 Hi, I'm Miranda Mehan. I'm the Livestock Environmental Stewardship Specialist with the NDSU Extension. I'm based in the Animal Sciences Department in Fargo. So today I'm going to be talking to you about our North Central Region SARA project that we started this summer looking at grazing cover crops or integrated crop livestock systems. So this project has started because we've been getting a lot of interest and gaining more interest from farmers and livestock producers on grazing cover crops or integrating livestock into their cropping systems to further enhance the benefits of soil health benefits by speeding up the nutrient cycling and increasing nutrients in their cropping systems in addition to the normal soil health benefits we see with incorporating cover crops. However, we have some questions when it comes to that. There's not a lot of research that's been done to date on management of livestock within cover crop systems especially within our region. We do know that within cover crop systems with the way our markets are in the U.S. right now that unless we're incorporating livestock we don't see an economic return on just incorporating the cover crops unless it's over a really long period of time. So incorporating livestock is one way for people to see that return quicker on cover crop systems. So this project we're working with six producers or farmers and ranchers in Central North Dakota who have demonstration sites on their farms and then also we have a demonstration at the Central Grasslands Research Extension Center and on the main campus in Fargo in which we're looking at different grazing management techniques specifically utilization rates we're comparing a full use our 75% utilization our removal of forage to a 50% our take half leave half rule of thumb. In addition we're also looking at stock density within those systems so we're looking at a more of a moderate traditional stock density and then we're looking at a double that rate so we're looking at more cattle for a shorter amount of time in comparison to the moderate so we'll do double the animals at half the time for the high stock density and looking at how that impacts our soil health livestock production and economic return within these systems. Hi my name is Erin Gogler and I work for Central Grasslands Research Extension Center near Streeter North Dakota. I work there as a range research specialist but my role with the SARA project is focused on collecting the research parameters and also partnering with the producers making sure that all of the infrastructure is ready to go for a project from delivering seeds, making sure the fences are established to developing the water for our grazing systems. For the research aspect with this project we are focusing on several different aspects because that's what's of most interest to the producers. With this systems approach we really want to get a good sense of everything that's going on from the soil to the livestock performance to the crop production and to the overall economics within each system. For the soil health we're going to be focusing on a few different areas including physical, chemical and biological parameters. The physical aspects that we will be studying include things like bulk density so looking at the overall compaction of the soil. We will also be analyzing aggregate stability so looking at the overall structure of that soil pedology testing its strength against factors like extreme weather events, windy erosion and those sorts of things and also looking at the saturated rate of infiltration. To test the saturated rate of infiltration we will be using a rainfall simulator which was developed by Cornell University and we will be saturating that soil and then applying a certain rate of rainfall to the soil and then measuring when that rainfall rate becomes static through that soil profile. These factors are important because they help us to understand what's going on beneath the surface, understanding how aerated that soil is how certain practices like tillage or no tillage how other historical land uses have began to influence what's going on beneath the surface. We will also be considering the role of livestock and how the density of those animal grazing treatments can impact this physical structure of the soil. We will be looking at several chemical aspects of the soil from nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, percent of organic matter, sulfur, so on and so forth. Now with these parameters we will be sampling them as 0 to 6 and 6 to 12 inches and we will be collecting them at every single acre across each field. The reason that we are doing this is because we want to analyze how the grazing density of livestock is impacting the distribution of those nutrients in these cropland acres. We will also be focusing on the overall crop production within these systems. So we have two years of a cover crop followed up by a third year of a cash crop. In the fall just prior to grazing we will go out and collect the forage production by using quarter meter squared frames. Those samples will be dried down and that will be used to help us determine the overall pounds of production per acre which will help us to determine the appropriate stocking and density rates for our treatments. Next we will be looking at the livestock performance in these areas. We will be monitoring their overall body condition and their general body weight both prior to and after grazing through these treatments. This is important because from a producer's perspective they might have certain goals in mind. They might want those animals to maintain their general body condition or they might also want to consider a scenario in which those animals will need to put on weight and depending on their goals they can manage more specifically to achieve those results. The last aspect of this project will be focusing on economics. The economics piece is important because it helps us understand the inputs as well as the value that we are getting out of these systems. We will be bringing in another student to focus in on this area who will work closely with the producers to actually use costs that were occurred in each system and then we'll also use county estimated averages for things like rental rates of land, so on and so forth. In addition to the research component of this project we also have an extension component in which we're working with the livestock producers. We're doing different events. We're doing field visits except this year due to COVID-19 restrictions. We're doing cafe talks focused on cover crops and integration of livestock into those systems. We're going to be doing some workshops and then obviously developing materials that direct the management within cover crop systems of livestock as we move forward and we learn more from this project. This is a three-year project so it will take a few years before we have everything processed and you'll see some of those outputs. But we will be within the next year starting to schedule those cafe talks and those field tours next summer will have in fall. Especially we want to get people out here and see them when we have livestock out here and see the different behavior between the different treatments. So stay tuned and be looking forward to those. Thank you.