was really smart. The way he kind of designed his portable, movable, trough, and waterline; he had like a reservoir system. That's one that's always kind of stuck with me. 3) What surprised you the most when you changed the way you were grazing? I guess what surprised me the most when I changed the way this area was grazed was just the condition of the pastures at the end of the grazing season. I was running as many cattle as the guy before, but at the end of the grazing season when there weren't any cross fences in here, when he was done grazing, you could tell cattle had been in here for six months. I mean, you could really tell. At the end of my grazing season, cause I had rotated and kind of used each piece of this area differently, you could barely tell, I mean, just a really light touch. What that did was that allowed me to basically use this area year-round using some areas just for very short periods of time, and then during the winter, opening it up and letting cattle go where they wanted to go. So, I was able to basically double my carrying capacity on this piece of ground. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception that people have who are not managing their grazing systems for resiliency and soil health? Well, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is the amount of time that it takes. I mean, don't get me wrong, it does take time, but to move an electric fence and to put up a new electric fence really doesn't take that much time. Your cows get used to moving so it's not like you have to come out here with a bunch of people and start hooting and hollering and pushing cattle through or around, they get used to you being out here. Once you get that electric fence up or opened up part of it they just come walking right through. It takes cattle very little time to learn that. It does take time to put up fences and things like that, but not as much as one would think you put up one fence, and you're going to use both sides of it so it's not like you have to keep putting up every new fence every time. So, I think the time involved in it, especially when you think of like the cost benefit kind of thing, the amount of time that you're putting in moving those cattle is relatively small compared to the benefit that you're getting back from it. 5) Is there something that you'd still like to do that you haven't yet to improve your soil health or your grazing system? Yeah. There's one other thing that I would like to do that we haven't done yet. My cousins and I have a much larger pasture further north. We're in the process now of cross fencing it and adding more water out there. It is 5,000 acres and never had a single cross fence out on it, cattle have access to the river. The areas along the river tend to get hit the hardest and they get overgrazed. We have one new fence up there this year so we'll be able to keep cattle off the river at different times. We're creating four new pastures in that area, a total of four pastures, and we're adding water, but to take that one step further off of those four pastures, so that there'll be four new cross fences there I'd like to get that down into a smaller area. So, each one of those four pastures, break that up into smaller cells, something similar to what I'm doing here with electric fence. It'll all have to be kind of based on where the water is and things like that, but I think that's something that we'll probably try at some point in the future. 6) What advice do you have for someone who's considering changing their grazing system to one that can help build soil? My advice would be, when it comes to changing grazing rotations or changing your grazing management is just to experiment, not necessarily think that you have to do something that your neighbor is doing. Experiment with different sizes and different shapes and lengths at a time and seasons and things like that and see what works. Things like this, you don't have to be locked into a certain system. I tell people often that I need to kind of just get settled into a program because every year I'm changing what I'm doing, but on the other side of that, it's being able to change and being flexible, change the way that cattle are using the pastures and how the pastures respond. Just keeping an open mind and experimenting. 7) When you walk across your grasslands, what do you look for as indicators of healthy grasslands and healthy soil? When I walk through and I'm considering, or thinking about healthy soil, healthy grasslands, I'm looking for diversity and I'm looking for many species of grasses and native grasses, many species of forbs. I just really think that having a more diverse pasture gives you a more diverse insect base, more diverse wildlife base. And of course, the cattle love it. They don't have to rely on just one species of grass at different times of the year. They can kind of pick and choose. But yeah, just diversity is what's really important to me. 8) What change have you made that at first, you thought would never work? That's a good question. I don't know that I have made a change that I didn't think would work. I don't know. I don't know if I have an answer to that one. 9) What are the signs that your land is resilient and what does resiliency mean to you? When I think resiliency in this area, I think this year is a great example. We're in the middle of a pretty significant drought, and yet we have grass that looks like this. My big bluestem that we saw down the road looks great. The sideoats, even though it has some issues the plants themselves look great. Being able to have healthy looking grasslands at a time where, middle of July, we've only had around three inches of rain, and it looks pretty good. To me, that's what resiliency is all about, being able to overcome those kinds of challenges and keep moving forward without having to make big, significant changes to your operation. 10) When we talk about the importance of grazing management, we often refer to three R’s. They are rotate, rest, and recover. Of those, which can you relate to the most and why? Out of those R’s, I think the rest. Resting land. I really think grasslands evolved with grazing and so they need grazing to keep them resilient, but they also need rest. They need that time period to regrow, to get themselves reestablished, to heal basically, and to keep doing what they're doing. So, I think that's the thing I can probably mostly relate to. ____________________________________________________________________ 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 “Rodeo”, rancher Justin Thompson shares the value of having his whole family involved in the ranching and calving operations. Justin Thompson and his family have gone from bison to cattle, and from 8 pastures to 44 in their journey to more resilient grasslands on their land near McLaughlin, SD. “It was something my dad had always taught me growing up, that we needed to take care of our cattle, and take care of our range, and be stewards of this amazing gift that we’ve been given”, says Thompson of his perseverance in overcoming seemingly endless hardships when getting into the business. “This is an amazing opportunity to raise a family while managing grasslands, and to be able to make a living doing it.” 1) What one thing have you done that's been most important to the success of your operation? In my mind, God’s Grace and Provision would be my answer to why we are able to still be in operation. I don’t think I can limit my answer to one thing, but I do think it is important to set goals. The proper management of our grasslands has been one of our goals and our passion for many years now. Our attitude has been that we don’t know it all yet, every year is different, and every operation is different, so there are no straight answers. I don’t know if our operation will be successful or not. When my turn at caring for this ranch is over, I would consider it a success if at least two of our goals in ranching were achieved. First, that the ranch’s resources (water, grass, wildlife, soil, etc.) were healthy and improving. And the other, that my family would have lived a good life while learning to be thankful and see that their work and choices have benefits and consequences. The many decisions and tasks that come up should point toward those goals. For example, we set the goal to keep cattle spread out on the grass avoiding congestion, if possible. There were a lot of things to change in the operation to keep the cattle out on pastures year-round and spread out. To achieve that goal, wintering, calving, and weaning have to be done with as little material handling as possible. The kids help with the work and are always learning why we are making the extra effort to fence and bale graze, why we wean across the fence couple miles from home, or why sometimes we lose calves in snowbanks calving outside. The work to improve takes mistakes, but the goals should be worth of the cost. 2) Can you recall a moment, or time, when the light bulb went on for you to change the way you were grazing? I think the light bulb went on right away when we first had an opportunity to start grazing. We were in a desperate situation before the buffalo were moved off the ranch because it had been dry for so long. Because the buffalo are survivors, they knew they had to get off the place and find other forage. So, we were, nearly day and night, herding the buffalo off the fences. So, it was right away we knew things had to change. And when it was our option, and it was our decision on how and what to change, grass health had to have been the first thing on our mind, and getting something to grow. 3) What surprised you most when you changed the way you were grazing? I think what surprised me most was, I had shrugged off and thought that this just wasn't as good a grass ranch as some of the other ones. I didn't see or think the potential was there, really, to do what it's doing now. I wouldn't say we're drought-proofed at all, but we can handle a dry year now, and before we could not. Before we had to have average rain or more just to pull it off. I guess now I'm encouraged that we can handle, at least, a dry year. 4) What would you say is the biggest misconception people have who are not managing their grazing systems for resilience and soil health? My biggest misconception before we started working on rotational grazing and grass health was that I thought it was going to cost too much and that there wasn't enough benefit to it. I also was worried that I would do it wrong. So, the biggest misconception is that I was not going to be able to do it. It was going to be too complicated and too expensive to make a benefit out of it. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't done to improve your soil health or grazing system? There are several things I hope to try. We have converted almost all of the farm ground to hay or rotational grazing. Also, in years past we have extended grazing with cover crops, but I am interested in a perennial such as Russian wild rye. I don’t know much about that though. 6) What advice do you have for someone who is considering changing their grazing system to one that's better for building soil health? The best bang for your buck is the first fence you build. Or, just try feeding the hay back on a small hay field as an experiment. Use a small field to bale graze. Seeing improvement, no matter how small at first, is really exciting. It makes me just want to do more and more. 7) When you walk across your grasslands, what do you look for as indicators of healthy grassland and healthy soil? When I walk across the grasslands, I'm looking for healthy plants and healthy soil; I think that you shouldn't see bare ground. I like to see a bitten plant trying to regrow during rest. I like to see invasive tame grasses grazed short and, because the cattle have then been moved to a different pasture, native grasses are growing through and recovering. I like to see uniform grazing of the pasture. I also like pasture walking with a different set of eyes of someone I trust to show me what is a good trend and a bad trend. I have been very blessed to have awesome friends in NRCS. Also, I love to see plants getting utilized that are not used any other time of year like lead plants. I think that it's interesting to see pasture that was managed well versus one that was maybe not. I enjoy seeing that. I enjoy seeing the species. There's actually a corner of a hayfield that never, ever, ever got grazed, and has a little bit of a draw. And the draw was solid cheatgrass. I mean, it never got grazed, and it wasn't producing. We start grazing that hayfield in rotation, and that draw is where some protection is. And those cattle get down in that draw, and they actually chewed it up. This last spring, I didn't see any cheat grass in that draw, but it took maybe four years to do it. It just shows that letting this land sit without being used isn't the right thing for health. 8) What change have you made that you first thought would never work? I did not know if it was going to work weaning across the fence my first time. I pictured calves scattered all over the place, and I just didn't think that I was going to be a good enough manager to pull that off. Oh man, did that work? I'll never go back now. It is nice to not have to haul that manure out of corrals, too. A lot of these things aren't easy in the first two steps. But then after that, you think, "That is way easier than I thought, this should have been done a really long time ago." Not everybody is like that. A lot of people will change everything in one year and try to, but I can't ever do that. 9) What are the signs that your land is resilient, and what does resiliency mean to you? Resiliency means that it will not go backward at its first test, I think. When it's dry and you see stuff growing, it's surprising because you don't expect it to. 10) When we talk about the importance of grazing management, we often refer to the Rs. Of the words rotate, rest, and recover, which one sticks out to you the most and why? Rotate jumps out to me, it has been a major part of our focus. Using pastures at different times every year. Cross-fencing the pastures to make smaller ones. Making use of underused parts of the pastures. We added fiberglass posts and high tensile electric fences in the last couple of years. That has sped up implementation and now it’s so easy to dream big on what you want to try. One of my kids asked me, “Will we ever quit building fences?” I answered, “Maybe”. Truth is, it’s too much fun to stop when you start to see the goal getting closer. ____________________________________________________________________ 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

The storyline of water, told by ranchers, as a tool for science communication. ​When I applied and chose a graduate school, I intentionally avoided Land Grant universities because I didn’t want to work in agriculture or research “dirt.” I made my way to University of South Carolina, a school without an agriculture program, only to find myself working in SoilHealthLabs. I found myself loving the impact soil health could have on our water systems and environment, but I was still focused on mostly urban settings like parks and athletic fields. The longer I spent in the lab and the more I learned about soil health in relation to agriculture and food production the more I really learned to enjoy it, appreciate it, and even love it. But, I still wasn’t working with livestock. As my story of resistance to exactly where I am supposed to be would have it, I’m now diving into interviews with ranchers, talking to my family and friends about the benefits of regenerative grazing practices, and learning how to move cattle. I’m Lacy Barnette, a PhD candidate in the Soil Health Labs in South Carolina and part of the Growing Resilience team. My research focuses predominantly on science communication in agriculture. Part of my project involves analyzing interviews with producers. I started this work with the 12 interviews from the 2019 Our Amazing Grasslands videos. In digging through the transcripts, the role of water in grazing management really shined through. All 12 producers discussed water in their interviews, and it was the top referenced theme (referred to as “nodes” in the software). The theme of water in these interviews provides a great window into the holistic nature of regenerative management far beyond any one particular practice. First, producers highlighted the need for water as a resource. While this is true for almost all agriculture, this became particularly clear when discussing rotational grazing. In order to rotate cattle (or any other livestock), they had to have the ability to provide water in each parcel of land. Producers discussed the infrastructure and resources needed to do this such as wells, pipelines, (sometimes tankers) and livestock watering facilities. Then, with the ability to rotate the animals, the positive impacts on their land and water became clear. Producers noted improvements in water quality especially in conveying how clean water improved livestock health. The biggest improvement they shared was resiliency of their land, particularly related to both water extremes – drought years and wet years. Infiltration improvements kept more water on the land and grass growing in drought years and it led to less flooded fields in wet years. Ultimately, to see the benefits rotational grazing offers to not only the soil but also the water, producers need water access and infrastructure. Simplistically, they need water to in turn help the water. Producers shared key partners, organization, and resources for their support in sharing management practices like rotational grazing and for helping them get set up for success. Producers highlighted the benefits of rotational grazing and also what is needed to get it implemented, which was further unpacked through the interview analysis. Engaging with producers and stakeholders gives research and management practices context. It also helps uncover producer needs and motivation. For example, family was another big theme from the analysis with producers discussing family operations, goals to leave land for their children, and how the time to rotate livestock has played into lives. My deep dive into these interviews helped me better understand meaningful ways to communicate science so that it’s usable, helpful, and ideally leads to implementation. I had the opportunity to share some of this work with poster presentations at 2 conferences this past summer. My hope is that I not only shared the stories and successes of regenerative producers, but that I also encouraged more scientists to engage with and really listen to producers. You can download the full document here: 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

The lessons a scientist learned from analysis of rancher interviews As I close in on completing graduate school, I’ve really found my passion in science communication particularly in the context of agriculture. My last blog post spoke a little bit about my resistance to working in agriculture, but I really feel like I ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be. I love the opportunity to work alongside producers, to listen their needs, and to see research get implemented and be beneficial. Dr. Hannah Gosnell wrote a paper titled Transformational Adaptation on the Farm: Process of Change and Persistence in Transitions to ‘Climate-Smart’ regenerative Agriculture that really helped to shift the way I think about communicating with producers. In the paper, she discusses what she learned from her interviews with ranchers in Australia and what actually makes producers change their practices. She found that there are multiple factors like practical, political, and personal viewpoints. Admittedly, a well-done scientific presentation of lab findings was not the highlighted reason that producers changed management practices. Too often, it’s just assumed that people don’t care, don’t want to participate in research, or aren’t concerned about the environment. I’ve personally found that to be entirely untrue in agriculture. Rather, we need to engage with stakeholders and really listen, in my work this is through interviews. Through understanding what producers need and what’s really important to them, we are in a better position to communicate science in a meaningful way and stand a chance at implementation. However, this science communication work is a different type of research and analysis than I was traditionally trained in. This is now a huge part of my work, but it started as a jumping off point for learning to analyze interviews by theme, starting with interviews that had already been done in South Dakota. I have analyzed 2 different sets of in-person interviews, originally done for Growing Resilience videos. The first set is from the 2019 “Our Amazing Grasslands” videos, commissioned by the SD Grassland Coalition, with 12 producers. They are entirely open-ended, unstructured interviews that let ranchers really tell their stories. The second set of interviews is from 2020 featuring 10 questions (and follow-up questions as needed) asked to each of the 20 ranchers. In both cases, producers utilizing regenerative management practices were interviewed about their operations. The videoed interviews were then transcribed, coded using NVivo® software that sorted the interviews into themes, and analyzed with charts, graphs, word counts, and word clouds. The analysis results from the 2019 and 2020 interviews turned out differently largely due to the different question styles. Water and family were the top referenced themes in the 2019 interviews while grass and water where the top themes from 2020. The theme of soils was more than halfway down the list in number of references from 2019 and fourth in the 2020 interviews. I’m noting soil in particular because soil health is the main focus of our lab (SoilHealthLabs.com) and research shows there are soil health benefits from regenerative agriculture even if it isn’t what the producers are talking the most about. Whereas the theme of family was highly referenced in both sets (2nd out of 14 themes in 2019 and 6th out of 14 themes in 2020). Interview analysis of this type helped uncover a key motivator and a reason for decision making beyond the impacts of any one practice. One main reason that the themes varied in each set of interviews is due to the different question styles. In 2019, family, emotions, and values are highlighted more and there is less technical detail about topics like soil structure and infiltration. In 2020, the questions were more structured, and the impacts of regenerative practices shine through more with some mentions of family and emotion still. These differences emphasize the importance of having clear aims for interviews. Both sets of interview analysis were insightful, but they serve different goals. 2019 with the open-ended, story-telling nature focuses more on the “why” and overall impacts, while 2020 with more direct questions focuses more on the “what” and direct benefits. We initially expected to see soil and grazing to be top referenced themes in both sets, but these underlying themes give more insight into the “why’s” behind decisions. This aligns with what Dr. Gosnell found in her interview work that I mentioned previously. She found that personal beliefs were a major factor in adopting regenerative practices. Diving into the interviews in this way has helped me better understand producers’ priorities, their goals, and some of the challenges in implementing new management practices. 2019 Interview Themes from Most to Least Referenced: Themes in grey and sub-themes in white. 2020 Interview Themes from Most to Least Referenced: Themes in grey and sub-themes in white. As I mentioned early on, analysis of this type is not always common in what we conventionally think of as science, but I think it is a great tool for science communication. It’s a piece of the puzzle alongside sound science, farming and ranching expertise, and partnerships with supporting organizations. Research might show that a practice works but we need to understand how it fits into an operation and into the lives of producers. For example, rotational grazing has amazing benefit for the land and operation, but it does require infrastructure, especially fencing and water. Practices don’t exist in a vacuum; they’re intertwined with people and their decisions. Interviews and analysis can be a key tool in communication and engagement. It’s a way to incorporate people and the human aspect of science, which is exactly why I love this work. Interviews provide a way to really listen to people and the expertise they bring, but as the 2 sets of interviews showed it’s also important to consider what questions are being asked. The more time I spend on this work, the more I believe listening, understanding motivation, and working alongside producers is the best way to see research implemented for everyone’s benefit. A special word of thanks to our partners at SD Grasslands Coalition for being willing to share videos and transcripts with us, without their collaboration, this project could not have existed. You can download the full document here: 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

Even if you don’t consider yourself a “Cowboy”, South Dakota’s state sport of rodeo is familiar to many of us. Rodeo’s origin comes from Spanish America as far back as the 17thcentury and was originally the process of gathering cattle for purposes of moving them to new pastures or gathering them for slaughter. Thus, the Spanish word “rodeo” translates to “round up” in English. Before rodeo became the competition of specific roping and riding events that it is today, it was a practical test of a cowboy’s skill. Success in today’s rodeo, or even those from past centuries, takes many of the same skills and attributes that can make success in ranching as well.Grit, perseverance, camaraderie, faith, failure, an eagerness to learn and improve, and oftentimes stubbornness are all characteristics that make someone a cowboy and gets him or her to the next go-round, whether it be in the arena or on the ranch. That’s why we, at Growing Resilience SD, are excited to kick our spurs into what we’re calling the “Resilience Rodeo”. We’ve rounded up ranchers, farmers, and field/range experts from across South Dakota to share their experiences, successes, and setbacks when it comes to building and maintaining resilient grasslands, prairies, fields, livestock, and families. So, saddle up and get ready for a weekly go-round of lessons from South Dakotan’s about how they handled their draws to become the champions and queens of the “Resilience Rodeo”. This week on the “Resilience Rodeo”, A. Jay Heiss shares his inspiration for rotational grazing and May calving, and how he feels like it’s his responsibility to manage grasslands in a way that leaves the soil better for the future. Growing up on a farming operation with a feed lot and ranch, A. Jay and his dad had a lot going on during his youth. “What I love to do is take care of the cattle on the ranch. I was not much into the farming side; I still don’t like the farming end. I would rather take care of the ranch and the cattle part, and my dad allowed me to do that.” Now following the lead of how the buffalo, antelope, and deer did it before fences were ever put up, A. Jay is using rotational grazing practices to manage a 26,000-acre operation with 1200-1500 cows. 1) What one thing have you done that has been most important to the success of your operation? The one thing I have done to the success of this operation that I would say benefited the most would definitely be the rotational system. It absolutely helped with the grass; it made the soil better. It made us run 40% more cattle. It cheapened up our daily cost of grazing. 2) Can you recall a moment or time when the light bulb went on for you to change the way you were grazing? A moment when a light bulb came on to me was early on when I saw a big ranch, a 10,000-acre ranch that could barely run 300 cows year-round. And I knew that wasn't going to work with land prices going up, feed prices going up. I knew that I had to find some way to create more beef every year and for sale. So, by doing that, the only way I could think of was a highly intensive grazing program where I could do a twice through program, hit the cattle and let the grass regrow and then hit it again. And by doing that, I also added more tonnage and more quality of grass that came in year and year after that. After that, we did almost double the herd size to where now you're selling 650 calves off the ranch instead of the 350 calves off the ranch. Really the only cost would be the cattle. There's no other cost unless you really had to feed in the wintertime. But our program is also a grazing program in the wintertime. We will stockpile grasses in half of the ranch so that we can graze year-round to try to save on the feed-bill. 3) What surprised you most when you changed the way you were grazing? What surprised me the most, the way we changed when we were grazing and was how easy it was to handle the 650 head, how easy it was to keep them fenced in. Also, how fast the grass would recover, after 20-30 days of rest, after a good rain, you could go back and look at some pastures. You grazed in June, and you could not tell that a cow has been on there. The grass regrew, it filled up all the cow trails. Another thing was, some of the cattle trails that you would hit would be two foot deep, years and years of over grazing and year-long grazing in some pastures, the cattle trails were getting two, three foot deep, you couldn't hardly get to the dams without breaking the front end of your pickup. And today you can go to them same dams, after short time intervals into them pastures, they have filled up and they're full of grass. After a few weeks of being off it, grass actually comes up into them cattle trails and goes all the way to the dams, filled it in where it used to just be bare and dust. 4) What would you say the biggest misconception is with people who are not managing their grass properly? The biggest misconception people have by not managing for soil health is they don't think you could run large numbers in small sections. And they think it's hard on them to rotate cattle every so many days. It's not that hard when they're done with the pasture, you open up a gate, they will move to the next pasture on their own. They also think when they see it eat all uniform that they think they're overgrazing it by too many cattle on it one time, which has nothing to do with overgrazing. It has to do with cattle on there for long periods of time. And that would probably be their biggest misconception of rotational grazing program. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't done yet to improve your soil health or grazing system? Something I would like to do that I haven't done yet that would improve the soil health and the grazing system would be to get out of a chemical program for fly control. If I could get out of the pour-ons, the ivermecs, the injectables, I would love to try to do that. I've yet to see where an intensive grazing program with the rotation has completely eliminated the fly program. I still use the ivermec. I would still like to try some all-natural way or some way to not use chemical on these cattle and the land. I think it's actually probably hurting the bug system that's underneath the soil. That's one thing, the last 10 years, I've been trying to figure out how to do that. And I've thought of a garlic program. I've never done it yet, but I'm trying to figure out the right way to do it. So far, the chemical program does work, it kills the flies, but it's also got to be killing the other bugs that are good for the soil. 6) What advice do you have for someone who is considering changing their grazing system to one that's better for building soil health? Advice I would have is to talk to someone that has done it, get their information of how to split it. The best way to do it, I would it to say, get ahold of the NRCS program, get lined up with the program first, use whatever funds are available there to help you pipe in the water, pay for the water tanks, help pay for all the fencing that's going to be needed in order to split the pastures and rotate them. 7) When you walk across your grasslands, what do you look for as an indicator of healthy grasslands and healthy soil? I usually have a spade and I will pick a spot and I will dig down and I will look how deep the roots are. I'll see where the moisture is. I want it to look like chocolate cake. I want big balls of soil. I want air pockets. I want water pockets. And I also, if I can smell that soil, you can tell a big difference of good, healthy soil compared to soil that's been compacted, or soil that's been tilled. I will also pour water; I want to see my water infiltration program. I want that to soak as much water possible. I will clip grass every now and then to see how much pounds per acre I have in my soil that I'm growing that grass on. 8) Can you talk about any changes you've made that maybe at first you didn't think would work? One of the things I thought would not work would be a two-wire high tensile program on my high tensile fence, and so far, my top wire's hot. My bottom wire is ground and with cow calf operation, if the wire's hot and I do my job of keeping it hot, I will not have cattle get out. And that was one thing when I first saw it, I'm like, "This will never work." And to tell you the truth, it absolutely works. Another thing was the poly wire, when I first bought that and put it up, I didn't think that would ever work. I totally think that high tensile fence is probably better than a four or five barbed wire fence, because they won't even graze, a foot up to it. Where I'll see them on a barbed wire fence reach through and try to get through. 9) What are the signs that your land is resilient and what does resiliency mean to you? I've got through two years of drought and we're sitting here today, and we see lush, green and thick grass where on years like this previous, if it was long season graze and I've had cattle in here since May, there'd be nothing left. All the green grass they'd go hit, they would never get rested to actually grow to actually seed. I have also seen where years of CRP created, or someone planted brome grass. I have seen whole pastures that have turned from brome to mostly native grass that’s come back. 10) Rotate, rest, and recover. Which of these three do you relate to most and why? As far as the words important to resilient range lands. The rest and recovery have about the same to me, I think it's very important in a semi-arid climate like this to at least get 70 to 80 to 90 days’ rest before you go back into a pasture. I really don't see them fully cover, especially when a July and August could be dry. You're not seeing the recovery that you should be, and I want to see that grass tall. I want to see that grass come up to a point and actually start being mature before I go back into it. I wouldn't want to just let 20 days go by. I don't think it's enough time. I want to see the manure breakdown. I want to see everything come in thick. I want everything up to the water spots to regrow grass. So, by far it doesn't matter how many times you rotate. If you don't give the grass enough rest and recovery time, you're not helping yourself one bit. 11) You’re managing land that’s not your own and are doing things that maybe up front are costing you a little more, but still enjoy taking care of the land. How does this all work for somebody that doesn't own the land? Because if you're a landowner and you're thinking about my great-grandchildren are going to be on this land. So, what's in it for you basically? What's in it for me, even though I do not own the land or the cattle, it's still my job to pay off the land, it's still my job to nobody really. I figure nobody really owns the land, we're only here for a short time just to manage the land. So, if I can leave this place better than how I received it, which I feel I am doing, that's why I'm here for. That's what drives me every day to do this. It is a lot more work. It's way more management. Some days you think, "Oh, I should just open it up and let them go for two months right out there." But I know that'd be over grazing. I know that for the future generations, I'm not helping the soil. If I'm not helping the grasses, eventually it's the not even good for the cattle. They need the new pastures. I want to do it, before fences were ever invented, I want to do it how the wildlife did it. Where they rotated constantly every day. How the buffalo did it. How the antelope and deer did it. Before fences stopped them from rotating, they were never in the same thousand acres for 40-50 days. It just never happened. I want to create deep, thick roots and deep soil. The only way you can do that is rotate livestock and keep a living root and green grass growing as long as possible. 12) Can you tell us about when you calve and why? When I first moved up here in 98, we were calving oh, February, March, and everything was done by March. It was always cold. There was always a blizzard or two. And not only that, when you were done by April, you still might have a blizzard and you still wouldn't have green grass. We were feeding cows and calves every day, and we always had calves and heat boxes. We'd pick them up, take them in the heated shop or into a heat box to warm them up. With the CSP program, they allowed us to move our calving date back. Now we are calving May 1st and since I've done that, I'll never go back. Every day is fun to calve. You're out there in a T-shirt most of the times, pairing up your calves. The calves are born in green grass and the cows are in good shape. There's no hay in the cattle. It also helps my feed bill, because in January, February your cows aren't five, six months pregnant. They still have all the way till April and May to make up that weight. They aren't eating as much, because they're not going to be calving in the next 30 days. They're going to be calving, they still get April and May to put on their weight. But there's nothing better than calving in May and June when it's 70-80 degrees out, as opposed to -20 and trying to save calves in a snowstorm or blizzard. ___________________________________________________________________ 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”, father & son ranchers Darin & Cutler Michalski tell us that diversity is very important to the health of their grasslands, but that diversity is not just limited to types of grass. “Main focus is cow-calf, and we do row crops, small grains, cover crops, alfalfa different types of hay, some millets, and sudangrass.” Says Darin Michalski when asked to describe the operation he runs with his son, Cutler. By not following a set pattern or template and being able to vary and shift practices and paddocks year to year, the Michalski’s have found that regular flexibility and adaptation can be a key to successful weed control, native reestablishment, and ranching in general. 1) What is the one thing that you’ve done that has been the most important to the success of the operation? Darin:​The one thing I’ve done to add to the success of our operation is getting more diverse. Going from a monoculture to more diverse. That has really helped on our grassland side. 2) Can you recall a moment or a time when the lightbulb went on for you that changed the way you were grazing? Darin:​I've probably had light bulb moments and that would just be going to different producers grazing tours. More like fireworks, not like a great big light bulb moment. Just, more like fireworks. Going to other people's places, seeing what they're doing, thinking. Walking in there with a mindset, “I can't do that”, and then figuring out how you can. Cutler:​I guess light bulb moments for me would just be seeing what other producers are doing and seeing what my parents are doing just to kind of help change our landscapes and help change our grasslands, but also just seeing what we have on our own operation and what we're doing with the soil health. Just kind of creates a bigger light bulb every single time as to what we're doing right, and what else we could be doing. 3) What surprised you most when you changed the way you were grazing? Darin:​What surprised me most about the way we were grazing is the resiliency. Like this year, we're in a drought. 20 years ago, I'd have been freaking out about running out of grass. This year, I was comfortable with our grass situation. 4) What would you say the biggest misconception is with people who are not managing their grass properly? Darin:​I don't know if there's a misconception [about] people that continuously graze, I just don't know if they want to take the time to change the way they graze. Boy, when you drive past somebody who's having success with it, and when you're struggling, you would think that would be a light bulb moment for somebody else. I don't get it. Cutler:​I really guess the misconception with other producers would just be almost that they don't have the information, maybe. That they're not leaving enough of their plants to have regrowth. I mean, that they're using up the whole plant and they're not getting that regrowth. They're not being able to use their pastures quite like we are. I mean, so I guess it does come in on an information standpoint and what they know and what they've been taught. 5) Is there something you'd still like to do that you haven't quite managed to do yet on your operation? Darin:​Some things I'd like to do that I haven't been able to do yet is change my watering facilities, make my paddocks smaller, graze longer. Cutler:​I guess, just kind of coming from a younger generation, I've always looked at is new technology, or incorporating that new technology, that we can use to better our grazing situations. Like using virtual fences or using different management practices for our cattle. 6) What advice would you give to someone who is on the fence, no pun intended, about changing their grazing practices? Darin:​I have given advice to a friend who was on the fence about changing his grazing practices. I said, stick with it. And he did for a year. And then he had a weed flush and went away from it. You just got to be patient. Like I say, go with the flow and handle whatever management situation you have come at ya. Cutler:​I mean, really for me being younger, the advice I was given is just to wait it out, be patient with it. I mean, it all takes time. It's going to take time to get your pastures back to the health that they once were, or to be able to see your new seedlings grow like they're supposed to be doing. I mean, everything takes time and people have to realize that it doesn't all come right at one time. 7) When you walk across your grasslands, what and where are you looking for indicators of healthy grassland? Darin:​Well, after taking a trip with you today, I'm looking at a lot more things of indicators of healthy grassland. I've never really stopped and checked dung piles. And when I walk, I'm looking for diversity, little change in the plant species, maybe. What is invasive out there? What we're doing right or wrong, and the water quality. Clear running streams is really pretty. Cutler:​I guess for me, it's looking at almost what the cattle are doing, what their health is, what they're utilizing on the grasslands. I mean, what plants they're actually using, what native species we're seeing coming back, what diversity we have in other animals. I mean, seeing frogs, seeing field mice, seeing the different kinds of insect species, seeing butterflies, birds, bees, everything. 8) Can you give us an example of a change that you made that at first you thought would never work? Darin:​I'm really a stubborn Polack, so I don't think I've ever made a change that I didn't think wouldn't work. I just had to figure out a way to make it work. Yeah. There's been a lot of stuff that's been tweaked, but I guess I've always gone in full guns and by God, I'm going to make it work. 9) What are the signs that your land is resilient and what does resiliency mean to you? Darin:​2021 is a sign that our land is resilient. I've driven by a lot of continuously grazed pastures that looked pretty tough. I'd be nervous. Yes, we've had a good rain. We're still in a drought. I'm comfortable with our normal stocking rates to get through the year. Cutler:​I guess, for the signs of our land being resilient, driving through a town and seeing that the grass is all brown in that town, and then driving out into our pasture and seeing that our grass is not only green, it's actually regrowing. I mean, we were using our resources the way that we can. I mean, the way that we should be. We're seeing that regrowth in our pastures. We're seeing that when we're digging down in the soil, that there's still moisture there, even in a drought, even super dry conditions. So, I guess those are the indicators for me. 10) We have a number of words that begin with R, but three that we've settled on, Rotate, Rest, Recovery, that are really key to healthy and resilient range land. Which one would be your favorite and why? Darin:​Well, I'd have to pick [the] middle one. It would be rest. The longer you rest it, the healthier it is. Boy, you know, the quicker you can get through a pasture and give it just maybe another week, just get a little extra growth, it sure sets you up for success next year or that same year. Cutler:​See, now I'm thinking, he said, rest, just cause he doesn't want to do any work, but I guess mine would probably be rotate just because I like going out there and seeing the animals and watching them do what they're good at, I guess. They're just eating and raising calves. And it's almost like a sign of seeing your money, seeing where it's going, seeing what it could be. And even with rotating, you're seeing those other pastures that are resting, that are recovering, that you're going to be able to rotate to, to use maybe again. _____________________________________________________________________ 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