 Hi, my name is Tom DeSutter, live from Fargo, sorry I can't beat out at the Williston REC field days this year, but I'll give you a little bit of an overview of Nick's Masters Project which is looking at the impacts of cropping rotations and cover crops and perennials on pipelines. So pipelines are put in all across the United States. In some areas the reclamation of those is more challenging, especially in dry land conditions as we have out in the western part of the state. So in most cases, if we look at this picture, what we have is a typical pipeline where we have the pipeline would be installed over here. Before that happens though they strip back all the topsoil into one pile and what they end up doing then is when they're installing the pipeline is they use this other area as a roadway and a staging area for the pipeline. So as the project completes this area gets highly compacted which is very dependent on soil water content. In some cases, for example, if you did it in the winter there would be no compaction. If you did it in the spring where you had frequent rainfall events, normally have rainfall events, this area can get to be quite compacted and that is the area that oftentimes raises the most concern with plant productivity. So here then after the pipeline has been installed everything is ready to go, this soil will be pushed back, it will be receded and then the pipeline crew just keeps on moving down the line. So we can think about this as this area of impact might be 60 to 100 feet but the pipeline might be 200 miles long. So think about that from the standpoint of the impacted area that you might have. So for next project which was started about five years ago. So what we have are we have a pipeline trench, that's this area that I was talking about up here. We have this roadway and we have an undisturbed cropland area and then Nick has his control plots and the control plots are important because what we're trying to do is determine what treatments we do here to make sure that it ends up looking like this. Because if we don't know where we started we don't know where we're going and that's a big thing in reclamation is you want to get the condition as close to 100% plant productivity as it was to start with. It's very difficult sometimes but most of the time I think we'd settle for 90 to 110% if possible. So this is the layout that you'll see at the Williston REC and these are the treatments. So this is a no-till meaning that basically what we're going to do is just farm it as is. And then part of it is a one-time ripping. So we use pretty deep shanks, we're able to lift the soil if you will and it doesn't turn the soil over, it just sort of lifts it up and sets it back down. Basically fracturing it. And you end up with this and then we have a one-time ripping with manure. So what we're doing is we're adding organic matter back into that soil. Again, this roadway area gets, if we move back to this other little picture, we have this area of compaction that occurs below the soil surface. And this can get really, I mean like very, very highly compacted. So that's where the root structure has a very difficult time of going down into. So if you think of like arid and semi-arid climates, one of the things that's very important is to capture water during the spring melt or the spring rains. Well, you can imagine if you have a surface that is very compacted, rainwater will only move down so far and that's it. So the roots, in essence, might only explore that small area. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that the roots can explore a larger area. And the treatments that were set up were designed to minimize compaction, break through it, create channels so the water can move down through and so the roots can move down through too. So Nick was, he was nice enough to collect some samples here yesterday. And what we're going to do is just going to show you some examples of what the roots will look like in these certain conditions. So this year it's planted to safflower. And so what we're going to show here is, here's an example of the undisturbed area, the roadway and the pipeline. Again, if I'm going to match this up, match this up to here again. And this lines up pretty well with what our, our treatments are. So if you look at the pipeline, that's an area that the soil was all mixed up and laid back down. And that's the area where you'll see a lot of what's called subsidence. And what that means is that the soil is put back at level when it's dry. But as soon as you put a bunch of water on it, it collapses. And unfortunately for lots of farmers and producers out west, when they're doing their combining or their, their tillage operations or field, field operations, it is a better term. Sometimes it can like collapse down into it. So we really have to watch these areas for subsidence. But you can kind of look. Here's the roadway. Look how squatty those, those roots are. And this is an example of what the undisturbed is. So you can really start telling us like, okay, here in the pipeline, it's not so bad. We probably had some subsidence over the years. It's getting a little bit compacted, probably from the soil settling. The roadway though, really not that good at all. And the undisturbed looks how you want it to look. So for example, this is probably 20% of the undisturbed. So therefore this is probably not a good long-term strategy. So let's look at the next one. So we also have our no-till versus ripped. So we'll put that one down here. So here's our no-till and here's our one-time ripping. So this is the status quo. That's what we're seeing out in this area over here as an example. But look at this. Look at what that ripping did. It really let the roots explore, move down through the soil profile much, much, much better than it would if it was just in the no-till state itself. So this can be a really good example of the importance of trying to minimize that compaction in these roadway areas. So then the cropping rotation can also make a difference. And what we've tried to do is look at like, OK, if you put a cover crop in first and then planted wheat, or if you did a continuous wheat, what would happen? So on the right-hand side is our continuous wheat, and on the left-hand side is the cover crop followed by wheat. So one of the nice things about using a cover crop, especially an aggressively rooted one, is that it can help break that compaction, add organic matter back to that soil, then allowing it to be a little more mellow, if you will. And so that's what we're seeing here, is that if you do incorporate a cover crop into the rotation, oftentimes you can get a little bit better plant productivity down the road because you help to minimize that compaction. So the last thing I'm going to show is a perennial grass. So one of the things is like, oh, OK, you're doing all these rotations, but at the end of the day, what are you going to compare it against? Like, what is the extreme? Like, if you want to go to the other side? Well, what we did is we planted a perennial grass throughout the whole study. And this will be a good example of like, OK, this is like the maximum, the best you can do. And so what are we going to show here on this figure is we have our depth here of 0 to 6, 6 to 12, and 12 to 24 inches. And on top, we have the average biomass at each depth. So don't worry about what the actual numbers are at this point. Just know that look at the mass of roots at the 0 to 6, at the 6 to 12, and the 12 to 24. So what do you see? Well, you see that you have a lot of roots at the surface. The 6 to 12, where all the compaction is, you have a lot less roots. And as those roots get below that area, they can start to explore again, and therefore you get more roots. So here's what Nick had collected yesterday. And this shows exactly that. Here we have 0 to 6 inches, 0.34 grams of roots per cubic inch. And then we have our 6 to 12 and our 12 to 24. But look at those differences. Look at the mass of roots. In the 6 to 12, you have 0.03. And then as you get lower into the profile, the 12 to 24, 0.05. So this shows us that the perennials are moving down really well through the 0 to 6. They're getting constricted as they get to the 6 to 12. And as they get down to the 12 to 24, they're starting to move back out again. So we're doing what we're designing to do is to get that compaction, open it up a little bit, let that water move down through, let those roots explore the whole soil profile, as opposed to just farming the 0 to 6 inches.