 I will tell you that the first two years were outstanding. We had weed, we got different cover crop mixes seeded, we had these great strips, we had awesome field days with between 40 to 80 people at them. Everything was great. The first two years I was like, ah, I'm gonna get two more years of this because this is going so well. And then we got into really wet harvest. And then we got into PP on a couple of our fields. And so really by the end of this, I have some great baseline data, but I don't have a lot of long-term data from the four years. So what I'm gonna focus on though are the partnerships. And those partnerships with those original four farmers that were part of the grant are very strong. We work a lot with them, but I've met a lot of other farmers through them and through those plots and through those field days. What we've now expanded to just on-farm trials that they're doing on their farms and things that we're measuring are they've come in as cooperators on their other projects through commodity funding or through NRCS or SARE or any of those things that participate in our workshops or SARE Professional Development workshop grants as well. So this isn't gonna be directly related to the projects I have. If you go and look at the reports online, you're gonna think it's what we've done as this has, yeah, first years would be great, if it's second years, you probably go with a failure. But I think you'll see after what I put forth that it's really formed some great partnerships within North Dakota. As I was going through this, I was noticing that a lot of the farmers I was talking with are part of the soil science podcast that we have now. So I'm actually gonna walk through it in a way through their episodes and the things they're trying and the things they explain and describe so that you could go back and listen to those different episodes if you want to hear the farmers talk about what they're doing and what they're trying. But I think the essence of our podcast was this, which is exactly what the partnership grant is, is that soil health is a journey. It requires collaboration and curiosity amongst farmers, researchers, consultants, and extension. And those are the partnerships we really focused on and we have people from each of those groups talking about their experiences in soil health on this podcast, which the second series now comes out on March 1st. So here's another example of the work that we're doing. Dave Fransen is our soil fertility specialist and he's gone away from doing fertility trials on research centers and taking them out to farmer's fields because it means more. It means more to those farmers to have infield data. They've made changes based on those projects. So here's Dave Fransen who's one of the most traditional rigorous scientists that you'll find doing all these on-farm trials because it means more. And I think we can all agree with that. There also has to be trust, right? We can do all this work in the world but unless somebody trusts us in the information we're providing, they're not gonna do those things or those partnerships won't develop. And so one of the things that we work closely on is this crop consultant does, Lee Breeze is those partnerships, those relationships. So I said earlier when we're talking about, there's a presentation on, you know, just the crisis that's happening with our farmers, right? The things that they're going through on their farms and probably half of this past year I spent just trying to help farmers through that. And it wasn't always about, you know, that they were in a state of crisis or they were concerned or they had these concerns. It was more just, hey, I'm gonna be there and let's go look at some fields and let's talk about something more positive. And so that's where that trust comes in. And I guarantee any of those farmers now we have a trust that if I need anything, you're gonna help me out on a project. If they need anything, I'm gonna help them out. But here's one farmer that we work with closely, Sam Landman. He's episode five. It's kind of like a calendar of these guys. They're Mr. Gene or July or whatever. But Sam is episode five and he is Sam's young farmer. He just turned 30. He's got his first kid on the way. And he's up in northeastern North Dakota. So many of those guys are still harvesting right now. Sam was able to get most of his pentos off. He didn't have many acres of corn. He's a cooperator on a large field scale, a project we have where he's looking at no-till pentos. We'll be looking at no-till pentos, corn, soybean and wheat with a cover crop and then full-tillage, no cover crop. And he's got an on-farm trial for that. But he likes, he's getting more and more confident that he can just do, if he runs anything like vertical tillage, he's gonna do it in the spring and he's gonna keep his soils covered over the winter. And if he's gonna try to get a cover crop in, it's gonna be early. And if it's not early enough, he's gonna skip the cover crop because he thinks that his planter or his drill will do more cutting up of residue and more damage than it will if he just leaves the residue and doesn't have a cover crop because he wouldn't get enough growth. So making some really good, important decisions. But he's gotta figure out residue management. So this is one of his fields. It's got a warm up in the spring. He's got a little plant into it. So he's concerned about low temperatures. He's concerned about it being too wet. I mean, these guys have ruts everywhere in their fields this year. But the no-till guys don't have as many ruts. I'll tell you that. I've been pretty proud of that this year. The seed depth, hair pinning. He's very concerned about that with his equipment. His stand, his emergence. Seeding into this is kind of scary for Sam. So he's gotta figure out how to manage it. So his approach, he's doing cover crops with bio-striptile. So in that case, it's planting his radish. He uses a sugar beet played in his planter on 30 inch row spacing. And then he comes back in the following year and plants his pentos on that. So he's creating a space for those, for the cover crops to be very intensified in a strip where he's gonna plant his cover crop the next year, or his cash crop the next year. This gives him a little bit of relief of that wheat straw that he's concerned about. But, you know, our reward, his reward is that there's no reason to till in the fall. He's had great stands with this residue. We've seen zero, you know, minimal difference. If not, if it's zero difference between yield on his pentos whether they're planted into residue or into, into cultivated soil. And he's looking for that moisture in August. And this year they didn't need moisture in August. Unfortunately, but that's what he's gonna look for in those dry years. He's gonna see, I think he'll really see the benefits of what he's doing on his farm. Doug Tucson was a drug cooperator episode 11 of the share farm, the SARE project. Got to share farm SARE, got a lot of different acronyms. But Doug is, he's one of those farmers that five years ago, he transitioned one quarter into no-till and used cover crops and then he transitioned the whole farm the next year. So he's, his quote is, cover crops is not where to quit spending money. One year he cut back and he didn't spend money on cover crops and he said it was his biggest regret that he didn't get every acre covered on his farm. And so he'd rather have him fail than if he just didn't do it at all. And I think Doug is a man of few words. Oftentimes there are f-bombs and whatever, but that's what Doug says about his system. And so he will get his cover crops on every single acre and he will make sure that happens whether it's flowing on, seeded, however he's going to do, he's going to get it done. But this is one of the, when we were finding, you know, the cover crops after wheat was not happening because the harvest were so wet we just couldn't ask the farmer to get out there and add more to what they were doing. Plus the cover crops went aground. He switched his project to getting cover crops within sunflowers. And this one is, a lot of people are really interested in this. He was looking at it for the benefits of getting some extra roots in his high-play soils. He wanted some beneficial insects out there to be predators for some of the pest pressures on sunflowers and then he was looking to manage weeds because he just, he felt like he didn't have enough tools to manage weeds in his system. So we did replicate his strips. We had three fields for, I think now it's been three years we've had those out there, 40 feet wide, 60 feet long. He seeds his cover, his sunflowers on 30 inch row spacing and then that same day he's seeding with the drill on seven and a half inch spacing the cover crop mixes. We've gotten the mix down to 18 bucks an acre which he can spray that out if he has to but not feel bad about it and that's kind of our goal. And we're seeing no difference statistically no difference in yield or oil content of those sunflowers. There's still a 200-pound difference where the cover crops are 200 pounds lower the more he has no cover crops and even though it's not statistically significant to him it's enough to be concerned about it. So he would probably never take this whole field which is fine, I think he could get away with it on the borders of a field or he could do strips of the field and not have that risk of doing the whole field or the cost of doing the whole field. But he had a beautiful stand, these were some of the beautiful fields we worked in because those cover crops were blooming throughout the growing season to bring in the beneficial insects. His approach of cover crops on every acre this is what he's often dealing with in the spring. This was a late spring too. So he's got a concern as he's, you know his potential issues with getting cover crops on every acre are man hours and power. How many people do it? Does he have to get out there and do these things? To get around that he's pouring on more cover crops and having good establishment. Getting enough growth, having a mad residue of their options of cover crops what should you put out there what should you not put out there? What can you manage? The reward is he's also getting in the field with no problem and he's not had a problem on any field where he's had cover crops where he's not had cover crops like cereal rye or winter rye, he may have potential issues and that's what he loses sleep over. But you can see this field. So this is the one I was walking through in the middle of it, no issues walking through all that water on a 60% clay and then that tidal field I stepped into next to it. That was the first step I took and that was the last one I took. Didn't want him that one. His approach planting into something living so this is what he plants into in the spring and this is very different for the southeastern corner of North Dakota. I mean this is not what you typically see and he's got, you know he's up to 100 pounds of cereal rye is what he's putting on his fields because he likes a lot of green. I would recommend that for everybody but he could have too much growth when you if we have a dry spring it could rob him of moisture. He could have too much water use. Steve placed him in equipment. He's played with his equipment. He's put things on and pulled them off and tried to get it so he can get that seed in the ground in a consistent way. But the reward from this is that 9 p.m. phone call. Doug is always very respectful of my time and only calls me during work hours but one time he called me at 9 p.m. and he said you gotta see this and so that next day I was down there. And we looked at his field. This is his field that has had cover crops and no-till on it for I think at this point it was four years. They had a soybean crop on it and they went through harvest and two wheel drive in the combine. This is the neighbor's field that has had rippers, chisel plows, field cultivators, wheat, soybean, rotation on it. They used tracks to harvest this. It was the same day and you can see the ruts. And he was so excited to see that. And this is also a benefit where the guy, the aerial applicator was flying over the field at the time. Eric, going to see cover crops in somebody else's farm that was starting to use cover crops and we called up Eric and said, hey, can you swing around, take a picture? And he did and this is what we have to show for it. So this was a really, really proud day for him. This fall we went around to the same thing we drove and we looked at his fields and came up with a plan and he's left zero ruts in his fields and everybody else was sliding all around on tile ground and non tile ground and they had a really rough harvest. People were using rippers in full season cover crops they had out there that were PP. I mean, it was, there was a lot going on but he was pretty proud to get all of his crop off his field. And this is what we saw this fall. This is Doug's field. We drove across it and he started laughing at me because we drove through a really standing water area and he looked at my face and apparently it looks like I was really scared. He goes, I didn't think we were going to make it, did you? And we sat and we looked at this field and you could just see on his face how proud he is of what he's done. And then this other field is tiled right across the road and that's what it was like in that field that got ripped. So those compaction issues are going to be reflected in that crop for years. The deep compaction. This is another farmer Tony that I worked with in Jamestown. He has been no-till for 15, 20 years. He uses cover crops intensively on at least a third of his land and he farms a lot, a lot of land. So he's always out there seeding cover crops is the way he does it. And he farms a lot of sandy soils that he doesn't like seeing the soil blow away. And so for him it's erosion. He wants to keep his soils in place. This is an example of one of his sandy fields where he's, he had just taken this one over. He had a short-season crop on it because it's a sand. So he adjusted his rotation, had a short-season crop on it, followed it with an oat cover crop. He left, he just did oats because he wanted to come back in and spray over the top of it to control some weeds he had out there. So this is how his field looked going to bed for the winter. But he does have some concerns. Lack of residue, too much water used potentially on sandy soil, lack of growth. But he's been doing, he's been getting really, really nice stands. He also uses residue to his advantage. So he bought a stripper head a couple of years ago. This is how he leaves his wheat straw. Standing, a lot of bare ground underneath it. He comes over to cover crop and seeds it. People think he's gonna be a nightmare the next year. Well, when the residue and everything's standing, it's not a problem to get into it. And so that's what he's learned. And that's what he's done. He'll catch a lot of snow and he's caught a lot of snow this winter on this field. But it's even across the field so it's gonna melt evenly into the field. It's not patched up in low spots or on the edge of the field. He has that residue going around. So he has a very consistent field in the spring to plant into. And this was Tony's reward. I did a video from one of his fields that he just took over. And then one of his fields that he's been doing these practices on for 14 years. And they were just kitty corner to each other. And I picked up the soils and it's the first time he's ever seen them side by side. He's never thought to take one soil from one field to look at it next to the other. And he could see in this how dark his soil is, how much he's built up with organic matter and how much more moisture he can retain. And for him that was that he knew he always knew what he's doing is working but this told him again that what he's doing is working and he needed that confirmation. I have an episode two for this also. And I talk about the program we've done. So oftentimes whether you're two miles away or you're 200 miles away, there's something that you can take from each other's systems. And so a lot of what I do is this network approach to getting farmers to talk and getting people in extension to talk and researchers and industry and consultants to talk. So all the green dots on here are our NDSU people whether they're researchers or extension. The red ones are consultants. The blue ones are farmers and the other ones are industry. And so if you look at the idea of this is that you have all the locations where we've had programs, particularly this cafe talk program that I do which Sarah is funding this year. So you have all these talks and all these farmers show up and as they move to the center of this diagram and their doc gets bigger, that means they're sending more programs, they're potentially having more influence on people and sharing conversations. So we have the people on the inside that are sharing a lot of information and showing up to a lot of events. We have the people on the outside that we wanna get on the inside. So I can see where we're gonna go. We're gonna bring all the outside to the inside. We're gonna continue to strengthen this. We'll get more people on the outside and keep this network building. And the idea of this is that one person can step away at any time and the network won't fail. So it makes it so that one person's not important. It's how everybody interacts that's important. When we do this, we do another social network analysis where we have farmers list names of the three people they talk to from like research perspective and then three people they talk to in general about solar health. And in that one, the more somebody's name is listed as somebody talks to, the larger their doc gets. And so there are farmers that we can pick out that are very influential in their areas because people have listed them as somebody who's a resource and they're talking to them all the time. And so that helps us with our program. We say, wow, I'm gonna make sure that that farmer has the information they need, the tools they need, whatever they need to make sure that the information they're sharing is science-based, that it's practical applications, that we can keep solar health a science and not just an observation-type program. And then here's one of the farmers that I rely on, heavily Joe Brecker, who's been 40 some years, no till. And he's 20 years of cover cops. He's a very wise farmer. And he says, every situation's unique. He never pushes what he says on anybody else. Every situation's neat, but he thinks that everybody has the opportunity to make these steps on their farms. It's just what steps they're gonna use and how they're gonna make it work. And so he helps, he helps quite a bit. A lot of these farmers I call and I say, could you come to this event with me? Because I think that you could talk with this person or they would benefit from hearing your message or hey, could you just be there? And if somebody has a question, then you can help them answer it. And these farmers will do that now because of this network we've built and because of the relationships we've built. So I'm very grateful for that. And then one last thing I wanna show you is so are we seeing changes? We do pretty extensive evaluations. Every three years is what we've been kinda doing. And so this is from our program and these are the topics. You know, establishing cover crop and standing soybean, using multiple species, diversifying crop rotation for inclusion of cover crops, establishing cover crop and corn, growing cover crop for seed, establishing after harvest using cereal rye. And the green part on this, and this is a draft. This is literally, I was like, I show it or not, but this is, I wanna show it. So it may change a little bit as we continue to clean up the data. But this is, and the green is what people are doing as a result of attending one of our programs called the Cafe Talks. So they are using these practices of cover crops now because they learned about them at one of our programs. This black area is where we see the most potential because they're considering it. And so these are the practices we are gonna make sure that we show work. Establishing something and standing soybean, establishing a cover crop, that's where I'm gonna focus a lot of efforts because 51% of people are thinking about it and they need more information to pull the trigger and make that decision. Same with the multi-species cover crop mix. Let's help them find five species that really are gonna work for them that they can control. Again, with establishing a cover crop and standing corn, let's find out if you fly it on or if you seed it or how you're gonna get that cover crop out there, how are you gonna modify equipment to get that done and what fixes should you use. And then also that inclusion of diversifying a crop rotation, which we know diversifying a crop rotation is like the number one tool we have. And so if we can get away from two crops or soybean, not soybean or corn on corn, we're gonna benefit the system from a whole system perspective. And then the other things like growing cover crop for seed, 44% people aren't thinking of doing that so we're not gonna do that product. It's not gonna be something, I'm gonna make sure they don't break any laws when they sell seed to make sure it's not protected or whatever if they're gonna start selling things or that they use certified seed or aspects like that but I'm gonna keep them out of trouble but I'm not gonna focus on it because they're not really interested in it. And then this is another reward. This podcast has been played over 11,000 times since we released it in August 1st. So when I see this, this keeps me going. This is one of those things that I need to see that I know that what I'm doing is working. And if I didn't see this, it was only like 10 dots then I'd be like, probably not the right tool. So let's find something else and ask the farmers what do they want and what do they need. So I'll take any questions. You can build solar gas matter with some amount of tillage. So have you seen any of that, good examples about how to be closer to one another? You know, I'm not familiar with that study that they're talking about. But my thought, okay, when you think about tillage, right, you're incorporating plant material from the surface into the soil and then you collect that soil sample and you send it off for analysis. So timing could be everything on that. Did they collect it after they chisel plowed it or tilled it and then send it off and I'd get big chunks of residue that have a lot of carbon in it that are inflating that organic matter to say, yeah, this is working or is it in season and they're capturing the roots from the, you know. And that's why I think that test is very difficult because it depends on timing, it depends on how the sample is collected, it depends on, like I think a lot of people when they transition from a full tillage to no-till situation, you know, they sample the whole tillage where, you know, they don't have any of that residue on the surface and they could have sampled it whenever in the season and then they come back in and that consultants is in their pickup and they drop the auger down to sample, they don't brush away the residue on the surface. So then that inflates that organic matter never that comes back because it's determining litter as part of that organic matter pool, but is it? You know, I mean, that's, it all depends on what you think is part of organic matter and if I can identify it, I don't think it's organic matter. If I can say that's a piece of corn trash, then to me that's not soil organic matter. That's residue, yeah. That's residue, yeah. Organic matter is something you can't identify. You look at it and you say, well, I don't know what that was, but I bet it could have been a root, could have been a piece of residue, it could have been something you could pose. So that wasn't the core part of the question, that has to do with sampling and assuming that the room of the people did it right, the question had to do with, I wouldn't disagree with you, no-till you'll have less disruption, but I guess the question is, have you seen examples where there's a limited amount of tillage where you're still building organic matter or you just don't think that'll work? I haven't looked for examples for that, but because the process is flawed, I can't even make an assumption on whether that could happen or not, because some, I don't know, I've seen a lot of really inflated numbers in no-till systems too, but it's it. But yeah, so actually I don't think, I guess I just don't really look at that number. So I don't know if it's possible. This has been a reason you used, here to me you mentioned on your deciding which kind of copyright-related needs you mentioned nitrogen mixing or looms, it's the reason you didn't use a loom is because of chances of high nitrogen levels could cause a lot of issues like that with your olfactory covers. So I did use a mixture of annual rye grass and Dutch white clover. Okay. So I think my concern was if I did a pure standard clover, it's a little slower to establish, and so that we would get some more weed growth that would be coming up through that. So that was my goal, to have something that would kind of grow quickly, can't be over relatively quickly. So yeah, I think the mixture is good. I would certainly consider doing a pure stand, but I think having some kind of grass in there is kind of a good balance. So with your non-plastic culture or the cover compost right next to the root systems of the peppers and things like that, you didn't see any high spikes in nitrogen that might have caused bossam in our army issues like that? Oh, spikes in nitrogen from having a legume in there? Yeah. No, no. And in fact, we saw probably a little bit of a nitrogen detriment to the crop. It takes a little while for clover to get going, right? So it's not doing a whole lot of nitrogen fixing until probably realistically probably the next year, you know, I would guess. Is your operation all organic? Yes, we're certified organic, yeah. And then after you had your plastic out and you had some established cover, you didn't see a need to go in and just broadcast whatever was left to put more cover there? So I mean, you could do that. I'd like to avoid it. Part of the issue is that I didn't think we were getting much benefit when we were putting down winter eye in late October and then we were getting snow the first week of November. So certainly you could go, I don't really have an easy way to just like band it on those areas. Now you're probably broadcasting it over the whole field and you're probably wasting some seed. So certainly you could do that. And if you had a crop that came out a little earlier and you thought you could actually get some good growth, then it might be worth doing. We did partly because it was coming out like the 20th of October. That was kind of part of the purpose of this. Well, we have 40 or 50% of our field with these strips. You can do a pretty good job given you can deal with just the constraints of the crop and the production system.