Meet the Watershed's New Regenerative Ag Coordinator

Garrett Smith has recently come on board as our new Regenerative Ag Coordinator through a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Garrett hails from the Moundridge area with a degree in Natural Sciences from Bethel College.

Raised on a small family farm in central Kansas, Garrett brings enthusiasm and new energy to our organization. While being trained on the principles of regenerative ag and NRCS programs, Garrett is getting to know farmers and ranchers in the watershed with farm visits. Eventually, he will be a valuable liaison for farmers with EQIP contracts that focus on soil health, cover crops, and adaptive grazing on cropland. We look forward to working with Garrett and we hope you will too.

You can contact Garrett via email at garrett.smith@usda.gov or by phone at 620-888-2015.

We're Hiring! You Could Be Our Regen Ag Coordinator!

The Cheney Lake Watershed, Inc. is the recipient of a 3-year Conservation Partners grant in the amount of $219,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. the grant will be used to hire a Regenerative Ag Coordinator to work with farmers and landowners in the watershed. The Cheney Lake Watershed, Inc partners with landowners in Reno, Pratt, Stafford, and Kingman counties to protect Cheney Reservoir, a major water supply for the City of Wichita. 

Cheney Lake Watershed, Inc. is currently taking applications until November 12, 2021 for an individual with agricultural or natural resource experience and an interest in regenerative agriculture principles. This full-time position will be based in South Hutchinson but will work with farmers across four counties. Potential applicants may view the position description and download an application at www.cheneylakewatershed.org.

With funding from USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, General Mills, and Truterra, the Conservation Partners Program helps farmers and ranchers apply regenerative ag principles and adopt practices that maximize conservation values while improving the bottom lines of their operations.  Nearly $4 million were awarded to 21 projects in 2021. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation was chartered by Congress in 1984 to use federal programs to leverage private investment in conservation projects.

Kansas Farmers Get Payments for Improving Ecology of Soil

Alice Mannette - Hutchinson News

Farmers participating in a project with the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium, General Mills and Kansas Department of Health and Environment are receiving payments this month for the environmental impacts of their regenerative agricultural practice changes.

The wheat farmers are part of a 2020 ESMC pilot project designed to pay farmers for the quantified and verified climate and water quality benefits of their practice changes in and near the Cheney Reservoir watershed.

The Kansas project is one of more than 10 projects that ESMC launched to test and refine its voluntary market program prior to a full launch next year. The pilots test ESMC’s processes for asset quantification, verification and certification and sales. By working collaboratively, all three organizations and their partners are demonstrating how agricultural solutions can deliver results that meet corporate and constituent demand as well as that of local public water authorities.

This pilot was open to producers participating in General Mill’s regenerative agriculture program. The project measured and modeled beneficial impacts from agricultural production system changes. As part of ESMC’s market program, the verified impacts allow the benefits to be claimed by corporations in the agricultural supply chain who invested in interventions to reduce their supply chain impacts. General Mills is utilizing the greenhouse gas reductions in their sustainability reporting, while KDHE is identifying local buyers who seek certified water quality outcomes.

"The 'ecosystem practices' are the same ones that are promoted for soil health – keep the soil covered, living roots year-round, reduce disturbance (chemical and tillage), increase crop diversity, and incorporate livestock into the cropping system," said Lisa French, the project coordinator for Cheney Lake Watershed. "These are the practices that hold soil in place, build soil structure, increase infiltration and increase water holding capacity of soils.

According to Mary Jane Melendez, chief sustainability and global impact officer for General Mills, transitioning to a regenerative farming system has both environmental and economic benefits.   

“At the start of this project, our goal was to encourage farming practices that improve both soil health and water quality in the Cheney Reservoir region to demonstrate that agriculture is the solution to a more resilient and clean water supply for Wichita residents," said Leo Henning, Deputy Secretary of the Division of Environment at KDHE, in a release.

Providing funds to farmers is being looked at by multiple companies. Each company is trying to figure out best practices. By practicing regenerative agriculture, farmers are eliminating monoculture systems and embracing a diverse crop schedule.

New Program Coming Soon for Soil Health and Grazing Cropland

Several producers gathered in early February for an informal field day on Jim and Lisa French’s farm to explore watering options for cropland.

One of the keys to improving the health of our soil is to incorporate livestock into the landscape on our crop acres. Livestock facilitate the cycling of nutrients back into the soil to become available for the next crop. Many times, the lack of fence and water facilities limit our ability to incorporate livestock efficiently. The advent of poly wire and step-in posts has become a solution to the fence issue but often water is only available by hauling it to the field location. Hauling water can consume a large part of livestock producer’s day and soon becomes a disincentive to developing grazing in multiple locations.

With that in mind, we will soon be announcing a new opportunity to incentivize soil health practices along with cost share for watering systems in regenerative crop fields. This program will be first and foremost a soil health program, not a livestock feeding program. As I said at the beginning, livestock are an important part of any regenerative agriculture system but livestock above the ground must work in tandem with livestock below the surface - the soil bugs and organisms. Throughout the grazing season, the producer must maintain at least 80 percent ground cover to protect the soil.

For this program, there will be four required practices that can earn the producer varying amounts of incentive payments. Those practices are no-till, cover crops, crop rotation and prescribed grazing. Prescribed grazing has not been widely used in cropland before, but producers can earn incentive payments by following the guidelines much like in a range setting.

After those four practices are in place, cost share for livestock water systems becomes available. Livestock water practices can include a well, pump, tank and/or pipeline. Producers are encouraged to think creatively and design water systems that minimize inconvenience with planting and spraying operations such as portable water sites, multiple hook up points on above- or underground pipe.

We expect to have a formal announcement soon regarding this opportunity that will be available within the Cheney Watershed. In the meantime, we encourage you to contact Lisa French 620-200-0172 or Howard Miller 620-727-6546 at the Cheney Lake Watershed office to indicate your interest and begin some initial planning. Let’s all work together for soils in the Cheney Lake Watershed.  - Howard Miller

Let This Soak In: Roots in Soil Between Crops Can Reduce Flood Impact

Keep living roots in the soil to get more precipitation absorbed.

That was a key takeaway from a University of Nebraska-Lincoln researcher’s deep dive into water retention practices. Water retention is important, especially when you consider last spring’s devastating floods that left water standing in many farm fields, disrupting the planting season.

UNL’s Andrea Basche and a research partner found that planting cover crops and perennials could significantly improve the ability of soil to soak up heavy rains. “If water doesn’t get into the soil, if it doesn’t infiltrate, then it’s going to run off and contribute to erosion or water pollution,” said Basche, assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture.

The reason that cover crops and perennials are so effective is that they break through compacted layers of soil, said Aaron Hird, soil health specialist at the Natural Resource Conservation Service. Even if a farmer has moved to no-till practices, there is still a layer of compacted dirt underground. Roots help to break that up and allow water to flow through.

Basche, along with Marcia DeLonge of the Union of Concerned Scientists, looked at 89 studies about water retention. The analysis focused on five practices: no-till farming, cover crops, crop rotations, perennial plantings and cropland grazing. Perennial plantings and cover crops seemed to have the most impact on soil water retention. Cover crops are those that are planted during the off season in order to retain the benefits of having a plant in the ground during that time. Perennial plants are those that live for multiple years, so even during the off season they leave living roots in the ground. The research suggests that the continuous presence of root systems may open up more ways for water to infiltrate, Basche said.

Healthy soils are those with more carbon, or living matter, in it, said Keith Berns, Chairman of the Nebraska Healthy Soils Task Force and a Bladen, Nebraska farmer who also runs a cover crop seed business. The benefits of healthy soil, he said, include being better for the environment, producing healthy food and saving money for the producer. “It works really well and allows them to make more money but it’s also environmentally better,” Berns said.

And, yes, it increases water absorption — which in turn helps prevent flooding and erosion. Hird said every farmer he talked to that had cover crops during this year’s flooding said those fields fared better than others nearby. And cover crops can help the soil recover from the effects of the flood, allowing production to resume faster, he said.

Merrick County farmer Noah Seim told the U.S. Department of Agriculture that his use of rye as a cover crop helped prevent damage during this year’s floods. He said the rye held the soil in place. In a post on the USDA website, Seim said: “I cannot imagine what that field would have looked like if the rye had not been there.”

 - Roseann Moring/Omaha World-Herald staff-writer, October 21, 2019

Watering Livestock in Cropland

Livestock water can be the limiting factor in any grazing situation. Whether you want to cell graze native grass, recoup some seed cost by grazing your cover crops, or get some fall grazing on milo stalks, the need for livestock water can be the end of the conversation. Hauling water gets old fast in most farm operations.

Although we have funded a few demonstration projects that provide a permanent watering system in cropland, these set-ups can get expensive at $5,000-7,000 each for a well, permanent tank, and a solar pump. Having a permanent set-up tends to increase the negative impact around the tank and requires a similar investment at each field. Once the system is in, there is little flexibility in how it is used. While permanent watering points can work well in native grass, we’re looking for systems that allow more flexibility with less cost.

Within a crop field, a portable watering system allows the most efficient use of your forage with minimal impact to the soil. You want to ensure that you can get water to every slice of your rotation even when your paddock size and fence positions change throughout the grazing season. Ideally, you could move pumps, tanks, and/or pipe between fields. A mobile water trough connected to a network of polyethylene pipes with quick-connect couplers might be just the ticket if you are moving cattle daily to fresh grazing. Or maybe you use a water trough mounted on a trailer with flexible water line on a reel. Troughs don’t need to be overly big if the cattle are always close enough to get water without moving as a herd to the tank.  Many systems incorporate tanks made from half of a 55-gallon drum. Understanding cattle behavior and tapping your creativity could lead to some cost-effective solutions for water availability. We are interested in your ideas for providing livestock water in temporary systems. Think simple, creatively, and use the least bells and whistles possible. Let us know how we can be of assistance with your ideas.

Bovine Critters & Underground Critters Build Healthy Soil

Grazing cover crops is not a new concept, but a common frustration can be the lack of consistent rain to germinate and grow the crop. What if we could plant cover crop mixes under irrigation specifically for grazing? That was the question Haven, Kansas producer, Jeff Brawner, set out to answer in 2018.

To start, Jeff had to determine what crops would be good for grazing while improving the health of his soil. Early in 2018, Jeff planted a mix of rye, buckwheat, flax, safflower, crimson clover, mustard, triticale and oats on 160 acres under a center pivot. In March he moved his cow herd onto the covers allowing them to graze only small paddocks of fresh forage every day. He grazed that mix until June and then planted a mix of BMR sorghum sudan, Hybrid Pearl Millet, Brown Top Millet, Red Ripper Cowpeas, Laredo Forage Soybeans, Sunn Hemp, Okra, Buckwheat and Peredovik Sunflowers.

He began to graze the summer mix with 170 pairs in August and removed them mid-October. Jeff says that it takes daily moves to make the system work but he would rather move fence to feed his livestock than feed them in a dry lot at a bunk. It takes him 40-60 minutes to move the fence versus 2 hours to mix feed and haul it to the cows.

A higher level of management is needed to properly graze the cover crops and leave enough residue to feed the underground “livestock”. He added that “you have to be willing to adapt and change every day.” Depending on the weather, plants grow slower or faster and Jeff says you have to watch your plant growth and be willing to change the size of your paddock. He continued, “if you are leaving the soil too bare you either have to speed up your moves or give the cattle more acres to graze. If you are leaving too much residue behind you need to slow down or shrink the paddock size.”

Providing water in a rotational grazing system is often a challenge since the cattle are always on the move. Jeff uses a plastic barrel cut in half with a float and flexible pipe to provide water for the 170 pairs. At first, I wondered how one half of a barrel could provide water for that many head until Jeff explained that the key is to never let them run out of water. When the cattle have water constantly available they are willing to take turns drinking rather than rushing the water source with lots of pushing and shoving.

Jeff says the grazing system uses about half the irrigation water needed for a cash grain crops. This saves pumping costs as well as conserving water.

To me it makes sense to let the cows harvest their own forage rather than baling or chopping the forage and bringing it to the cows. There is a reduction in the amount of equipment needed for harvesting and feeding. While the cattle are out grazing in the field they are spreading their own manure whereas in a dry lot we have to scrape and haul manure. Also, with cattle lying on cleaner soil the invitation to environmentally-induced disease is lower. I know that in my days as a dairy farmer I was amazed that my cows would rather go out in the field to bed for the night than go to a nice clean stall barn even if there was snow on the ground. And not least, putting livestock on crop fields helps build a strong biological system in the soil for future crops.

Many farmers are finding that going against what nature wants requires lots of effort and resources and it has occurred to me as I write this that maybe penning up cattle and feeding them at a bunk is one of those going-against-nature practices.

I think maybe Jeff is onto something. He will freely admit that he hasn’t got it all figured out but at least he’s trying to learn a better way. In fact, he is already planning his next project - perennial cover crops for grazing on dryland. The challenges for grazing dryland will be different but maybe the bottom line will be better since there is no irrigation cost. Jeff’s ability to think outside of the box is what makes him successful.

I leave you with this challenge from Steve Groff, the Cover Crop Coach, “Try new things on at least 10% of your farm”. Why not try this with at least part of your farm and part of your cattle? What have you got to lose?