Inside Ag January 2022 by MinotDailyNews

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INSIDE AG

January 2022

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JaNUaRY 2022

Communicating a love for ag ND farmer shares agriculture’s story

INSIDE AG Carie Moore looks out from atop a straw pile at CrocusView-Moore Farms. Submitted Photo

Page 3 By JILL SCHRAMM

Senior Staff Writer jschramm@minotdailynews. com

OCK LAKE – Summers on her grandparents’ farm near Minot instilled a love for agriculture in Carie Marshall Moore that she can’t help but share with others. Through her communications company and volunteer work, Moore educates consumers, youth and others about the industry. Moore and her husband, Jason, operate CrocusView-Moore Farms near Rock Lake in Towner County. Moore is actively engaged in production, raising soybeans, wheat, barley, canola and oats, as well as in assisting with equipment repairs and maintenance. Tractor Rounds + Coffee Grounds is her agriculture consulting and communications business. She edits and designs newsletters, creates social media posts and conducts agricultural communications via video, print and digital media. Tractor Rounds + Coffee Grounds stemmed from the Moores’ former agritourism business, which they had started about six years ago and ran for about three years. “We did a pumpkin patch, a small corn maze,” Moore said. “We had chickens, sheep, pigs, calves.” Youth with 4-H, Scouting and school eco-education programs would come to get hands-on farm experiences. The Moores received a grant through the state Agricultural Products Utilization Committee that helped buy supplies and set up a shed. Then a tornado came through and took out everything. See MOORE — Page 4

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“At that point, again, I was just starting to help full time on the farm, so I didn’t have the time to put into that anymore,” Moore said. However, they already had a Facebook page and website for the agritourism business. “We just took that and expanded on it and just made it basically a place to do social media and virtual education and still get facts out to the people that followed us, just in a different way. It’s just kind of grown from there,” she said. “I can post videos, talk to people directly, and so have that one-on-one connection, even though they weren’t coming out to the farm. They are kind of able to visit us now and be a part of us through our social media.” Education is key to ensuring that agriculture remains a strong industry, Moore said. Teaching young people the facts about agriculture is an investment into educated consumers who understand what farmers do and why, she said. Knowledgeable consumers are essential to creating opportunities for future farmers, including her own four children, she added. “We just want to make sure that is still viable and a good career choice for them, and that we’re able to transition the farm over to them like it was to my husband,” she said. Moore grew up near Logan and spent most of her weekends and summers on her grandparents’ farm at South Prairie. In high school, she was active in FFA and the vocational agriculture department, developing her speaking skills and learning to work with different types of animals. After graduating from Minot High School in 1995, she attended community college in Bottineau to obtain her associate’s degree in fish and wildlife management. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in plant and animal biology from Minot State University in 2000. During her time at MSU, she worked at Roosevelt Park Zoo, gaining experience with animals and doing educational activities with children. She moved to Wisconsin and worked as lead feeder on a large dairy farm for a couple of years. When an opportunity came to work in swine production, she thought that would be a fun and interesting change. “I ended up really enjoying it, and I stayed in the swine industry for about 10 years. That’s how I got back to North Dakota. They started doing some different startup facilities,” she said. She worked for a small company near Breckenridge, Minnesota, and Gwinner and eventually moved to Cando. She

INSIDE AG helped start the swine barn at Edmore before returning to Cando and taking a job with the Towner County Soil Conservation District. She worked with farmers and the public there for about 10 years. In 2019, Moore transitioned into fulltime farming after she and her husband decided to switch up their careers. Jason Moore still is engaged on the farm but also works full-time for a trucking company. In addition to managing day-to-day farm operations, Carie Moore works for a local rancher and began homeschooling one of their children after seeing the benefit of one-on-one home instruction during COVID-19 distance learning. With the changes in her home and professional life, Moore has sought out other outlets to interact with producers and the public and stay involved in education. One outlet has taken her into classrooms across the country. For about the past three years, she has worked through an organization called Nepris, which connects industry professionals to classrooms. “I do a lot of class visits virtually all over the United States. I’m able to talk to quite a large age group and different varieties of students about agriculture,” she said. Moore also represents Towner County on the North Dakota Soybean Council and is active in her county and state Farm Bureau. She creates a weekly video blog for the Farm Bureau called “On Your Table.” Moore works with her local 4-H and shooting sports programs. She has been involved with North Dakota Agri-Women and American Agri-Women, serving as a recent state president and national vice president of communications. “If something is important to you, get out there and volunteer for it. Local leadership is very, very important to me and to our small community. If you want your small rural communities to grow and to thrive, you need to be active in them and have some kind of voice, whether you sit on the school board or one of the county co-ops. No matter what you do, that’s going to impact your community in the future and for your kids as well. So anytime I can volunteer for something that’s going to make a positive difference for our state or our community, I try to get involved somehow,” she said. As a woman in agriculture, Moore said she’s appreciated the support of teachers, employers and co-workers and others who have helped her get where she is. In most instances, she’s worked with men, but she doesn’t see agriculture as an uncommon career path for a woman. “For as long as North Dakota has been around and people have settled here, women have always been involved in ag and played a vital role in it. Even if it came

January 2022

Submitted Photo

Carie Moore stands in her family’s soybean field. She is Towner County’s representative to the North Dakota Soybean Council. from raising chickens and selling eggs in town, or milking cows and selling the milk or making butter,” she said. “Even though that’s where it started, these women were very, very active on the farm from the beginning of statehood, and it has just progressed all across the nation as well.” There’s always been an awareness of the contributions of women to agriculture, but it is becoming more acknowledged, she said. What drew her to agriculture was a love for the outdoors and animals, along with a desire to be busy, because there’s never a

lack of work on the farm, she said. “There’s always something to do better or to learn. We do a lot of research here with cover crops on our farm, so I just enjoy something new every day, learning something new. Then I really enjoy just sitting in a tractor sometimes, listening to podcasts and music and not having any interruptions, just having a glass cab all around me and being able to see everything – all the land around us, what people are growing and doing,” she said. “I pretty much just love everything about it.”

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Cattle trucks unload in a snow-covered parking lot at Rugby Livestock Auction Jan. 2. Sue Sitter/PCT

RUGBY LIVESTOCK AUCTION BEGINS 2022 WITH ‘CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM’ By SUE SITTER

Staff Writer ssitter@thepiercecountytribune.com

he Rugby Livestock Auction held its first sale of 2022 Jan. 3 with what staffers called “cautious optimism.”

The optimism showed when sellers and buyers stopped in the office to chat about the two-foot-deep piles of snow lining the roads to Rugby. According to information from weather.gov, from December 2020 to early January 2021, barely an inch had accumulated in the area. By contrast, more than a foot of snow had fallen in the same one-month period as of early 2022. However, the 12.69 inches of snow measured as of Jan. 3 2022 was more than six inches less than the 19.71 inches normally expected for the period. “This year is very different from last. It’s mainly because the moisture this year. It’s not a lot of moisture, but it’s more than last year,” said Brenda Heilman, a former owner of the auction who handles administrative duties in the office. Heilman said more than 89,000 head of cattle had come through Rugby Livestock Auction in 2021. During the summer, Heilman and owner Cliff Mattson said the number of cattle moving through the auction had set records. Summer sales kept staffers busy when much of North Dakota sat in the grip of extreme and exceptional drought. With little to no hay to feed their cattle, ranchers asked their state government representatives to waive rules for hauling water and feed. Ranchers from other regions with more moisture sometimes helped to supply hay. Still, some operations sold off their herds, unable to survive the tough market and weather conditions. See AUCTION — Page 6

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January 2022

Auctioneer Mike Ostrem, left, takes bids on a set of young bulls at the Rugby Livestock Auction Jan. 3.

Auction

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Although 2022 began with a sense of hope for many, Mattson and Heilman said they saw sales trends from 2021 continuing. “What we’re seeing is the calves are coming to town sooner than they would normally come. That’s the main thing we’re seeing this time of year,” Heilman said of the influx of feeder cattle. Heilman said it was too early to tell whether or not ranchers would consider rebuilding herds. “When we have fancy heifer sales, those usually happen at the end of February through early March, those replacement

“What we’re seeing is the calves are coming to town sooner than they would normally come. That’s the main thing we’re seeing this time of year.” — Brenda Heilman, former owner of the auction heifers can go into a herd,” Heilman said. “The calves they’re selling here today are going to a feedlot. Most end up out of state.

Very few of them will stay (in the area).” Heilman said of the outlook for 2022, “February, March, April, we’ll have a better idea.” “A few (local ranchers) bought bred cows or heifers in December, but we sold almost 26,000 cows last year,” Heilman noted.  “Nobody’s bought 26,000 cows back. So, we’re not anywhere close to replacing what we sold last year, and we’re just one sale barn.” Mattson said the small number of ranchers who bought back cattle “had sold cows last year and found they had extra feed. But a lot of guys haven’t started building back this year. They’ll build more in the spring when they get closer to the grass com-

ing in, because they don’t have enough feed to get there yet.” “We’re optimistic that with the snow we’re getting now and the rain we got last fall, there will be some grass. That’s the biggest thing now, being able to get them through until grass,” Mattson added. “There are a lot of people who are hanging on, but there are still dispersal sales, too,” Mattson noted. “On our next bred cow sale we’ll have, we have some dispersals. They’re smaller deals, but the last bigger sale we had, there were more dispersals. It’s mostly because of feed. There are guys who are getting rid of their best cows because they don’t have enough feed to get them to grass.” Mattson said it wasn’t unusual

Sue Sitter/PCT

for calves to go to auction in winter, however, since the drought began, “it’s the bred cows that are going to town. Our slaughter numbers are up because a lot more people are getting rid of them because they don’t have enough feed to feed them,” he said. “Normally, they wouldn’t get rid of a lot of their cows, even though they’re getting old, they’d still keep them and a lot of people are getting rid of their older, good cows because they have no feed and they have to get rid of something (to scale back their operations), so they’re getting rid of them,” Mattson said. However, Mattson added, “Overall, so far, I think people are more optimistic this year.”

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JaNUaRY 2022

RESEARCH CENTER

STUDIES IN GREENHOUSE OVER WINTER By SHALOM BAER GEE

Staff Writer sbaergee@minotdailynews.com

ccording to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 26,000 farms and ranches occupy 39.3 million acres of land in North Dakota, 89% of the total land in the state. In a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on 2020 production, North Dakota was named the leading state in the production of 12 different crops. See RESEARCH — Page 9

Research specialist Hannah Worral stands in the middle bay of the greenhouse where she studies pulse crops at North Dakota State University North Central Research Extension Center. Shalom BaerGee/MDN

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Research

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The North Dakota State University North Central Research Extension Center, located one mile south of Minot, assists North Dakota’s agricultural economy through its study of agronomy, the science of soil management and crop production. Research continues in spite of harsh winter conditions in the center’s greenhouse. The greenhouse consists of three 20- by 30-foot bays that are kept at a comfortable temperature for plants to grow. During the winter months, researchers use one bay for weed resistance testing, one for pulse crops — chickpeas, peas, and lentils — and one to grow out crops and weeds to take to meetings for identification or other tests and research ideas. The center’s seed lines, such as its yellow pea ND Dawn, are developed through lengthy processes of repeated cross-breeding, research, and testing. “It can take seven-plus years to go from the initial cross to having a promising line. Many of the currently available cultivators took 10 years,” said Hannah Worral, a full-time research specialist who studies pulse crops at the center. This winter, Worral and her team are utilizing their bay in the greenhouse to work on chickpea crosses, among other projects. Chickpea crossing is particularly difficult because the flowers are extra sensitive to handling and have to be gently opened to pollinate them with another plant, something that doesn’t happen naturally. Chickpea flowers have both male and female reproductive organs, so plants can reproduce with themselves. “Chickpea, as well as pea and lentil, are all self-pollinating crops. They’re not going to readily outcross. We have to come in and manually do that in order to make new lines,” Worral said. “Otherwise, every single pod that comes on this plant will be essentially identical to this plant.” Once the research team makes several successful crosses, they will grow out those plants. When there are enough seeds from the successful crosses, they test the performance of each line in the field. After evaluation, they select promising lines for release to North Dakota producers. Proceeds from those sales go directly back to the center, allowing it to continue conducting research. Other sources of funding come from the NDSU Foundation and research grants. “The primary (desired trait) for everybody is always increased yield, everybody wants higher yielding varieties,” Worral said. However, there is more to a successful line than just yield, Worral said. The team looks at disease resistance, seed composition, canopy heights, flowering times, and many other traits aside from increased yield. One issue they study in pulse crops is root rot. “Pulses don’t like their feet super wet,” Worral said. “We have a lot of root rot issues with them, and that’s a very highly complex trait. It’s not one that’s easy to breed out.” While Worral is trying to get her plants to grow successfully, Tiffany Walter, another research spe-

Shalom BaerGee/MDN

Tiffany Walter, research specialist at North Dakota State University North Central Research Extension Center, shows the spray chamber she uses to spray weed during weed resistance testing. cialist at the center, is working on killing hers. “I work mainly in weed control,” Walter said. “During the winter, we do resistance testing. We start in January and we’re done by March so it’s a small window of what we do, but it’s very beneficial.” Producers send samples of weeds from their fields that didn’t seem to respond to their usual weed control methods, and Walter runs tests on them to determine where the issue might lie. “Did the chemical not work? Is it the environment that it was in? The next year they don’t want to spend money on the chemical if it didn’t control the issue, so we run tests to tell them, next year when

you spray, these are your options,” Walter said. Another part of Walter’s job in the winter is to prepare for Western Crop Scout School, an educational event held every spring to help crop producers and crop consultants learn how to identify weeds in different growing stages. “We grow about 56 weeds to look at and try and ID,” she said. “During the winter, you kind of forget what some stuff looks like. It’s nice to have that refresher. People get into the fields in April and May, so they have a little refresher on what’s new with not only weeds, but with the growing season.” This year’s Western Crop Scout School will be held on March 1-2 in Bismarck.

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January 2022

CHS SunPrairie has new general manager By ANDREA JOHNSON

Chris Gratton

custom application, grain grading and scale operations,” GratStaff Writer ajohnson@minotdailynews.com ton said. “I then went and got my broker’s license so I could The new general manager become the merchandiser and at CHS SunPrairie in Minot is grain operation manager for that prepared for the challenges that group which at the time had seven facilities and one shuttle might lie ahead. Chris Gratton replaced long- loader.” Gratton was hired as the gentime CHS SunPrairie general manager Brad Haugeberg after eral manager at the Garrison Haugeberg retired in June 2021. Farmers Elevator in 2005. The Gratton grew up and worked elevator in Garrison was a divion his family farm in northeast sion of CHS and is now known North Dakota and began his ca- as CHS Garrison. Gratton, who lives south of reer in agriculture at the Harvest States grain elevator in Milton in Garrison with his wife, Kari, and has two grown children, said he 1994. “Through my 12 years in will now be dividing his time Milton, I worked in all areas of between the two grain elevators. “I still will be managing CHS the business from agronomy,

Garrison along with CHS SunPrairie as two separate business units,” he said. “I plan on working out of both offices with a set schedule to be determined soon. With today’s technology I will be accessible for anyone, anytime from either business unit every day. Both these business units are very strong and successful and have a strong team of employees working for our owners every day and I am proud to say that I have the opportunity to work with them into the future.” Gratton said the ag industry, like other businesses in these times, has challenges to meet. “Agriculture and ag-related businesses have not been spared in the labor shortages,” said

Gratton. “One of our greatest challenges is getting, training, and retaining employees today. Drought was and appears to remain a major challenge to farm operations and our operations as well. We did get some relief in some of our trade areas late fall but for the most part remain dry. “I look forward to getting to know and work with the employee base at CHS SunPrairie and getting my arms wrapped around this business unit. I also look forward to meeting the farmer owners and getting an understanding to what we do today and what we can do into the future to better partner with their farm operations to enhance profitability per acre.”

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January 2022

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USDA awards $875,000 to help ND producers cover costs of federal conservation compliance

WASHINGTON – Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., recently announced the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) awarded $875,000 to North Dakota Agricultural Mitigation (NDAM), Inc., a partnership between six North Dakota commodity groups that helps agriculture producers cover the costs of establishing wetland banks to meet federal conservation compliance requirements. Hoeven is ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee and a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “Our farmers and ranchers know their land and are in the best position to properly protect the quality of our soil and water,” said Hoeven “That’s why we’ve worked to make this wetland banking program available. Under this award, NDAM will provide needed flexibility for producers’ operations and help ensure they can comply with federal mandates without Hoeven having to fully shoulder the resulting burdensome costs.” “Farmers and ranchers are already facing significant challenges this year, from rising input costs to drought, and federal regulations can make it harder to overcome these difficulties,” said NDAM President Joshua Stutrud. “We created this coalition to empower producers to make the best use of their land, while enhancing the quality of wetlands in our state. That’s a win for producers and the environment, and we appreciate Senator Hoeven’s hard work to make this option available to producers.”

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January 2022

Submitted Photo

Bob Finken, left, of Douglas, is inducted into the North Dakota 4-H Hall of Fame. Mark Landa, right, is chair of the North Dakota 4-H Foundation board. Photo from NDSU.

North Dakota 4-H Foundation recognizes families, individuals

County commissions, North Dakota State University and U.S. Department of Agriculture cooperating. NDSU does not discriminate in its programs and activities on the basis of age, color, gender expression/identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, participation in lawful off-campus activity, physical or mental disability, pregnancy, public assistance status, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, spousal relationship to current employee, or veteran status, as applicable. Direct inquiries to Vice Provost for Title IX/ADA Coordinator, Old Main 201, NDSU Main Campus, 701-231-7708, ndsu.eoaa@ndsu. edu. This publication will be made available in alternative formats for people with disabilities upon request, 701 -231-7881.

BISMARCK — The North Dakota 4-H Foundation recognized its 2021 4-H Hall of Fame inductee and six North Dakota 4-H Century Families during its recent Awards and Donor Recognition Luncheon held in Bismarck. Bob Finken of Douglas in Ward County was inducted into the North Dakota 4-H Hall of Fame. The six 4-H Century Families honored were: David and Trish Mueller of Traill County, with 129 years of 4-H participation. Mike and Julie Liffrig of Oliver County, with 142 years of 4-H participation. Oscar and Gloria Kleven of Benson, Morton and Ramsey counties, with 100 years of 4-H participation. Ron and Tamara Keller of Benson County, with 140 years of 4-H participation. Sarah Bedgar Wilson family of Stutsman and McLean counties in North Dakota and the state of Maryland, with 159 years of 4-H participation. Brian and Vicki Maddock family of Benson, Cass and McHenry counties,

with 118 years of 4-H participation. Any family whose years as 4-H members, leaders and/or volunteers add up to 100 or more is eligible to be named a North Dakota 4-H Century Family. The North Dakota 4-H Foundation’s 4-H Hall of Fame award recognizes an individual for their outstanding leadership and commitment to 4-H on a local, county, regional and state level. Finken joined 4-H in Ward County as a youth in the 1970s. As an adult, he was a 4-H leader and started two clubs during his almost three decades with Ward County. He was president of the Ward County 4-H Council for four years and served on a number of committees during that time. Finken has judged communications arts and static exhibits at achievement days and was a superintendent for statics and the goat show. He received the friend of Ward County 4-H award in 2018. At the state level, Finken has served as a volunteer and has also served as president of the North Central Research Extension Center, Board of Visitors for a number of years.

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January 2022

New shuttle grain terminal at Ryder nears completion By ELOISE OGDEN

Regional Editor eogden@minotdailynews.com

YDER – Work began in August 2020 at the site of the new TriGen Ag Partner’s shuttle grain terminal with loop track in Ryder. Now it is nearly complete.

Submitted Photo

This is the main terminal of the new TriGen Ag Partners’ shuttle grain terminal in Ryder. The elevator is 216 feet tall.

“There’s things that need to be done but some of it can be done when we start taking grain. Right now we’re just transferring inventory. We’re not quite set up yet to take new deliveries but hopefully by February,” said Morgan Hall on Jan. 3. Hall is grain buyer and point of contact for the new facility. The project is being built by Tri-Gen Ag Partners LLC, a newly formed LLC, consisting of Agrex Inc. of Minneapolis and a cooperative consisting of Plaza-Makoti Equity elevator merging with Max Farmers Elevator. “We’re excited. We have a good start,” Hall said of those with an interest in doing business with Tri-Gen Ag Partners and its new operation in Ryder. “We do have a text system we’re using to keep people updated,” Hall said. Those who would like to get bids from Tri-Gen or updates on cash bids and agronomy can call Tri-Gen Ag Partners at 701-679-2400. One hundred rail cars were scheduled to arrive at the new facility the week of Jan. 10. Canadian Pacific Railway provides rail service to the area. The new facility has 10,000 total feet of loop track with the ability to load 140 rail cars, Chris Wetzell of Agrex Inc. said earlier. “They’re coming and going within probably the same 24 hours,” Hall said of when the first cars arrive and are loaded with grain. The grain that will go in the cars scheduled to arrive the week of Jan. 10 is coming from Max, Plaza and Makoti, she said. “It’s our own trucks right now moving grain that we’ve already bought from farmers,” Hall said. “We just don’t have technology and things in place to build tickets and do the things that farmers need there.” However, during the week of Jan. 3, technology, etc., was being installed at the new facility, bringing it closer to taking deliveries from farmers. Hall worked at the ADM canola crushing facility at Velva for five years and moved to TriGen in April. She was an intern for ADM during college in Nebraska and was transferred to the North Dakota facility. Her husband, Ian Hall, is from the Berthold area. She said she’s from Hartington, a town in Nebraska with 1,600 people. “It’s very similar to the small towns out here,” she said. On a normal day, Hall said three to four people including herself will be working at the Ryder facility. When trains are there, she said they will be able to pull employees from other locations to help with loading. Vigen Construction Inc. of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, is the general contractor for the project.

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January 2022

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Pattern Energy completes New Mexico wind project

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A California-based renewable energy company says work is complete on four wind farms in New Mexico that total more than a gigawatt of capacity. Pattern Energy officials announced Thursday that the Western Spirit Wind project has started commercial operations. The company had billed it as the largest single-phase construction of renewable power in the U.S. The wind farms span three counties in central New Mexico and while electric consumption varies by state and the size of homes, company officials have that Western Spirit’s generating capacity can provide enough electricity to meet the needs of about 365,000 homes. Power purchase agreements already are in place to serve several California utilities, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the city of San Jose. Some of the electricity will also serve customers in New Mexico. Western Spirit is projected to provide nearly $3 million per year in new property tax revenues for Guadalupe, Lincoln and Torrance counties and the two school districts that encompass the area over the next 25 years. Pattern Energy also plans $6 billion in wind energy and

related infrastructure projects in New Mexico over the next decade that will net more tax revenues. Pattern CEO Mike Garland said in a statement that the Western Spirit project generated over 1,100 construction jobs during the 15 months that work was underway. More than 50 workers will operate and maintain the wind facilities going forward. “Western Spirit Wind is a groundbreaking mega-project that demonstrates large-scale renewables can be developed and built in the United States,” Garland said. “These projects create significant job opportunities and local economic investments.” The transmission line that connects the Western Spirit wind farms took much longer to build than installing the wind turbines. It was about 11 years before all the federal, state and local permits were in place, and officials have said that streamlining the process for transmission approval will be key to ramping up renewable energy development in remote areas like eastern and central New Mexico as more utilities face zero-carbon emissions mandates. In New Mexico, investor-owned utilities have to be carbon-free by 2045.

January 2022

Regulators OK new plan for tearing down wind turbines

BISMARCK (AP) — Regulators in North Dakota have signed off on a new plan to tear down a wind farm. The Bismarck Tribune reported that the Public Service Commission voted 2-1 to approve a new plan to remove 61 turbines on the North Dakota side of the Tatanka Wind Farm. The farm straddles the border between North Dakota and South Dakota. Tatanka wants to make cuts in the turbine towers and pull them to the ground with a cable. The company originally wanted to use a crawler crane to take down the structures, but says the cable method would cost about $5.5 million less. Commissioner Randy Christmann cast the dissenting vote, saying he was worried about environmental damage when the turbines come down. Tatanka officials argued in filings that moving the crawler crane and its pads would result in more ground disturbance and potential crop loss than the cable plan. Commissioner Brian Kroshus saidt there’s no clear plan for dismantling wind farms because so few have come down across the country and when the private sector promotes a better way to do things it’s a “win-win across the board.”

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January 2022

NRCS helps Burke County farmers go on offense against soil salinity

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BOWBELLS -- The Natural Resources Conservation Service field office in Burke County reports having some good luck in halting the spread of saline areas in cropland. Burke County has about 425,000 acres of cropland. Nearly every quarter of ground has some sort of saline problem; sometimes it covers as much as 20% of a field, said Mark Crosby, NRCS district conservationist. Salt that has been carried to the soil surface by rising water tables can significantly reduce grain yields and, in many cases, will kill everything but kochia and foxtail barley. “Farmers lose money on those acres, which drags down the profit margins on the whole farm,” Crosby said. NRCS has helped Burke County farmers enroll more than 5,000 acres in cost-sharing and incentive programs over the past four years to help them manage saline soils. The land is either planted to less salt-sensitive grain crops or to a mix of perennial grasses, depending on the salt levels. As a result, four things are happening: -- The spread of saline areas has been halted or slowed. -- Unproductive saline areas have started producing good quality forage. -- Converted saline areas have become excellent habitat for sage grouse, pheasant and other wildlife. -- Overall farm profitability has risen as expensive crop inputs aren’t being wasted on soils that don’t produce profitable grain yields. See BURKE — Page 21

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Salts rise to the soil surface in Burke County cropland in this photo from NRCS. Submitted Photo

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Burke

Continued from Page 19

The Burke County NRCS field office has developed a successful recipe for managing saline areas. The first step is to figure out how to reduce the water flowing into the saline areas from surrounding hills and slopes, Crosby said. This might involve changing tillage systems and crop rotations. No-tilling will reduce runoff by increasing the ability of the soil to absorb and hold water. Changing the rotation to crops that use more water helps, too. Sunflowers, alfalfa and cover crops are good options. The next step is to determine how “hot” the saline area is by soil testing. Soil with an Electrical Conductivity (EC) of less than 2.0 dS/m can be planted to crops that are somewhat salt tolerant. Best candidates include barley and sunflower. Soils with an EC of 2.0 dS/m probably won’t grow any grain or oilseed crops. In those areas, it’s best to first kill the weeds, especially foxtail, and seed perennial grasses. Many grasses can grow in saline areas. They will lower water the table, which will draw down salts. For Burke County, Crosby recommends a mixture of Canadian wild rye, western wheatgrass, slender wheatgrass, alfalfa, sweet clover and AC Saltlander green wheatgrass. AC Saltlander is an advanced-generation hybrid cross between quackgrass and bluebunch wheatgrass. It has been one of the best grasses to plant on salt affect-

Submitted Photo

Perennial grasses are planted in a saline area between the soybean field on the left and the hay land on the right in this photo from NRCS.

ed soils, Crosby says. Most of the grasses in the mix are bunchgrasses, which root deeper than sod forming grasses, utilizing more salt affected water. Dormant seeding the grass in November or December — often just before the first snow — has worked best, Crosby said. Whether seeding a salt-tolerant crop or the perennial grass mix, it’s

best to plant a buffer around the edges of the saline area, too, to help stop the spread of the salinity, Crosby said. Marshall Chrest, a Bowbells, farmer, has worked with NRCS to manage salinity. He has converted 50-75% of the saline areas on cropland they own to grass. “It has really made a difference,” he said.

They no longer put expensive seed, herbicide or fertilizer on saline areas only to lose money on those acres. Instead, they produce hay on saline areas for their cow herd. “It’s good forage, too, not junk like we were getting when it was just weeds,” Chrest said. The Environmental Quality Incentive Program that he is enrolled in allows

the grasses to be harvested when the nutrient quality is still good. He also appreciates the additional wildlife he sees in saline areas planted to the perennial grass mixture. “We have been on the defense against salinity for a long time,” he said. “It was beating us up pretty bad. It’s nice to have another tool in the toolbox now.”

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