 us today. I'm going to go over just a few ground rules that will kind of help the meeting be as successful as possible. We have 58 of you right now involved in the meeting. We really appreciate you joining us virtually. I will just state that I really had hoped that we would be able to hold this meeting both virtually and with an in-person option. But in state, you know, just right now in light of the COVID situation that's going on in our state, we just felt like it was very, probably the smartest thing that we could do is hold this meeting 100% virtually. So thank you so much for joining us. I know several of you were disappointed and wanted to come here on to be able to be in the in-person part of that. Apologize for that. We just felt like to keep you all safe. So thanks so much. If I could ask a few ground rules and that is if you can keep your mics muted unless you're desiring to speak, that would be great. We can also use the hands to put your hand up feature that's available. There's based on your screen and where you may have it, there's a hand that looks kind of like that. And anyway, you can find that and push that and that will let folks know that you're asking or wanting to ask a question or make a statement to use that feature. We can also use the chat and we will have some people monitoring the chat to make sure that if there are anyone that has a question they just want to put in that way, they can go ahead and do that. And then we can respond to those questions. We'll definitely make an opportunity for you all to be able to ask questions personally by just coming on live and making your comment and questions. Hopefully we won't have technical difficulties today. Many of you that have been doing a lot of these virtual meetings know that sometimes we do and we never really know exactly when they're going to happen. But everything that we can do to keep you muted and also if you will be willing to have your cameras off when you're not speaking and things like that, that will help too. That helps really control bandwidth and that just kind of makes the meetings go better. So we'll try to work on that. If we run into any problems, we'll let you know. It's great to have you out. I'm looking really quick just through the 59 people that are in the meeting right now. A lot of our great partners are out there so we're glad to have you on. Before we get started, what I will do is just ask if there are any additions to the state technical committee agenda. We've sent this out to you all. It was included in the team's invite. But if there are any additions, please let me know. I've got a few additions already that I want to add under my kind of opening comments. I'm going to talk a little bit about the 2020 Cooperative Conservation Award. We're going to also after the congressional representatives, I want to give Jeremy Davis our F-PAC regional coordinator a chance to make some comments. I've seen Jeremy join us. So thank you for that, Jeremy. We're also going to have Brian Walsh with something of egg and the Department of Natural Resources make a few comments to us too. And then we're going to be able to share toward the bottom of the agenda a new salinity web meeting that's being planned. So we've got those things added to the agenda. What are there any other items that you all would like to add to the agenda? Very good. Well, you're going to have another chance to add things later. So feel free to do that. If you want to put any things that you'd like to talk about in the chat, you can do that as well. So we'll get kicked off with our first item. And that's just kind of a welcome and a few opening comments. I've got several things there that I want to cover with you. But first of all, again, thank you so much for joining us. This is a strange time that we're all working through. We're getting a lot done, though, and I want to just let you know that several times in this meeting today, you're going to hear me address just great accomplishments that we got done this past year. And we'll talk a little bit about those. A lot of that, though, all goes out to all of you in partnership. So we've had some amazing years with Farm Bill programs. We've gotten a lot of other just good conservation on the land. There's just a lot of excitement going on across our state. So I'm very proud of that and all that we worked on together to make that happen. Thank you so much. This past year, in some work that we're doing now to prepare for the end of the year, we know from our records that over 46,000 conservation practices have been applied across our state. That's an amazing number with just a lot of good work done. While this year was challenging in a lot of ways, it was a year that really allowed a lot of conservation work to get completed and a lot of that's because of the weather and things like that. So that's very pleasing to see that happen. It had a lot of conservation that was kind of behind the schedule a little bit, kind of based on weather from 2018, but 2020 allowed us definitely a chance to get a lot of that done. So with that, just a couple other things that I would like to cover. One is I would like to introduce you kind of a new member of our South Dakota leadership team. This person, when they introduce themselves, you'll realize that you've known this person before and you're right, but this person is in kind of a new role with South Dakota NRCS. And I wanted to make sure that you are aware of that. And that is I'd like to introduce Collette Kessler, who is our new assistant state conservationist for partnerships. And I'll talk just a little bit about that position, but Collette would like you to turn on your camera. Hello to the group. Hello, everybody. So it's nice to see you and meet you. And I know many of you from my previous career with public affairs, and I'm really excited to be moving into the partnerships position. So that I'll turn it back to Jeff. Thanks, Collette. Yes, we're really excited to have Collette in this role. She's gonna really help us in a lot of ways. I think across South Dakota continue these strong partnerships that we've had in the past. And I think even take to a new level. So we're really excited to have her in that role. So while we're on the topic of partnerships, why do we just move right into the discussion about the 2020 Cooperative Conservation Board. So for many years, every year, the agency has kind of looked at all of the folks that we're working with individuals, groups, partners, the like. And we've tried to pick out someone who we really felt was amazing over this past year. And we've done that again in 2020. And I want to let you know, I've got the award here by my stand up desk. You won't be able to read it really well because it's shiny and it has a reflection of the all of you on the screen kind of in that award. But this year's award is going to the South Dakota Peasants Forever Private Lands team. So congratulations to that group. Yes, let's clap and I will as well. They have just done an amazing job this past year. They're working on so many of our different efforts. I really also want to say thank you to other key partners that help us make that happen. Primarily South Dakota Game Fishing Parks. It's definitely a cooperative effort between them that helps put that South Dakota Farm Bill team out on the landscape. This past year, they've done a lot. Later in this agenda, you're going to hear about what's going on with conservation reserve programs, CRP from Owen. And you're going to hear about a lot of work this past year. And that team did a lot of that. But they've done a lot of other work on other Farm Bill programs as well. And our easement program, just an equip and conservation stewardship and the like, just good conservation planning out on the landscape. A lot of work on every acre counts. And the list just put on and on. So thank you to that team. There's quite a few of those folks that are on this call today that are joining us to kind of hear their shout out. So congratulations to them again. But I also just want you all to know that we are so proud of them and the work they've done. In the past years, we've, you know, we've recognized other groups. South Dakota Corn Growers was last year. And the list goes back for quite a while. We've worked with so many different partners to make things happen. And we're so proud of them and what they get done. So thank you to the South Dakota Pheasants Forever Private Lands team again. You're the Cooperative Conservation Award winners for 2020. Thank you so much. Appreciate the work that you've done. Very good. I think those are some of the key opening comments that I wanted to make with you today just to kind of get us kicked off. I'm sure I'll have some others along the way. But I think at this point, what I would like to do is see if we have any representatives out there from our congressional representatives. I believe we have Jim Slector from Rounds's office that has joined us. And there's maybe others as well. That's one hard thing about this is it's hard to kind of manage all the people that are in the meeting and who may have joined us. I seen a couple 202 numbers and things like that. But if there are other folks out there, please chime in. So, Jim, if you're out there and would like to make any comments for Senator Rounds, you can come online and do that. And if there's other people out there too, we want to give you an opportunity if you have anything you'd like to add. Well, right now, I'm not hearing if there was anybody who's on and is unable to get off mute or anything like that or if there's folks out there. Okay. Yes, I can. Can you hear me now? I can, Jim. You're coming through loud and clear. Go ahead, sir. All right. I just trying to figure out the technology, I guess. What I was saying is, you know, we're going into a lame duck session here. And obviously, there's some priorities we need to take care of before our new Congress starts. But the biggest thing probably is our budget. We're in a continuing resolution which ends here on the 11th. And so, we're going to have to address that. So, and then obviously, there's some coronavirus aid that both the House and the Senate are working on but don't agree on. So, and we've seen a little bit of movement last couple of days. So, but those are probably our biggest priorities right now. So, thanks, Jim, for those comments. Are there any other congressional representatives that would like to just give us any updates or share a few words? All right. Hearing none, we'll move to the next agenda item. And this is kind of an add-on. But Jeremy Davis, our FPAC Regional Coordinator, would you like to come online, Jeremy, and say just a few words to the group and share any insights you may have? Sure. Glad to be able to join today. I'd hope to also be able to come to hear on but definitely understand, you know, with all the issues going on with COVID. Our travel all the way around is pretty restricted right now due to COVID. But that just is what it is at this point. But I appreciate the opportunity to be part of the technical committee virtually and look forward to the discussion today. And as always, if anybody needs anything from the FPAC leadership side, just let us know. Jeremy, thanks so much for being present with us and listening to the comments today. And if you have anything that you want to add throughout the meeting, please let us know. Appreciate that. Sounds good. Appreciate it. You bet. Okay, so in addition, I want to include at this time, and I mentioned it earlier, Brian Walsh. And Brian is currently serving as the Public Affairs Director for the South Dakota Department of Ag and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. So, Brian, if you'd like to come on with us and share a few words that would be appreciated. You can talk with us kind of about this merger and I think we're lots of folks on this call will be appreciative of your comments and learning more. So, thank you. You bet. Thanks, Jeff. Can you hear me okay? We can hear you well. Thanks, Brian. Yep, and you're coming through well too. Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for giving me just a few minutes this morning to update you on the merger of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. As you might imagine with the announcement, it's been a busy couple months here at Department of Ag and DENR. On September 8th, our DENR Secretary, Hunter Roberts, took over as the Interim Secretary for the Department of Ag and since then we've been working on finding synergies and building an organizational structure for the new agency. Probably the most frequent question we get is why would you merge these two agencies and as some of you may know early on in Governor Nome's term, excuse me, she moved the agricultural business development activities out of the Department of Ag over to the Governor's Office of Economic Development. With that move, both Department of Ag and DENR are largely regulatory in nature and as the folks on this call certainly know, agriculture, conservation, natural resource protection, they really go hand in hand. So it to us, it makes a lot of good sense to regulate these industries and organizations under one department. I think the key thing to stress today and to everyone is it's important to remember that all of the Department of Ag and Department of Environment, Natural Resources, programs and responsibilities will remain in place moving forward. There will be some changes but we will continue to do our jobs and implement our programs as we have done in the past and try to try to highlight some of those changes. I'm going to see if I can share my screen here and hopefully you are seeing looks good, Brian's coming through. There you go. You're seeing a copy of what is our proposed organizational chart. Of course nothing's final yet and I'll talk a little bit about that in a second but I just kind of wanted to walk through this so you could understand how this new agency might look moving forward. As I mentioned Secretary Roberts is currently the Interim Secretary of Ag and DENR Secretary and he will continue on as the DA and our Secretary moving forward. We'll have a finance group directed by Darcy Kaiser. Taya Rudnian will be the agency's general counsel. Jason Simmons will be director of outreach and largely responsible for the 19 boards and commissions that will report to this agency. I get a box there as the public affairs director and then the agency is broken up into five divisions that's the plan. First division will be the office of water which will be headed by Jean Goodman who will be the deputy secretary and the director and that will include the drinking water program, surface water quality program and the water rights programs. Next will be the division of agriculture and environmental services. Kent Woodmanzi is on board to be the director of that division and programs in that division will include air quality. What's got a new name is livestock services which will be a combination of the DENR's capital permitting program and the Department of Ag's dairy program. We have our waste management program. We have the inspection compliance and remediation program which is a combination of what was DENR's groundwater quality program, the spills program those things along with ag services programs like like the regulation of pesticides and hemp and finally that division will have our minerals and mining program. We'll also have a conservation and forestry division will be headed up by Bill Smith and that'll include the forestry conservation DENR's watershed protection program and then Department of Ag's plant industry and apiary programs. We'll have a financial and technical assistance program which will include DENR's environmental funding program like the clean water SRF and the drinking water SRF those programs, the patrol lemur lease compensation fund and of course our geological survey doubted per million and finally that fifth division is the state fair which has historically been part of Department of Ag and will continue to be and is headed up by Peggy Bech. So that's the general general structure of the agency I'll just leave this up as I as I talk so you have a chance to look at it. One thing you may have noticed is that there is no wild land fire well wild land fire division on this chart. As part of the merger process we found opportunities to you know make improvements statewide and one of them is that we could move our wild land fire division to the Department of Public Safety and it really seems like a much better fit there so that'll be the plan moving forward. So what's the timeline and the schedule of this deal how's it going to play out? Well the governor announced the merger way back on August 27th. Like I said on the September 8th Secretary Roberts took over as the interim secretary vague and then since then and prior to the upcoming legislative session we've been working on the organizational chart and how we can put our agency together to present it to the legislature both organically organizationally and with our with the unified budget for FY 2022. Once legislative session starts within that first five-day window the governor will issue an executive order that merges the departments and creates the DANR. Ninety days after that order the merger will become complete and we so we anticipate officially being the DANR honor about April 1st 2021 and then the new unified budget will go into effect July 1st 2021. So we're really very excited about this merger we think it presents a lot of opportunities to get our ag and environmental experts together and collaborate and get better outcomes and we're looking forward to you know continuing the relationships we have with your group and working on South Dakota issues moving forward so with that I would be happy to take any questions if you have any. Thanks so much Brian are there any questions at all for Brian at this time otherwise I'm sure Brian you're able to be emailed or they could be sent to Bill Smith that many of us know and Bill could direct you as well so any questions or or my email is just brian.walsh at state.sd.us feel free to to give us a contact any time we'll be happy to help you out. Very good any questions for Brian before we move on Brian thank you so much for the update it was great to have you on to appreciate that appreciate the time. All right next on our agenda we're going to have a soil health update as you know kemp the leager has been giving us updates off and on for several of our state technical committee meetings now and so Ken's going to join us again and walk through some slides with us so Ken turn it over to you sir. All right great thank you very much Jeff am I coming through okay? You are okay all right I'm gonna switch screens here real quick okay so it's been a couple meetings since I've been able to talk to you all but I'm glad to be here today so we're going to continue on with the no till doesn't work series and just a refresher for those of you that may have attended other meetings and maybe some of you that haven't or this is your first one. So basically what this series is doing is we are going over the five principles of soil health and our next slide here and so the previous couple meetings that I was presenting at we covered the first two principles that are in orange that you see there and that's keep the soil covered and minimize soil disturbance and so those are categorized basically under our protecting the soil keeping the soil covered prevents wind and water erosion and minimizing disturbance protects our soil surface and also prevents erosion also so those two and today we're going to move on to the third principle in line here and that's maximizing plant diversity and you can see we've got the next three principles maximize plant diversity continual living root on the soil and livestock integration those are under the feed the soil portion so these are the soil principles, soil health principles that really really kind of excite me and I think they're things that we're seeing a lot of headway being made with our producers and landowners in South Dakota you know we've kind of known keeping the soil covered and minimizing soil disturbance we know those prevent erosion we know those helps to slow or stop soil loss but now we're really kind of get into an exciting area of how do we start rebuilding our soils how do we make them more productive how do we make them work for producers and landowners even better than in our current state of soil that we have okay so let's continue on with maximizing plant diversity um so this is the screenshot of it's actually a picture of a community garden here and here on and you know a close-up you might not be able to tell how large of an area this is um but it's probably only a hundred hundred feet by maybe 25 feet and it's just a picture to show you diversity of plants and what we can do with our soils here in South Dakota and things that we can grow and the potential we have for production so what is plant diversity and why is it important for soil health um plant diversity can really be quite complex and we could really kind of get into a lot of rabbit trails in the middle of the weeds if we wanted to today but what we're going to do and this is what most of our planners do a lot of people they break plant diversity down into four categories sometimes five but we're going to stick with four here today and you'll see we've got broken down into a warm season grass warm season broadleafs cool season grasses and cool season broadleafs and so we've got pictures here on uh the right of your screen of all four of those categories and you'll look where we've got um planting into and do cereal rye that's cereal rye is that's a cool season grass for example so if you want warm season is basically the way to think about it is what does that plant grow best does it grow best under moist and cool conditions or is it really kind of thrive under hot conditions and cereal rye winter wheat spring wheat and oats are certainly things that fall under that cool season if you go below there we've got cool season broadleafs and that's uh an overhead picture of a young cover crop stand and what you're looking at there is some brassicas which are turnips and radishes we've also got um can't seem quite as well we've got peas growing and their peas would be classified as a cool season broadleaf also and also the lagoon or nitrogen fixation plant and the upper right of your screen we've got uh a couple things that we're looking at the left part of the picture is showing soybeans and those would be classified as a warm season broadleaf and then the rest of the screen is kind of being taken up by that nice looking prairie stand there and that prairie stand is showing basically all four categories of plant diversity we've got cool season and warm seasons both in grasses and and broadleafs there and then on the bottom part of the screen and in the right you'll see a very familiar plant to all of us and that's corn corn is a warm season grass and we'll talk a little bit about each one of these here separately now okay so warm season grasses um and when we're looking at native plant community or our perennial plant community they're very familiar species to to a lot of us that work in natural resources or in wildlife even and some of those are big bluestem switchgrass indian grass buffalo grass and so those are the plants that do really well when summer is really kind of hot and cooking when it's hot it towards the end of june and throughout july that's when those plants are doing best and it's the same for the corn the millet and the sorghum which are all those warm season grasses and the reason they do well when it's warm is because they're classified as c4 plants and we're not going to get too much into photosynthetic pathways today because that's a whole other discussion and probably has semester class one of our land-grant universities but c4 plants basically what they are is they process carbon and the water more efficiently through photosynthesis but they only really do it when it's when the temperatures are warm so that's in that 80 degree plus category and that's why those plants do the best when it's really hot and warm and then you've got adequate moisture also okay the next one we're going to look at is our cool season grasses and we've got a screenshot here of some c4 rai that's coming up and c4 rai is certainly a cool season grass but our native perennials that are cool seasons are wheat grasses green needle and wild rye for example they do really well early in the spring and they start growing early when those ground temperatures are still cool and they like to have good moisture and for our annual crop types the best examples we have are wheat rye and oats they all fall into that cool season category and that's they fall under c3 for photosynthesis production and basically what that means is that they are very efficient at converting that co2 also but they're only efficient at doing that when the temperatures are cool when the temperatures warm up these plants don't seem to do as well that's because they spend a lot of their energy basically just trying to stay cool and they're taking a lot of their energy production and it's going through the stomata on their leaves to keep that plant cool okay the third category we're going to look at here is broad season warm season broadleafs and some of the good examples of this one are sunflowers soybeans even fall into that and although I'll discuss there's maybe some discussion whether they should be warm season or cool season here in a second in our native plant community some of our coreopsis plants and a lot of our aster type plants and so we have native asters but there's a lot of other plants native flowers that are related to asters that are warm season also so in our crop production we've got sunflowers dry beans right dry edible beans cow peas buckwheat for example that fall under our warm season category okay cool season our final category here for broadleafs is if you look at their perennials we've got clovers and actually many of our prairie flowers or native prairie flowers are our cool season broadleafs and it kind of goes against what most of us would think we would think this is South Dakota we get hot in the summer most of them should be really liking it when it's hot but actually they fall under the C3 category they do actually grow best when it's cool and they have adequate moisture they still do okay because they're deep rooted when we have hot temperatures but most of our native forb community is actually C3 category under our crop land category we've got peas, flax, alfalfa, mustard, radish, beets and a lot of those are not plants that are grown as as much anymore in South Dakota although certainly there was a time when we had quite a bit of peas and flax that were grown here but we just don't see that much grown today so a lot of these you'll see are grown for forage or cover crop selections and with that let's talk about why diversity why do we need it why is it important for improving our soil health and the productivity of our soils the longest orbit is that the more diverse plants you have out there the more diverse diet that they are feeding our soil by out of our soil life and so it's just like you and I if we were going to eat a healthy diet you want it to be diverse you wouldn't just want to eat fast food every day and so it's same for our our soil life they like to have a diverse diet and that diverse diet comes through then be able to eat when that plants and esses or dyes are harvested and there's residue on the surface there's a different diet for those that soil life to eat on the surface and there's also a difference in the root exudates that each plant puts out and so for example that corn plant might put out a different sugar or different carbohydrate than the weed plant might for example and so the more diversity we have in there the more happy we can keep our soil life the next reason it's important to have diversity of plants in the landscape and for our soil health is that there's obviously as you can see and this is a great graphic and it's one of my favorite ones it's been around for quite a while and it's basically called plant prairie and it just shows the different rooting structures and rooting depths of a lot of our native plants but you can correlate this also to our to our row crops that we plant we know that corn has a deep fibrous root soybean is going to be more similar to if you look on your screen to like the wild indigo root it's not quite as fibrous not quite as deep but it has different purposes also so it's important to have those different plants out there to provide different types of structure to our soil the grass-tent type plants are usually more fibrous usually what we consider to be more sod forming we're also looking at different rooting depths they've all got their different areas that they like to root down to if you look for example at that compass plant it's kind of got those long stringy roots that go very deep it can go 15 feet deeper deeper so you can imagine that yes it's very drought resistant but it's also pulling up nutrients from deep in that soil profile and bringing them higher up to make them available to other plants and the soil life okay we've talked about the soil biome and the food that's produced by our plants important to have that diversity to keep a diversity of soil life out but also so how do we do that it's easy to say yep we need to have a lot of different plants out there and it's good for the soil but really how do we make that work for a producer into their system so that they can still be productive economically and productive economically and productive for their livestock also and so this is where it gets to be a little bit interesting it can be tricky it requires a new set of management skills sometimes for producers but there is a lot of this going on the landscape and so all these pictures you're going to see are local examples from mostly eastern South Dakota but the first thing we can do and this is really quite simple an old concept of crop rotation we know crop rotation benefits all of our crops we've known that for centuries to be honest for example we see a picture here of a field of oats we know that plants my grandfather always planted corn following his oats and he always did that because that corn in the rotation always did better 15 to 20 percent oftentimes following oats and even following other crops in the rotation so there's agronomic benefits for it that's ways that we can fit in so this is a plug for also putting some small grains back into our rotation we can talk economics of small grains but that's probably for another discussion often we'll get pushed back well I can't make money off of wheat or small grains but we oftentimes don't attribute that yield bump we get in corn for example back to those small grains and there's other opportunities to have livestock following small grains on cover crops okay I don't want to leave out our our livestock producers out there and their grassland rotations and native range land so how do we maximize diversity when we've already got a perennial plant out there growing in the landscape and the way we do that is basically grazing like the bison that's through through good use of our plant community out there and then a long rest so if you think back to those bison herds they were grazing really high numbers on an area and their grazer really quite hard but then they were always on the move and they kept on moving and they wouldn't come back to that area for maybe several months maybe a year or maybe even more so there's lots of rest but there's heavy use and what that does is it the livestock are utilizing a lot of the plants out there they're not necessarily the stuff they really like and leaving the stuff they don't and then that plant increases in the future so we want to get good use and we want to leave lots of rest on our perennial communities out there on our native grazing sites okay back on to how do we increase diversity on crop land cover crops are something that's kind of been a though a trendy subject let's say and maybe for the past 10 or 15 years or so wasn't used a whole lot necessarily before that but really we see a lot of producers starting to look at cover crops and their rotations and they're doing it for several reasons one of the reasons they're doing it is for livestock forage the picture you see here is cover crop mixture was seeded following small grain harvest in late july early august this was planted by a producer and then it's allowed to grow and then in the fall usually in november this producer would go out and graze several fields that they have here so you can imagine this is it's a good economic choice for this producer it allows him to keep his livestock off out of the lots for a couple months longer it allows him to take livestock off of his native pastures sooner because he's got another forage base and it's also something that's in the long term it's increasing the soil health and productivity of the soils okay this is a video and i hope the video works here for you this is one way that we can increase some diversity into our cropping systems while we actually have a crop growing and so this is a a video taken from a demonstration here in the here on area from a couple years ago and what you're seeing here it looks just like a like a drill any old drill any old drill it's a 15 foot intercedar actually and you're going to see the video if you have your speakers on it is running equipment so it can be a little bit loud so just be prepared maybe to lower the volume on your speakers I'm going to let this run it's about a 30 second video so this is one of the first times we demonstrated this in the area and now there's several producers that have built their own intercedars and what you've got is 30 inch cornrows and it's seeding several rows of cover crops between each 30 inch row this is about the beef between v5 and v6 stage for this corn here and I'm going to move on a little bit longer but that's an opportunity to put diversity into into a monoculture crop and many of you might be thinking why would we want to do that don't we want to don't we spend a lot of time and energy spraying out weeds so they don't compete why we want to put something in there that's competing but we know that if you plant that cover crop after that v5 or v6 stage what happens is that corn canopy shortly thereafter and that cover crop germinates and comes up it doesn't really just kind of sits there almost dormant until that corn starts to dry down and more light is able to penetrate through the canopy and then you get a diverse crop that's growing into the fall and then if you harvest that corn you've got an opportunity if you have livestock to graze them if you don't have livestock it's just a soil building opportunity so we've done that there's several producers that are doing that throughout throughout the state that have been doing it for years we've got some that are actually doing replicated trials to prove there's no yield loss for crop insurance purposes and in fact many crop insurance agents are getting on or with this practice because they're seeing the the advantages of it okay this next photo is one um this is this is a little more I don't know maybe advanced for for what a lot of producers are comfortable with doing but basically this is intercropping or polycropping and there are producers out there that are trying this this really adds some complexity to harvest and planting but they're starting to see good opportunity here and what you're seeing here is a small grain with soybeans and you're looking at this and saying well how in the world do we harvest that and this is one where this is a producer from one of the eastern states from here Jason Mach and what he does he harvest this harvest the small grains and on his planteries basically got guards that pushed down the beans or blocked the beans from the harvest to harvesting and so he's able to take the small grain and then the soybeans come up and then later on he takes the soybeans so as you can imagine the total yield for the small grains and the soybean is if you look at the let me back up if you look at the yield for the small grains on its own it's not as high as if you were to plant a straight small grain yield it's the same for the soybeans it wouldn't be as high as if it was solid soybeans but the overall harvest benefit and harvest haul is greater as a whole and so basically they're looking at the relationship of a lagoon plant and a small grain plant and how can we maximize the the relationship there and the benefits and how can we harvest them separately so this is kind of a little far advanced but we do have producers that are looking at this okay the last quarter category I'm going to talk about and on maximizing plant diversity is restoring sites that are currently crop ground back to a native plant community there are opportunities for this especially on some of those fields that maybe aren't as productive crop land economically as they should be and maybe the best use for that land it should be back to perennial plant community and this is where I encourage producers or landowners if you're looking at doing this you know it's kind of easy to say well we'll plant two or three grasses and call that good and we'll graze it and it'll be better and more economical in our crop but this is where I think we can really make good hideaway and restoring those native plant communities it may be a little bit more expensive to plant that big expensive 15-20 species mix but I truly believe in the long run that it's more productive and we'll go better throughout the years as we have our wet and dry cycles okay so that's my short presentation today for you on increasing plant diversity in our landscape and it's important to increase in soil health with that Jeff I will open it up to any comments or questions Kent thank you so much any questions for Kent before we move on Kent before you don't or lose your screen there I want to point out to everybody your email address there yeah I'll go back to it sorry that's okay okay so I'm very appreciative of Kent and all the work that he's been doing on soil health across our state he works with a great team of folks across our state and serves underneath and Jones are states to sign us but if any of you want to reach out or get a hold of Kent you see his email address there and you know I just I also want to just give a shout out to all of the partners many of them that are on this call today that are working with us to improve soil health across South Dakota so proud of the work you're all doing and it's amazing for what we're getting accomplished and I think that but there's still a lot of room for us in the road we're gonna keep working on this one in a very big way thank you so much any questions before we move on thanks Kent great presentation appreciate it all right next we're gonna move on to talk about our South Dakota planning prioritization tool Jessica Mihalski our state resource conservationist is going to join us today like so many things the amount of opportunities the amount of requests that we receive as a state for planning but also programs is incredible and so one of the ways that we're trying to make sure that our field staff are working on the most important resource concerns issues for South Dakota is do some prioritization along the way so Jessica is going to talk with you about the state planning prioritization tool share that a little bit with you and get from you any comments or thoughts that you might have but Jessica turn it to you okay thank you Jeff I'm going to share my screen here this is a handout you also received in your packet with the agenda but I just want to share share the planning prioritization tool that was developed for fiscal year 2021 like Jeff said we have a lot of requests for planning assistance a lot of those requests then eventually turn into program applications and just to give you a little background of kind of where we've been sitting over the years you know as you know in my many of you know in my previous position I was the CSP program manager for about eight and a half years and the CSP contracts that we funded every year you know a lot of times ran in the 300 to 500 range for applications and contracts and we were really able to fund a lot of contracts with the dollars that we received for national headquarters well throughout the past couple of years that has really changed and the overall look of national headquarters has been that that CSP money really needs to be more evenly distributed throughout the United States and so they've really pulled a lot of those funds back from us and so just to give you a little a little information on that I talked to Joyce Trevathek who's the the new CSP program manager and she said for 2020 we actually received over 1,000 applications and only funded between 90 and 100 of those so you can see that that there's really a need in the seat you know for CSP program and then equip on the other hand we were actually able to fund about a third of the applications that we received for equip for 2020 but still that's that's a lot of applications that we received from producers that are not going to be be able to be funded and so we really need a way to prioritize the planning up front which producers that we are going to prioritize for working with and which ones are going to be a lower priority and it doesn't mean that we're not going to work with them it just means that it might be another year or so before we get to those to those producers that have requested our technical assistance so I worked with a committee I had a NRCS staff from across the state a couple from each area to assist me in developing this prioritization tool and then also I'm serving on a national team to develop a prioritization tool on the national level also that will be rolled into our planning program which is called Conservation Desktop or CD for sure so it really is being looked at on a national level there's many many states that have an overwhelming request for technical and financial assistance and we just don't have the fund to be able to fund all of the applications so one of the ways you know I know Jeff Vanderwald has talked about this several times now and we're moving towards this process is the conservation implementation strategy areas and really focused and focused or targeted conservation so as you can see here this is that is something that we've made a priority so basically the way this tool works is producer you know comes in and requests our technical assistance we take a look at you know what their past performance is have they had a terminated contract in the past have we have we you know have they been willing to set up a planning meeting with us and those those individuals are going to receive a high priority and then we're going to go on to actually score those high priority applications and this score really doesn't mean anything as far as banking or anything is concerned but it's just a tool that each district conservationist and research student conservationists can use really prioritize applications you know and they're they're not necessarily going to be a magic number because it's going to be different from resource unit to resource unit and from county to county but we're really helping prioritize okay we want to look at those areas those planning areas that are within our targeted areas that we are are going to target funding towards so that's our conservation implementation strategy areas that's our regional conservation partnership program areas and we have several of those throughout the state and then we also want to take a look at those areas those planning land units that are within you know some of our impaired water body watersheds and close to those impaired water bodies and so that was that was very important to the committee as well and then we we enabled this tool to be you're basically localized by allowing the county office or the resource unit to select those local resource concerns for each of those areas so this tool will look different from county to county like I said and then it also was important for the it was a priority on a certain level for our committee to you know really get in touch with some of these first-time producers that that maybe haven't had a conservation plan developed in the past and then you know and then also the one of the priorities was okay are we this producer willing to do management activities so this producer has come in they said they want pipeline and tank but are they also willing to implement prescribed grazing on on a system based approach and so that was something else that that's been important and it's been prioritized and it's also prioritized in our program rankings and those types of things and the last thing that we looked at is you know what portion of the operation is this producer willing to look at doing conservation activities on and so we felt that it was important to prioritize that information as well and and look at an overall picture of that producer's operation not just you know land unit by land unit but but the whole the whole operation so you know that's something that we put together I think Jeff Vanderwilt is maybe going to jump in a little bit and discuss what he would like to see as far as resource concerns and prioritizing those also on a state level so that we have that information going forward and with that I'll let him jump in I'll stop sharing here and then we'll have a few minutes for questions well thanks Jess and just real quick I just wanted to give you guys all the heads up that here in 2021 we're wanting to get our state resource concerns updated so what what should we be focused on for the next couple of years if you remember a couple years ago we did the same thing we reached we reached out to each of you on this state tech committee here and asked you and your you know your organizations what are your priority resource concerns for South Dakota what should we be focusing on and we use those resource concerns in a couple of ways you know one is with our programs and two I see a use or a need for them potentially coming with us helping determine which conservation implements implementation strategy projects we would like to fund as well so I'm giving you guys just a heads up that we're going to try to send you some stuff and start putting some pieces into motion so that we can start collecting that data this year either by the next state tech or the one after the summer one we'll want to try to get that feedback and get those in place before our 2022 calendar or fiscal year 2022 2022 begins so that is our plans I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that this is going to be coming so that it doesn't catch you off guard if we send you some information saying hey you know we're going to try to start collecting resource concerned information so that we can prioritize that for South Dakota for 2022 just a brief heads up and I'll turn it back to Jess go from there all right are there any questions okay if not I'll turn it back to Jeff thank you thanks Jeff and Jess appreciate it I you know I just would summarize and close by telling you this we as an agency are all about customer service serving our customers the best we can and we're always going to be encouraging producers to come in or request conservation plans it's really the best first step in making good resource decisions out in the landscape and then we can take it from there to help find the resources for many different sources to help them implement those conservation plans our goal will always be of course to write a conservation plan for everyone who needs one but we but we all have to realize that there's at a certain point in time there's going to be more planning requests than we can meet so this is just about prioritizing those and then we can continue to move on and hopefully we can you know at a time get to all of the planning requests get everybody headed further down their conservation journey thank you so much for that next on the agenda is the conservation implementation strategy Jeff Annerwell is going to visit with you about that and I just want to say that this is a topic that we have talked with you about for numerous years we kicked it off in 2019 and this year will be our first year of having dollars actually implemented out through targeted approach we're really excited about this I think this has so much potential for us all in South Dakota to really get conservation on the landscape also do it in a way that provides some real measurable benefits and so I'm so proud of Jeff and his leadership on this and what our partners across the state including our local staff have done Jeff share that good news and talk about what we're going to do in 2020 2021 excuse me that no problem so I'll start out by talking about 2020 actually we and I think you guys have all been made aware we funded 16 projects in 2020 the annual request or the annual funding that's going to go to those projects here in 2020 is is just right around the three million dollar mark now these are multi-year projects so that's just year one for all 16 obviously next year they'll have an additional allocation but we are I was hoping we'd have it done we're not quite there we're so very close to having the website up and running that would actually show you on a map where the different projects are and give you a little update about each one of those projects we're I mean we're very close in fact I would have said it would have been ready but we found just a couple of hiccups that we're trying to figure out and get fixed so it's very close to being on the streets and I I really I really think before Christmas for sure it'll be it'll be there if you guys go look for it so that's kind of where we're at and that'll give you the update or the information on all 16 of those projects that you guys can go look and see what those look like so hopefully you know they'll have some success this year we've had some news releases go out some batching periods have come and gone for some of those projects they're working on the planning now and as soon as our ranking software is up and running we'll we'll start ranking some of those applications for those projects and actually get some of those dollars obligated here before too long hopefully so that's kind of where we're at with 2020 now of course we got to look to the future and so we're just released last week the sign up or the announcement for 2021 and I'm sharing my screen this is the new fact sheet that we put together and that is on our website and then we also have a new implementation strategy or the template that you need to use to submit that project proposal to myself or Jennifer words one of the things that we changed and we kind of forewarned everybody that this was going to happen and I do believe we're able to make this happen this year is that it will now include all three of our major programs here at NRCS and so those three are the environmental quality incentives program the conservation stewardship program and the agricultural conservation easement program if you remember last year we left CSP out as we didn't feel like we were able to incorporate it at that time and I think things have changed or we feel more comfortable now about including CSP into this offering for CIS so that does a couple of things first and foremost probably it increases the amount of funding that's available for CIS we'll be able to use some of our CSP classic funds towards these projects secondly I think it's another opportunity for these projects to find ways to implement conservation to get to that final outcome that how we're going to move that conservation needle with these projects now you have all three tools essentially at your disposal to work towards that outcome that you are that you're shooting for that you're measuring and again the biggest thing about CIS is really about that outcome having having the ability to say at the end of the three or five year project that hey this is what we accomplished and let's all get together and celebrate the fact that we were able to address this resource concern as a group right as a team we kind of came together we focused in on treating this resource concern in this particular area and here's what we're able to accomplish the one thing that I've been telling people that I kind of noticed about our 2020 sign up was there seem to be a lot of concern about documenting that outcome and maybe even a little bit of apprehension about boy I don't even know if I'm really going to be able to show much of an outcome we're dealing with mother nature these things take time to change to heal and I think all of us realize that and I think if we can get over the fact that we're looking to make this big grandiose outcome happen and just realize that it's the little things it's the small changes that will eventually lead to big changes and realize if we can make these small changes in a focused area with a concentrated effort after several CIS projects I think we'll see that big grandiose change that a lot of people kind of think we need to accomplish so I want you to think small I don't think you need to think about big grandiose outcomes think small outcomes think about making that change moving that needle just that little bit and let's put some projects together and make some great things happen on the landscape uh myself and Jennifer words are always willing to sit down and talk with you guys about CIS project ideas if you're thinking about including easements and CSP we you can definitely talk to Joyce and Brandon as well all four of us are more than willing to discuss the ins and outs of the programs and ways that we can make those programs fit into your project ideas and I think if we just sit down and talk some things out you guys will realize that there's a lot more potential out there than you think as far as finding these projects and making those outcomes happen so the due date is April 15th 2021 you know if if you guys are procrastinators with your taxes I'm just going to tell you get these done first then we'll worry about your taxes but April 15th is that date so you know try to get those accomplished work with us we kind of give it this long period of time so that there is an opportunity for us to have discussions that need to happen so that you can make sure you can get those proposals together there are no match requirements but if you have a willing partner or if you have some funds that you want to bring to the table as well we're always welcome that opportunity to match our funds with your funds to make something happen as well and let's see other than that I think it's just that April 15th is the big date to get those proposals in we will make our selections then in May and then funding will actually come after the first of the fiscal year so October Novemberish timeline if our budgets come through and we have our funds in hand then we can we essentially turn those funds over to you in a way of helping us put the plans together helping us make those funding selections at that time so if you get one funded don't just think that you got it funded and you get to walk away we're going to be kind of in constant contact with you working on the outreach working on the planning and then obviously making those funding selections to make sure that we get those contracts in place that will help you get to your outcome for your projects I don't know if I've said the word outcomes enough yet I can't stress it enough to be honest with you that's what this is about we really want to be able to show some outcomes we've been doing a lot of good work for a lot of years and I think the one thing we've lacked all those years is being able to actually show some outcomes and with CIS that is our goal is to be able to show people here's what we've accomplished here's how we've moved that needle so overall that's our goal with with CIS so any questions about CIS and and the April 15th date and how this all works from anybody these documents are on our website if you go to South Dakota NRCS and search around in there for CIS you'll you'll find the documents in there the vision statement and the template or the the vision fact sheet and this template document are both in there and soon very soon will be the the interactive map that will show you all the existing projects and give you some details about what those existing projects are Jeff yes ma'am this is Colette Kessler and I just wanted to mention to everyone that if if Jeff Vanderwilt or Jennifer Wurtz's phone is busy or whatever that please know that there's NRCS employees all across the state that can help you with brainstorming for ideas and of course I'm available too for helping move through the template process for ideas and in figuring how things might work and then later on you'll hear from Blaine Brackie who's got to mention their resource concerns project so thanks yeah great job Jeff are there any questions at all all right this is a great opportunity for South Dakota and all of you out there as our partners so we're excited about what will come forward in 2021 related to the conservation implementation strategy next on the agenda Jeff and his team or he may lead a lot of it but we're going to talk about some of the things that happened with our programs from 2020 kind of wrap up some things but even focus a little bit more on the direction that we're going in 2021 and thinking some of you on several of those things so Jeff I'll turn it over to you for our program update you bet and since I'm on here I'll tell you what I'll talk about RCPP quick and then I will turn it over to the rest of my staff to cover their individual program so just a real quick update on RCPP that's the regional conservation partnership program today I can let you know the the batching date or the proposal due date was November 30th we had five South Dakota partners submit applications for this round of RCPP there was 360 million dollars available nationally and I believe they've got 850 million dollars worth of requests so obviously you know way more project proposals than there is funding which is pretty typical the good thing is all of our critical conservation areas and just about all the states had proposals submitted that would somehow include them so we were South Dakota I should say was part of a couple of multi-state project proposals and then we've got a couple of just in-state project proposals in those five they're gonna go through a review process between now and I'll say probably about the middle of January and then that review process will be given or those results will be given to the chief for the chief to make some funding decisions probably in February would be my guess so we kind of got to sit tight here for a little bit wait for the process to work out and then see where we end up with as far as any new projects go for 2021 we did get some new projects here in 2020 the or excuse me the mini high conservation district has a big Sue water quality project that got funded the Belfoose River Watershed partnership also got one funded for 2020 so we'll have two new projects there the Lewis and Clark projects through the James River Water Development District got extended they did a renewal opportunity and so we're looking forward to working with them as well we did have a new AFA those are called alternative funding arrangements RCPP's kind of been broken out into almost three options or opportunities the renewals the regular project proposals and then they have these alternative funding arrangements and we actually had two of those get funded that will affect South Dakota now one is with Ducks Unlimited where Ducks Unlimited is the lead partner and South Dakota is the lead state and then we're also going to be involved in one with Audubon which covers North Dakota and South Dakota and North Dakota is the lead state on that so it's kind of exciting times RCPP came about in the 2014 Farm Bill and we had a total of five projects get funded across that entire Farm Bill now in one year we've had five projects get funded so RCPP is really starting to grow here in South Dakota and I can't stress enough for those of you that are thinking RCPP and thinking CIS and going which one should I do which one's better blah blah blah I would tell you that they're a perfect match for each other and they're a perfect opportunity to to take one take one proposal if it doesn't get funded in RCPP it'll roll fairly easily over into CIS and vice versa so essentially what we've created now is a couple of opportunities for you guys to put project proposals together and find ways to get them funded so I'm really excited about that opportunity I think RCPP is a great way to bring additional funds to our state you heard Jessica say earlier and you'll hear my staff tell you here in a little bit too you know some of our program funding specific program funding is going down and RCPP is a great way to kind of offset that decrease in some of those programs we can take those targeted funds bring them to South Dakota and make something great happen that way as well again RCPP is about targeted outcomes and moving that conservation needle so there's a lot of similarities between it and CIS that's kind of where we sit with RCPP real quick and I'll just ask if anybody's got any questions about any of the project I'll try to answer those or if anybody's got questions about the proposal process as well we can go over that too if anybody's got questions all right now I'm going to stop talking and I will turn it over to Jen Wertz I believe Jen is on and she can talk about our equit program for 2020 and 2021 Good morning everyone I don't know if you need me to bring up my handout but it is the next handout after the CIS information that Jeff just covered and I'm just going to touch on a few things for fiscal year 21 equip last tech committee meeting we went through how we wrapped up fiscal year 2020 with all of the fund pools and assessments that were funded this year we're looking at just over 13.8 million dollars for our equip general funds 500,000 in honeybee funds 325,000 for the national water quality initiative that again is going to be in the fire seal creek area and then 400,000 for our sage grouse initiative and like Jeff already pointed out the 16 conservation implementation strategies will have their first year funding in fiscal year 2020 and that is approximately three million dollars that we're going to put towards those projects out of our general equip allocation and then just kind of an initial timeline we had you know December 11th is our batching date here that next week Friday already we'll look at having some of the initial eligibility determination done in January end of January and for anybody that's working with or is applying for equip that includes filing AGI with FSA and also you know making sure all of your your farm records are up to date compliance with wetland and highly erodible lands our tentative time for ranking is in in mid-march with pre-approvals happening that following week and hopefully we have a wrap-up of obligations by the end of April that is that is our goal for this year again we're always subject to change as things go through so is there any other questions with equip this morning okay that's pretty much all I had Jeff unless you wanted to touch on anything else I missed oh that worked for me all right I'll turn it over to Joyce Trivithic to discuss CSP then good morning it looks like you must have that up Jeff for the CSP report on the agenda yep sure do if each of you are following along it's on page 13 of the agenda items agenda full handouts so just run through the quick report on those for CSP 2021 renewals which the application sign-up deadline was batching date was in October we received 693 total applications the initial allocation was 7.8 million so it's not going to go real far but our initial ranking date was tomorrow we'll see how many we get ranked by then with all the issues that come up with our tools and the obligation deadline on the 2021-1 renewals is February 26th so we're working slowly working through those and hopefully next week we'll know what we have for pre-approvals on on those this is your initial allocations of that 7.8 million of course 10 percent goes to the beginning farmer and 10 percent to socially disadvantaged and then each of the resource units had a percentage based on what was received in last in 2020 renewals so we'll move on to GSI GCI I mean CSP GCI again October 16th was a ranking batching deadline for that one the state did receive $338,000 on that and 61 applications and that application deadline is December 31st seeing as how the state hasn't received funding for that yet though the allocation has not got through with issues with programs at the national level we'll see how that moves forward but anyway we're moving forward slowly on that one too so then the preliminary data data on CSP 2021-1 classics we don't have a lot of information yet but we do have our initial allocation that's $7.85 million and that initial application deadline is March 26th the one thing they did do different on the classic is they separated out the organic and the transitioning organic and that will be a separate allocation so that's not coming out of this initial allocation and then there's also 2022 renewal application deadline of March 26th so that's the information we have on CSP and if anybody has questions feel free to ask them just one thing I'll this Jeff one thing I'll touch on is the GCI that $338,000 if additional funds are needed to fund those 61 applications we'll get those additional funds as necessary to fund those GCI is kind of an automatic funding kind of a situation so although it is usually pretty small acreages and it's $18 an acre so those are not very expensive contracts either so we'll see how far that goes but if we don't have enough funding they will make up that funding to make sure that those get funded so the other thing I'll mention is last year for our for Classic you know we received $10 million that was kind of the cap they had put on it last year and you can see they lowered it this year to that $7.85 million there's about 14 states in the nation that were all capped at that amount as they try to spread this program out more nationwide you know that's where this cap kind of has come from so there will be an opportunity for us I am sure to increase that just like last year we started out at $10 million we were able to increase that by a couple of million hopefully we can be able to do that same thing this year as CSP continues to be a very popular program in South Dakota so we'll continue to do our best to try to bring additional funds that other states are not able to use here into South Dakota as well for CSP and the same would hold true for Equip and Easements that Brandon will talk about here in a minute we were almost always oversubscribed and almost always able to bring some additional funds where other states were unable to use those funds so any questions on CSP Jeff no question but just one comment I want to just kind of build on what Jessica talked about earlier and you talked about and Joyce talked about but emphasize a little bit you've heard folks that CSP was an extremely popular program in South Dakota you know at one time we led the country in the number of acres that we had enrolled in the program because of this work that's going on nationally to have this be a very national program there's folks that are making statements kind of like this to me like well CSP is going away and that's they're getting that impression because they're seeing fewer dollars come to South Dakota I just want to emphasize to you that the conservation stewardship program is not going away it is just the only thing that South Dakota we had been able to obtain a much greater share of that program nationally in our state than really was what we should have had you know now you might all disagree I was very glad that we could bring those dollars to South Dakota but we just had a very large share of that program so the key of it is now it's just kind of trying to be distributed across the country to make it truly have an impact nationally and we're feeling a little bit of that pinch but I want you to know it's not because conservation stewardship is going away it's only that way because we're trying to really ensure as an agency that it has value adds value across the entire so we're going to continue to use it here well we'll be ready to pick up any additional dollars we can in South Dakota and I'm sure and I'm sure it's going to get used more and more but I think Jeff had a key on the head earlier when he talked about RCPP that would be another exceptional way to bring some additional resource conservation stewardship dollars to our state by trying to target them to accomplish some such goals so keep that in mind thanks Jeff I'll let you have her back all right thanks Jeff next I'll have Brandon start talking about our easement program here in South Dakota and I'll get these rotated so everybody can see it so Brandon I'll turn it over to you all right thanks Jeff can you hear me all right sure can all right thank you so the first topic I'd like to talk about today here is our proposed easement compensation rates for WRE for fiscal year 2021 this year what we're requesting via processes is to do an extension to our fiscal year 20 compensation rates this process requires our contractor to analyze sales data across our market area which is the majority of it is eastern part of South Dakota and a few counties just to the west of the Missouri River what they need to look at is sales data to ensure that we did not have a change in valuation plus or minus 10 percent over the previous year so they were able to look at about 400 sales later on here this fall we expected there to be a decrease in the sales and that is what their results showed however it was a pretty small decrease and it did not go over the 10 percent so due to that what we're proposing to our headquarters team is to review our data and approve us to proceed in fiscal year 2021 with our rates from last year similar to other years we do have a few counties where no sales data was available for review so those counties we would still be required to use an appraisal if we would have an offer in that area so I guess what I would be asking of anyone on this call that in the handouts that Kathy provided us there is this spreadsheet along with another map that lists the sales data that we're proposing for this year if you have any questions or comments on those proposal rates I would ask that you provide them to me and Kathy by December 11th gives us a little time to communicate with you guys before we submit our final packet to headquarters on these rates before I move on from the rates I guess open up to me questions specifically on this topic all right here now I'm just gonna touch a little bit on fiscal year 21 currently at this time we have not announced an application period for our WRE or ALE we are awaiting some further guidance from national headquarters I'm really hoping that I hear something in the next few weeks so we can get this out before the holidays but with everything that's going on who knows when it will be but like similar years as soon as we have that announcement we'll get that out in publications but like they mentioned all the other programs we did see a decrease in what we got for funds we received about 3.6 million dollars for the acquisition so that will be straight up used for the purchasing of new easements we did receive a new allocation this year which we received about one point million dollars in stewardship funds which we are pretty excited about what these funds are going to be used for is for maintenance management and monitoring practice on our existing easements we've been doing this in South Dakota partly actually for boat I'd say three or four years somewhere is around there but you know we know there's a huge benefit to these easements and we can't just acquire them and let them go so we need to keep up on our activities so with that one point one million dollars we're hoping we can go in on quite a few properties and do some further conservation practices so we're pretty excited about that we've been hearing a lot from our landowners that are interested in participating in those activities so again really excited about that and looking forward to seeing what that brings in future years as well the last topic that I do have for you guys to date is our EWP flood plain easements we currently are just wrapping up the process with that application period it goes a little bit different than some of our easement programs but we did receive about 33 applications for just over 16 million dollars we will be reviewing all those packets and then we submit them to headquarters here in the next few weeks and after they complete their process they come back to the states and let us know how many we'll be able to fund so we're hopeful that we can get a high amount there too but we know there's other states that are working through that process as well there so that is what I have for you folks today on the easement program and I guess I'd open up for any questions for anyone that has any thanks so much Brandon appreciate all your work on that and the whole programs team Jeff do you have any closing comments at all that you would like to add to wrap up the program section before we move to the emergency watershed program Yeah the only thing I would say folks is you know again I want to emphasize the fact that I think we're seeing a little bit of a change in how funding is going to come to South Dakota and you know I guess I just make a little bit of a plea for your assistance to help us with project proposals for RCPP and CIS to bring some of these extra funds that we might be able to bring into South Dakota through those through those efforts so if you guys have any questions or concerns on some of that stuff you know just let me know and I'm happy to happy to visit with you about that but I just I see a lot of opportunities where we could we could do something to bring some additional dollars and we just love to work with some folks to do that so with that that's my update all right thank you sir next we're going to move to the emergency watershed program it's another effort that's been underway this year we're doing some good to help some communities out there and Jay Cobb our state conservation engineer is going to just share a little update on those you've heard about those before we just want to keep this kind of on your radar in case we have some issues that will arise in South Dakota in the future where you could use this kind of help so Jay I'll turn it to you all right am I coming through there are all right thank you Jeff and good morning everybody I'm just going to do this pretty quickly just take a few minutes to give you an update on our EWP activities on the recovery side of things we currently have five EWP projects that are ongoing in the state and they include the repair of the Myrto Dam Auxiliary Spillway repair the Belvedere Dam Auxiliary Spillway and repair a Bruley 26 Watershed Dam Auxiliary Spillway you can tell we had an issue with Auxiliary Spillways and then also debris removal from Oak Creek and White Horse creeks in Todd County and then the last project was repair erosion on the backside of an ag waste holding pond along the Little White River in Bennett County and all these projects are in various stages of construction right now with the exception of the Bennett County project which they recently completed so it's hoped I mean a lot of these projects are getting started late this year and you know I'm hoping that we can get some of them completed before we freeze up this winter but my guess is that we're going to need to extend some of these agreements into the spraying in order to complete construction and they total about I don't know half million dollars in construction funds we're somewhere in that ballpark for all these projects together and that's kind of the update does anyone have any questions thank you Jeff thanks Jay I just would remind people that as well with the emergency watershed program that we used it effectively to help our state partners a year or two ago in Custer State Park after the fire we use the emergency watershed program there to help uh be ready for some additional runoff that can always occur after a fire and so it's just another example the diverse program that really helps us work with partners and the last thing I want to do is just give a real shout out to Conservation District and South Dakota Association of Conservation District for their work on EWP in most of the cases they're local sponsors they're kind of like leading these efforts they're working with people locally to make this happen so a real shout out to conservation districts what they're doing to kind of help this these dollars get on the landscape kind of make us be more resilient going forward so way to go folks next we talked earlier about the fact that the conservation reserve program was very busy in 2020 and Owen's going to come on and join us if you want me as well to speak a little bit about conservation reserve program maybe tie up some of the bowl on 2020 Owen and maybe talk a little bit about 2021 so I'll turn it to you sir thank you thanks Jeff um good morning everyone I hope everyone's staying safe out there if you're like me this teleworks getting old but uh you'll hear me it's saying I have bad at work quality you are a little choppy Owen but uh you're coming through but um do the best you can you might might have to go without camera I can do that I have a face for radio um wanted to just touch on a few things I guess um the main reason for today's call was to button up a review of our conservation priority that is used for Elvesville for next general sign up general CRP that announcement for that general CRP sign up was on November 13 and the date general sign up our January 4th through 12th uh following that we'll be doing a grassland sign up March 15th through April 23rd these dates may uh sound familiar and reason being that with the 2018 farm bill we have reoccurring anniversaries now of this particular sign ups so we're getting more work and uh under be able to for when both agencies both NRCS and FSA then are also going to be able to prioritize their workload um know what's coming I guess so so this is on when the sign ups are and look for some great successes with that uh what I want to review is on the handout out towards the bottom there were a couple maps and then a memo that was submitted on behalf of the CRP subcommittee through the state um what we were tasked with or what why we had to make some revisions to the existing CPA zone is we had too many acres of cropland um within that and um so we had to tear that down by some acres to meet the 25% cropland factor within that CPA so what the subcommittee ended up doing is we removed one huck zone uh down in the southern part of trip county there's been statistically there's been minimal activity in general CRP in that particular area and the cropland removed then to meet that 20 factor deadline was the 27th of November we had to have that review completed front of the state today other than just to review and finalize that process so I guess are there any questions or concerns on that particular piece and then I'll review some statistics from last year okay so as Jeff said we had some uh a big lift from last year some great interest in the CRP program um if I go I can share this as well maybe puter illiterate today so I'm just going to review the statistics but so under the general CRP sign up that we conducted last year at the end of that sign up and what went to contract we had 963 offers that made it to contract for a total of 53,160 we had a regular continuous sign up where we enrolled 1984 contracts total of 35,823 acres we had the FWP component of the regular continuous sign up and that consisted of 150 contracts I'm sorry 439 contracts for a total of 12,891 acres uh we had a reenrollment opportunity under the current CRP agreement with the state of South Dakota we had 150 of those that were enrolled reenrolled for a total of 15,384 acres and then probably the the biggest swing we had was with the CRP grasslands the working land CRP program we had 1,057 contracts for a total of 338,341 acres we had some minimal activity today we've got 17,839 is one additional batch that we did realize in December here they'll be counted towards that total so if we add up all of those numbers we had 4,610 total offers that went to contract for a total of 455,952 acres which statewide then if we include those into what's already been enrolled with previous sign ups we're at roughly 1,389,000 acres in the state of South Dakota so we've got some some plans conservation on the landscape and did some great things I got to give kudos shoutouts to both NRCS and pheasants forever we held weekly meetings basically the last two to three months of the fiscal year to be sure that we had a had our pulse on where that workload was at what needed to get done yet so that we could meet the lines that were in front of us and and get these contracts so I guess with that I would make one last comment we did most recently update our guide who was just realized with a CRP notice that was issued early this and there on the USDA website there is a report that's available that highlights what the average soil rental rate is for each county within the state but the quick and dirty on that is we we've adopted position to the 2021 soil rental rates which is based off the prior years NASS statistical service dryland cattle rate so we did see some increases in some counties we did see some decreases in count pretty reflective of what the the rents are within each county and those are effective those are effective December 1 or any future sign ups and again I did highlight those dates of the general CRP sign up the grasslands sign up and a reminder that we continuous sign up is ongoing so a participant could come in today and make offer on sign up 55 under the continuous sign up so that's where I'm at Jeff hopefully everything came through all right I I kept getting that message so hopefully it wasn't too painful to listen to thank you oh and it was okay there were just a few times you broke up a little bit but I think mostly the gist of your message got out to everyone and really appreciate that report so are there any questions for Owen before we move on Owen thanks for the partnership on CRP and so many other fronts so appreciate topic number nine is the South Dakota wetland and HAL compliance update in decobbock our assistant state consulate clients will provide that so decobbock hello everyone hope everybody is doing good today I am struggling getting my thing to come out here I want you to know when I see it deep I'm not yet yeah I should be seeing it I'm sharing and it's not working for me well let's try this all right I'm going to need a moment here Jeff it's saying I don't have access to my own files well deep what I'll do is we'll just move on to a few other agenda items that we've got that'll be fine you get your files figured out and we'll come back to you just a second okay all right hold on a second here maybe I think you you've got them now sir all right sorry about that I obviously am showing myself I'm not as smart as I thought it was anyway here's our wetland workload came off last year it was a fairly busy year we did about 1600 determinations it's up maybe just a little bit we kind of average around 1400 but the data you see here is going to be from October 1st 2020 starting the new fiscal year we have on our 569s basically nine in progress one completed and four received keep in mind that you know a lot of these numbers are carry there's some carry over from the previous year so they don't always seem to match up sometimes in some people's eyes we got 252 wetland delineations in progress and we have completed 183 so far since October 1 and then we've received another 164 so everything's coming in about as normal I would expect this year we'll probably do everywhere from 1500 to 1600 determinations is my guess the age of the workload is it's good I mean the majority of them are you know a good chunk of them are less than 30 days but for the most part everything is largely three months or less some of the outliers you see on the six months and five months a lot of times do or deal with working with participants that you know what works for them you know some people want us out there at certain times or people are busy so it all depends and crops are out and freeze up if they want us on site to do some work one thing that I did decide to add in here was just the appeals just so we can kind of see kind of where you know like 2017 you know we did about 1900 determinations and we had about 63 of those appealed so our appeal percentage was a little higher you know compared to nine and ten years ago this is significantly lower as you can see then it trends down 2018 to 165 2019 153 and 2020 to 1.65 so you know we still get to get appeals and rightfully so I mean many of the appeals that we get you know producers do have information that we're not privy to so it usually works out you know pretty good to get that info from them you know other than that is just a general understanding of one wetlands but also you know the the way that the USDA delineates wetlands you know our process and procedure you know a lot of producers just want to try to understand that better and it it can be difficult to grasp sometimes that is all I had on you know the wetland compliance front there so very good dick did you want to share any information on highly erodible land compliance or say that for another time well I can sure do it I don't have any numbers for you I know we're sitting at about 65 1026 is that we have to complete highly erodible determinations on for the most part you know we had a I wouldn't say a huge backlog but we get a good number of those every year depending on you know how operations change and my team recently took that over in the past year we're able to zero that down and now we're climbing back up and we just kind of manage that workload as it comes in as best we can very good thank you so much appreciate the work of you and your team and what you do in wetland and he'll compliance thanks much any questions for dick at all all right we've got just a few other things that have that people want to address under the other category so I'm going to be making another call out if there's any additional items and the first of all let's handle I mentioned a salinity web meeting that's coming up and I know that we were hoping to have some some partners join us and cut I'm going to let you take it away I haven't seen some of those partners on the list but maybe was Jim risk there you go yes this is Jim can you hear me sure can Jim take it all right just wanted to put this on the calendar for folks in cooperation with egg tigra we're just going to have a discussion about salinity what are the causes what can be done about it what are the economics and then and then what sort of programs are there in support so I invite everyone to join or spread this within your social media and we're hoping for a good turnout this will be recorded but the target is farmers we're trying to get this to farmers so the the link to the meeting and there is it's happening on next Wednesday on on the ninth at 10 a.m and the link is the sdsu zoom site so you could probably find that from if nowhere else the sdsu extension website under their events tab thank you Jim thanks for sharing that opportunity next let's go to Blaine Brachy to share a little bit Blaine works with the South Dakota Association of Conservation District but a survey but also visit a little bit about kind of their locally led effort so Blaine to you sir hey Jeff thanks um I work with uh conservation initiatives um Angela Ehlers and then of course in our CCG uh that we call locally led um I guess I just want to touch base quick on a survey that we're hopefully going to get out here in the next um couple weeks um and we'll use this survey again in kind of two or three years to kind of reassess where we're at but for the most part that survey is going to be sent to conservation districts employees and board members um through online and email so if there's any district employees or board members on um this call be on the lookout for that um but and what we're going to look at there is just kind of the overall experience levels with you know grant opportunities and funding opportunities communication um conservation planning and then kind of any training that might be necessary to help with as we was spoken earlier about CIS um and then kind of that targeted conservation um goal that we're looking for here so we're open to kind of get a temperature check on kind of where everybody's at right now and especially when the wheels really start moving here over the next year or two um ways that we can help kind of increase that participation and that knowledge base of our conservation districts and then those boards um and I guess just to tee off what kind of everybody's talking about earlier with these CIS um those of you on the on the call to reach out to your local supervisors or your conservation district to connect with them kind of about that resource concern prioritization um that's been one of the focuses of our project is um through surveys and and online um seems like we have quite a few different tools that we that we've shot out to conservation districts to try to start this process of that resource concern prioritization at the at the local level so kind of by each conservation district to help um I guess lead the charge there as we move into more CIS and targeted um acts of conservation um so yeah I just had I guess a quick note be on the lookout for any of those surveys and um connect with your local supervisors and get those resource concerns um to them I guess that's all I have Jeff if you have any other questions for me very good are there any other questions for Blaine at all thank you sir appreciate the work you do thank you two other quick topics that we've talked about in the past that I'll just bring up um our conservation collaboration grant program that many of you have worked with us on we're going to get that announcement out again hopefully before the end of this calendar year hopefully we can leave that open for anywhere from six weeks two months so that you could put together applications another great way for us to work with you all as partners and just encourage you to start thinking about that now visit with NRCS folks that you know that would be a part of that effort um if you'd like to remember that program is part of our uh really using our technical assistance dollars which means it's really about boots on the ground and so it could be a lot of what we've heard today is about financial assistance to help get practices on the landscape but the boots on the ground could actually help make that work so don't be afraid to ask us about that and encourage that another effort we'll get out soon will be our conservation innovation grants even the past allocated about $150,000 of our equip money for that and have solicited and received applications we had a couple last year that we funded and we'll continue to do that in 2021 with that I just want to ask if there's any other agenda items that any of you all would like to bring to the floor for this state technical committee well hearing none then my final announcement will be is um after eight and a half years um and probably based on my calculations about 34 state technical committee meetings that I've had the opportunity to serve with you I will be stepping down as state conservationists retiring um from this position it has been great it's been amazing to work with all of you I remember so many different state technical committees and the work that we've done as partners across our state I really um well have fond memories of these efforts and how we've worked together on that so thank you so much I look forward to seeing you at future state technical committee meetings but I'm going to be not be standing in the front of the room maybe sitting in the back of the room but listening in to see all the work that you continue to do in conservation across our amazing state so thank you so much for joining at one time today I seen that we had 69 people that had joined our state technical committee meeting that's a great turnout I still too maybe based on my age really look forward to seeing you more in person and being able to shake hands but unfortunately that's just not a you know something that we can do today but thank you again reach out to us if we have any if you have any questions regarding any of our programs and the efforts that we do in conservation across our state but we do it all in a partnership with you so thank you so much we'll talk to you soon be safe out there and wishing you all a great holiday season here toward the end of this calendar year of 2020 thank you all have a great day