Announcer: The following presentation
is part of the agronomy and horticulture seminar series
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dan: All right, welcome everyone to week two
of the fall 2021 agronomy and horticulture seminar series.
My name is Dan Uden, and I'm an assistant professor
in UNL School of Natural Resources,
department of agronomy and horticulture
and Center for Resilience
in Agricultural Working Landscapes.
It is my pleasure to introduce a colleague of mine
from the School of Natural Resources, Dr. Andrew Little.
Andy's an assistant professor of landscape ecology
and habitat management,
and he's also a wildlife extension specialist here at UNL.
Andy has a rich background
in landscape and wildlife ecology.
He received his BS in wildlife and fishery science
from Penn State, his MS in wildlife ecology
from Mississippi State, and a PhD in wildlife ecology
from the University of Georgia.
He also completed a postdoc at Georgia
prior to starting here at UNL.
And here at UNL, Andy is the leader of the AWESM Lab,
which in addition to describing members of that group
stands for Applied Wildlife, Ecology, and Spatial Movement.
And the AWESM Lab focuses on
developing innovative solutions
to growing wildlife conservation and management needs
in multifunctional landscapes
in landscapes where there are competing interests
for agricultural production, wildlife conservation,
and ecosystem services.
And more specifically, Andy's research focuses largely
on studying the ecology and management of ungulates,
mesopredators, and game birds,
as well as wildlife habitat relationships,
landscape ecology, predator prey ecology,
and precision conservation.
All right, Andy, take it away.
-: All right, hopefully you guys can hear me okay.
So thanks, Dan. I really appreciate that introduction.
Thanks for the invite to serve as the speaker for this week.
And we're gonna talk a little bit
about precision conservation
and ways that we can help address the conservation needs
that we have in our intensive agricultural systems.
And again, those that Dan had mentioned
about the AWESM Lab,
if you want to learn more and follow us on social media,
you can do so by @AWESMLab for Twitter,
Facebook, and Instagram,
and go like us on there,
and you can follow us with our new information coming out
about our research and extension efforts.
All right, so we're gonna go ahead and get started,
talk a little bit about an outline here,
particularly, we're gonna talk a little bit
about our AWESM Lab and what we specifically do
just kind of at a 30,000 foot scale.
And then we're gonna talk about a changing Midwest landscape
talking about our conservation challenges
that we have in this Midwest landscape in the 21st century.
And then we're gonna discuss how our lab specifically
is addressing these challenges
through really three key areas
and that being ag technology, human dimensions,
and wildlife conservation and management.
So my job at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
is focused on landscape ecology,
wildlife habitat management, as Dan was describing earlier.
My position is a little unique
in that I am 60% extension, 40% research.
So I basically, in a sense, take the research information
and translate that to the general public
and in showing them the importance
of the research that we are doing
within the University of Nebraska system,
but obviously more closely within my lab.
So if you want to go learn more,
again, we have our social media account
that you can go check us out on,
but also you can go just type into Google AWESM Lab UNL,
and you'll be able to get to our website,
and you can learn more about the research
that we're doing here,
our current research projects and extension efforts.
Again, it's a great opportunity for you
to just to learn more about how we're trying
to focus on these conservation challenges in a landscape
that we're gonna be talking about today
where we have competing interests
for agricultural production, environmental regulation
and/or management, and how can we do this
in a sustainable way
into the 21st century as we continue on?
So, with that, we're gonna talk and transition
to this aspect of a changing Midwest landscape.
And I like to kind of talk about setting the stage
of why we need to look for innovative approaches
in conservation in our agricultural landscapes
by looking really at what are the challenges
that we are facing right now.
Why do we need some of these potential opportunities
to help us address these complex challenges?
So one of them being habitat loss and degradation.
I don't think anybody is really naive to the point
that we have lost habitat across the landscape
for various wildlife species.
A great example of this as we think about Lincoln
and think about urbanization,
so areas that historically were maybe agricultural fields
are now turning into large developments.
And so animals who potentially occupied those areas
are obviously getting displaced
and having to move to other areas.
A great example beyond just the Midwest of this
is when I worked as a postdoc at the University of Georgia.
One of the things that they'd have a lot of issues with
is bear human conflicts,
so bears in the north Georgia mountains
coming into contact with humans.
And as Atlanta area continues to expand,
organization continues down there,
folks are moving into basically bear habitat.
And so that basically increases the risk of encounters
of bears by humans in the landscape.
And so that's obviously a significant challenge,
not only in the Midwest,
but around the United States and globally.
And here's a global example of that impact.
So habitat loss then, in turn,
has affected vertebrate species
and across the world globally.
And so we see there's been a pretty substantial decline
since 1970 into 2012.
And so this change, this decline,
has really been facilitated
by a substantial amount of habitat loss
and degradation in the longterm.
Furthermore, ag landscape simplification
has occurred in the landscape.
This graph here is basically to illustrate.
It's USDA NASS data.
So this is the agricultural crop data
in the state of Nebraska.
And this graph basically is illustrating
a Simpson's diversity index,
and it's a statistical methodology.
And basically what I want you to kind of focus on here
is the area noted by the red bar.
So the higher that number is on the y-axis,
that's basically illustrating more crop diversity
in Nebraska landscape.
And so we obviously peaked in the early 60s,
early mid 60s in crop diversity on the landscape,
but absolutely been declining since.
This is also USDA NASS data.
This is for corn acres in the state of Nebraska.
Again, this data is publicly available.
So you can go out and look at this data
for any different crops
in the landscape that you're interested in,
but you can see the inverse relationship here
where we have an increase in corn acres,
which I don't think anybody is totally surprised by
when they see that change over time.
We also have had pretty substantial changes
in our field structure over time.
So this is a series of images that (indistinct) has compiled
for Clay Center, Nebraska,
and basically looking at the changes
in the basic farmsteads over time.
So you can see back in the late 30s,
you can see how the size of these fields
are relatively small,
and obviously for a species like pheasant or quail,
they have a lot of edge there.
There's a lot of different fence lines in that landscape.
But now we move on up from 1950 to 2006,
and then out to where we currently are.
You can see that same area transitioning over time
as those fields become larger and larger over time
to basically accommodate the crops
and the changes that we're having more
going from multi-family farms to single family farms
where they're now taking a larger acres
and putting those under production under the plow.
So that has obviously changed.
Concomitantly with that,
we're also seeing a declining pheasant population.
And so I talked to land owners, especially older land owners
that are familiar with the times in the 60s
and into the 70s where you had a lot of the crop diversity
in the landscape.
A lot of them will say, well, boy,
pheasant numbers used to be really good,
but they've been declining.
Well, obviously there's a function of the intensification
of agriculture because of that.
And this data here is from the mail carrier survey
that's conducted in the state of Nebraska
by our mail carriers
looking at pheasant population
over a 100 kilometer square area.
So as you can see the numbers from zero to 20 ranging here,
and you can see that decline from the 50s
on through 2010, et cetera.
And if we continue this on out to 2021,
you'd still see that continued decline.
But one of the things that's really interesting,
and I use pheasants as a great example,
one because I'm working with Game and Parks
on a pheasant project right now, but, two,
because pheasant hunting as a whole in the state of Nebraska
is a very large business annually
to the state's $32 million estimated business to the state,
that obviously has a trickle down effect
to our small communities.
For example, we'll take in center McCook, Nebraska.
Obviously people come from all over the country
to come down there to be able to hunt pheasants.
And so, they're obviously, through the fall months,
when pheasant season is in,
obviously some of these businesses do rely on hunting
to help support their business.
So whether that's a hotel or restaurant,
gas stations, et cetera,
they can rely on hunting from folks coming in there
and basically purchasing things
at those different facilities.
So that's a pretty significant boost
to their economy, local economy.
We also have challenges
when we think about recreational opportunities.
I am a father of three kids.
I have a seven, four, and two year old kiddos.
And for me being able to take off and run to a McCook
or now to the panhandle to go hunting on a weekend,
it's really hard for me to do that,
just because I have responsibilities as a dad.
I have to hang around home a lot of times.
And so my ability to go that far on a regular basis
for hunting is very limited.
And so folks want recreational opportunities,
whether that's hunting, birdwatching, you name it,
you can throw it in there as a recreational opportunity
closer to areas or more populous areas
like Omaha and Lincoln.
But at the same time, we had this challenge,
and the university in their recent grant challenges effort
has focused on developing
this sustainable agricultural system,
particularly addressing this topic
of how are we going to feed a growing world,
especially given that we're going to need
to boost food production
to be able to feed this growing world,
especially by 2050,
but how do we do that in a sustainable way?
And that's what we're gonna talk a little bit
about here in a few minutes.
We also have challenges with water quality issues
in Nebraska, so high nitrate levels,
high atrazine levels in our systems.
So those are things that we have to be aware of
and thinking about how we can address them.
And then lastly,
we also address this topic of climate change.
We have seen here in Nebraska in the past few years,
some pretty substantial changes in the climate,
whether that's into our drought conditions
that we're experiencing out in Western Nebraska
to some in 2019 with flooding issues.
That is a huge challenge and how we're going to be able
to address conservation and create these resilient
and sustainable agricultural systems for the future years.
So, I tend to use this slide here and talk to,
especially when I'm talking to my students
about creative problem solving and critical thinking.
It's going to be really imperative for us
to really critically think about these challenges
and how can we develop sustainable, resilient solutions,
given all of these challenges
that we're having on the landscape?
But we have to really think creatively to do that.
So we're gonna now walk through how our lab, in particular,
is addressing some of these challenges.
There's no silver bullet, so I cannot offer that today,
but I can say that we are developing ways
to be able to address some of these challenges,
and we'll continue to do
in a very multidisciplinary approach.
So we really focus on connecting agriculture
and conservation within our lab.
We find ways to be able to optimize agriculture
and conservation in a way
that we can benefit both the producer on the ground,
but then also our natural resources.
So think about soil erosion issues, trying to address those,
trying to address water quality issues,
wildlife benefits, et cetera.
And so, we're gonna go through these three different areas
here today and discuss what we're focusing on right now
in our lab.
So optimizing conservation delivery via ag technology,
and some of you may be familiar with some of the technology
we'll go through here shortly,
but I want to show you how we can actually leverage that
to help us optimize the way we're delivering conservation
on the ground.
So typically when a person is wanting to enroll
in a conservation program, it's more of a,
hey, I'll walk into the FSA office.
I'll meet with some biologists.
They'll give me some ideas based on my land.
And it tends to be kind of more of what we consider
that kind of shotgun pattern approach,
so a patch here, a patch there, a patch here,
a patch there type thing.
Typically is not really targeted to a specific area,
but one of the things I've had land owners approach me about
and addressing these concerns is,
well, we assumed if we build it, we'll have a response.
So say they're interested
in providing some hunting opportunities,
or birdwatching opportunities,
or pollinator habitat on their property.
And sometimes they're saying,
well, I'm not seeing that expected response.
And so that role is this question of,
what is going on, why is that not happening?
I've been instructed, this is likely, if I put this in,
I can hopefully get some response, but what's going on?
When we start thinking about and zooming out
from some of these patches,
we have to think about patch connectivity,
and think from a landscape ecology side of things
that Dr. Uden and I currently co-teach
landscape ecology together,
we think about how these patches are arranged,
the composition and configuration of those patches
in the landscape and how that potentially facilitates
or constrains animal movements across that.
And so really landscape context is critical.
If those patches are not arranged or set up in a way
that's going to facilitate animal movements across there,
animals don't necessarily just magically appear,
so they have to come from somewhere.
And so that's why it's really imperative
to think about this landscape level approach.
So this is where we're gonna try to jump
into this landscape level approach
and thinking about this
through the eyes of precision conservation,
which really is a innovative approach to land management
and ways we can do this at kind of a multi-scale level.
So I wanted to start before we try
and jump into the regional scale analysis
that we're working on.
I want to just kind of give a brief introduction
of precision ag for those who are not familiar,
because we basically use the precision conservation efforts.
We basically are leveraging precision ag technology,
which, in my opinion, really is the future of farming
in a lot of our systems,
'cause it's focused on increasing
farm production efficiency, productivity,
as well as profitability.
But the nice thing about precision ag is it also benefits us
from decreasing our impacts on our wildlife, soils, water,
the environment as a whole.
So really it's a way we can optimize conservation delivery
as we were talking about earlier.
So the question you may be sitting there and saying, okay,
well, that's nice,
but where does that really fit into our everyday farming,
this idea of precision conservation?
Well, we think about data sets
like a yield monitor data is a great example of this
where we can take yield monitor data,
and we can strategically target those marginal acres
that are consistently marginal.
So at Pheasants Forever,
they have a phrase that basically states something
to the effect of taking those red acres
and turn them green or farming the best,
conserving the rest.
And 'cause conserving the rest could not only be focused
on conservation efforts,
but it can also be focused on increasing profitability
through other avenues,
which we'll describe here in a few minutes.
So precision conservation really is focused
on balancing these competing interests
and, again, bringing these two realms of ag production
and conservation together in a very sustainable way.
And then, particularly, one of the things I wanted
to highlight in this image here,
this is from the prairie strips program
at Iowa State University,
and I'll go into this in a little bit more detail
towards the end of the presentation,
but what they set out about 15 years ago to do was to say,
can we put perennial vegetation in our corn
or soybean operations at some level,
so whether that's a field that has 5% or 10% of a prairie,
or even up higher, 50%,
and what are those impacts across the board?
Well, interestingly, through their project,
through their efforts,
they've been finding some really interesting data
out of their studies in Iowa,
and it really focuses on this idea of landscape diversity.
And so I mentioned before connectivity
of how these patches are aligned in the landscape
and basically moving towards a time
in which we can actually have more diverse cropping system
versus more of our monocultural crop production.
So they've seen pretty substantial impacts
on not only their native bird species richness,
pollinators, total water water runoff.
They're seeing a substantial declines
in that total water runoff.
But one of the numbers that sticks out to me
and in previous presentations with some producers
around the state of Nebraska is this soil retention
that they've been seeing.
What they've basically targeted in their systems now,
kind of their optimal percentage is about 10% of a corn
or bean field they put in perennial vegetation.
and they work strategically with the farmers
to determine where they should actually put these STRIPS in
to have the maximum benefit for them,
given equipment needs,
basically facilitating getting through those fields,
et cetera, but what they've seen
is some really substantial increase in soil retention.
So when we think about that aspect,
that's pretty substantial at 20 times increase
in that soil retention by having just 10%
of a corn bean field in perennial vegetation.
So here's a more close up version of this
you can see is this linear strip.
So it makes it easy to farm around,
because it's, again, just these linear strips.
These strips are very analogous to what you see
in places like the UK
where they do what they call beetle banks.
And so basically these are in the UK.
They consider these kind of hedge rows or little strips
as areas between fields
where they can actually house beneficial pests.
And so essentially a good example of this is
we could have a housing of, say, lady beetles,
which then, in turn, could go out
and predate aphids in a field,
reducing the amount of insecticide
that you would have to apply in a field.
So now you kind of set the stage
for what precision ag is and conservation is
and how we kind of leverage them.
I want to talk a little bit about our multi-scale approach
that we're implementing within our lab.
So we think about this hot spot analysis
kind of at a regional scale.
The reason we think about this is that I've had state
and federal agencies discuss their needs
for developing a more targeted approach
and how they're allocating funding on the landscape.
We obviously don't have unlimited funding.
That doesn't exist.
There's no money tree we can go out
and pull $100 bills off of.
And so thinking at a regional scale,
where should we be targeting most strategically
our conservation efforts can really help agencies
be more strategic in their funding.
But obviously it's really imperative
that we think about that sub-field scale.
And I know Andrea Basche, Dr. Andrea Basche
in the ag hor department focuses on this in particular
with cover crops.
And Andrea and I have been working together
for a little while
on some of these precision conservation efforts.
So we're gonna go through this regional scale
and thinking about how we can actually focus
these hot spot type analyses
to help agencies be more strategic as a whole.
So some of the work that Dr. Andrea Basche,
Dr. (indistinct), and I have focused on
in the past couple of years have been thinking
at this regional scale,
basically looking at
where we can potentially target conservation efforts.
And so one of the more recent analyses
that we've been working on,
and now we have a PhD student assisting with this
and tying actually yield monitor data
to some of these datasets is looking at the NCCPI
or the national commodity crop productivity index.
And that's a soil productivity layer
combined with other layers such as your county level yields,
average cash rental rates, et cetera,
and basically developing a predictive model
at a regional scale where we can actually target
consistently low yielding or marginal areas.
So you can see here this data, this is preliminary data.
This is one year of data.
So take it as a grain of salt.
Never trust just one year of data.
It's gotta be a multi-year effort for some of this,
but as we continue to out on some of these models,
we're basically replicating some work
that has been done over at Iowa State in the past.
And basically they implemented this at a statewide scale
and were able to basically know where under various years
where you could potentially target conservation
at that larger regional scale.
So here's an example of how you could potentially target
and work with producers on the ground
at that regional scale.
But we want to actually dive in a little further with this,
and we want to actually say, okay,
if we can kind of do that at a regional scale,
is there ways that we can really start narrowing this down
to what specific parcels are driving some of this,
these changes in the link on the ground
where you're seeing some of these low yielding areas
at that regional scale?
So we're gonna walk through the model
that I have a couple of students that are gonna be working
on over the next few years, expanding this effort,
and basically helping dial in how we can target
those properties more strategically.
So we start off,
and, again, this is gonna be a very simplified model.
It can get very, very complex,
but just for the sake of time,
we'll go through just kind of a simplistic version of this.
We can build on a modeling framework
our species of interest.
So I'm gonna use pheasants as a great example,
'cause I know there's pheasants, that I mentioned,
are a very significant economic importance here
to the state of Nebraska.
And so if we target a species that can have benefits,
so if we're targeting and managing for pheasants,
we can benefit not only pheasants,
but we can benefit pollinators, small mammals, et cetera,
that would actually be occupying those patches.
If there are certain requirements
that say we need a certain parcel size target,
we can incorporate that into our modeling framework.
We can also incorporate in things
like suitable wildlife habitat.
So if we have, say, a species that need 60% grassland,
if we have certain parcel sizes, land parcel sizes,
that need to meet that criteria,
we can build that into our framework.
And then we can also think about things
like proximity to urban centers
as we were discussing earlier is a challenge
that we're having provide opportunities closer to home
for a lot of folks.
But one of the things that I see fairly often
is when we're prioritizing lands,
we a lot of times don't incorporate things
like species ecology into them.
So we can come up with a nice model and say,
here's where the animals should be distributed,
but when we think about
where these individual patches are gonna be allocated,
we need to think about things like dispersal and movements,
thinking about things like survival, patch size,
configuration, habitat selection,
those really important factors for that species
that's going to help them survive.
So a great example of this would be
if I am managing for pheasants,
and their max dispersal distance is 10 miles away
from a patch, I probably don't want to have a patch
that's 40 miles away from the next patch
if I'm trying to maximize the population growth
at that point.
And so really, we have to think about how can we combine
these species components
into some of our agricultural components.
As I mentioned, we can talk about distance
to metro areas as being a component into this.
And then this is where we talk about bringing
that agricultural data in.
And then we can look at those marginal acres,
those consistently marginal acres.
And I do want to note
when I say consistently marginal acres,
if you have one year of data, as we described earlier,
that's not what we were focusing on.
We're focusing on multi-year consistently marginal acres
that a producer and a lot of cases in talking
with producers know where those acres are
out on their fields.
Those may be wet areas or maybe certain factors
that are driving those conditions of why those areas
are just not as profitable as others.
And so we can work to target that,
but eventually what we can develop
is what we call conservation priority areas.
So at that regional scale,
we can then target individual parcels or lands
that then meet the model criteria
to help us make strategic decisions
on how we should try to implement conservation
at that private lands level.
And particularly in Nebraska, this is very applicable,
because we have 97% of our state being privately owned,
which requires our conservation folks to actually work
with our private land owners to implement conservation.
A great example of this is Game and Parks
has a private lands section
within their Game and Parks Commission
to handle working with landowners at that local scale.
So now that we've looked at this
from a regional scale, it's hot spot analysis,
now we can drill down into some of these sub-field analyses
or local scale analyses.
And so, again, this leverages that local scale
precision ag technology such as yield monitor data
to strategically target conservation delivery.
So as I mentioned previously,
typically the way folks,
if their enrolling in a conservation program,
they would go into an FSA office.
They would talk with the FSA biologists or agent,
and they would come out and visit their property,
talk through some potential programs or options
that they can consider for their property.
And so we'll kind of use a conservation reserve program
as a great example of this.
Well nowadays we can actually spatially ID
conservation eligibility.
When I worked,
after I finished my master's degree
and before I started my PhD,
I worked at Ducks Unlimited as a GIS technician
slash analysts there with them.
And basically one of the things that during the time
towards the end of my tenure there,
we were moving towards this model
rather than sending somebody out with a piece of paper
and a list of names on there to visit
and knock on their doors and ask them
if they wanted to enroll in a wetland conservation program,
we could say, hey, we can try to do this spatially
ahead of time to save us those financial resources
and target acres that meet certain model criteria
similar to what I just described.
And so we can do that at the local field scale
by pulling in things like soil maps, hydrography layers,
field boundaries, soil rental rates, et cetera.
And this is some workout
by a colleague of mine, Martin McConnell,
who is a professor at Mississippi State University
and a tool that he has developed.
And this program basically is able to help identify
those eligible acres within a farm that meet their criteria,
'cause every one of these conservation programs
is gonna have a set of criteria that your farm would have
to meet to be eligible for enrollment.
Now, obviously, one, you can't enroll all those areas
that are showing up in green
that are potentially eligible.
And so we want to target those areas
that are potentially those marginal that are not,
they're consistently marginal,
and are basically losing money for that producer.
Well, historical yield monitor data,
obviously, it's collected on many of our combines nowadays.
And so we're able to look at this data
from historical perspective,
but obviously it doesn't necessarily pull in
an actual financial component into that.
In other words, it doesn't create a profitability surface,
because there's too many factors that could go
into building a profitability surface.
But my colleague has been able to develop that,
and this is work that we're gonna be hopefully expanding on
here in the coming years with our research
and ways that we can improve
some of these estimation techniques.
And so, you can create this profitability surface
through things like yield monitor data, commodity prices,
conservation payments for management costs, et cetera,
and even further.
We can even tie in other sources of revenue
if the producer has other source of revenue
that they'd like to potentially target for those areas,
and then basically create this profitability surface
that will allow us to show the producer, one,
where are you eligible,
but, two, where does that eligibility line up
to these profitability areas.
And we want to target those consistently marginal areas
for enrollment in conservation programs.
So a great example of this and how we can optimize the ROI
and for farms as well as wildlife
or natural resource management is from a field.
This was in North Dakota.
And this basically this field
was under corn production in 2015.
You can see the yellow and green areas
looking at the profitability.
So, the yellow or green are showing it is more profitable
in those areas versus those areas showing up in red.
And you can see here in the table
that the producer is losing money per acre
on this field, but when they took
and they chopped that section off
and basically put that into pasture for cattle,
they were able to actually increase
that return on investment for that field.
So now, they're basically taking those areas,
not necessarily having to conserve them in a way
that we're just putting in a conservation program,
but putting them into a different approach or diversifying
that landscape by now having cattle grazing on that.
Now you start quantifying that
across some of our farmers have obviously multiple fields,
thousands of acres,
that can really basically return substantial
financial benefits to them in the longterm
as they begin to adopt these types of ideas.
We can also think about additional options
to incorporate into those areas.
So as I mentioned, cow grazing was one of them.
We can have cover crops,
so kind of these sub-field cover crop establishment
in some of these targeted areas.
So essentially we're kind of pinpoint
and targeting these areas
for alternative diversification of that in those areas.
Hunting is another great option there
that potentially can be employed.
My colleague, again, Martin McConnell
from down in Mississippi State,
they found a producer who had a section of their field.
It was regularly inundated with water,
'cause it was right along the Mississippi River.
They took that area out of production
and put that into a hunting lease
and were able to actually maximize the profitability
for that producer on that field.
With all these efforts, we can really focus on
not necessarily the traditional
conservation enrollment approach,
which I mentioned earlier
as kind of a shotgun pattern approach in a lot of cases,
but we can begin to develop
what we call conservation cooperatives.
So these areas where we can work collectively
with a group of land owners,
getting to that point of a multi-farm cooperative.
This cooperative idea is built out of other work
that I've seen in other states
where they've used it for, say, deer management
where they can actually work together
instead of managing your 500 acres.
Now you're actually managing at that landscape scale,
potentially thousands of acres
with your neighbors collectively.
You may be farming differently on some of them,
but as a management, those marginal acres can be managed
in a way that can benefit not only the individual farm,
but the multi-farm effort.
And this really leads to this point of developing
what I call stackable enterprises.
So we kind of start with our traditional farm,
and we think about, okay, we're farming it
in the normal way.
And I'm using row crops here.
We could transition this to our rangeland systems
with livestock, but we can begin to build
and basically create this stackable style enterprise
of hunting, birdwatching.
We could even bring in like we had a course recently,
Agri 42, introduction to production ag systems.
We have both the ag and livestock component of that course.
One livestock component will be coming up here
at fall break.
But actually having our farmers educate the general public
about ag production systems as well,
or bringing our UNL extension teams out to those farms
to educate the general public about farm management.
And so there's a variety of ways that we can do this.
A great example of this being done right now
is the Calamus Ranch, Calamus Outfitters in the Sandhills.
They basically started out as more focused on ranching,
that rangeland system,
but now have diversified their system
to provide additional opportunities
such as wildlife watching, tours of their farm, their ranch.
And basically that provides them additional income
by diversifying their operation.
And so, again, that's the point.
It helps diversify and improve the profitability.
But all of this doesn't come...
We can develop all these techniques,
and it's great to do that,
but we really have to focus on this other pillar,
which is human dimensions in ag landscapes.
So, one of the things that we have to think about
with developing these tools and techniques, it's great,
but we have to get people to buy into them.
And so that's where we have a grant right now
with the Nebraska Environmental Trust
focused on farmers and farm land owners attitudes
of targeted conservation delivery.
I have two master's students
that are focused on this right now
and looking at both sides of the coin,
the conservation folks,
and kind of how they are reviewing conservation delivery
and ag landscapes, but the producers side of it.
So we have a group of conservation folks
that are working with us through a series of surveys,
but then on the other side,
we're going to be submitting surveys out here
later this year into early 2022
across the state to about 7,500 to 8,000 farmers
and farm landowners and addressing conservation delivery
using things like precision ag technology.
And then the third pillar I want to talk about
is wildlife conservation,
given that that's my background
and focusing on wildlife management.
So I have a couple of PhD students
that are working right now on a project identifying
and prioritizing habitat for pheasant management
in Nebraska, especially given
that it has such an economic impact to our state.
Some work by Chris Jorgensen back in 2014
developed this map to illustrate pheasant abundance
across the state.
If you go and tie these areas in, say, Southwest Nebraska,
and we'll look at where those are most abundant
pheasant populations, what you'll find is obviously
that land cover, there's a lot of CRP in that area.
There's also a lot of small green production.
So pheasants really like that type of landscape
compared to the typical corn bean operation.
And so we wanted to further tailor this work
into more of a regional effort
and begin to move towards this model of these patches
and corridors and looking at how these patches are laid out
on the landscape and how can we work
with our conservation agencies to help identify
and prioritize these areas
where they should focus their efforts most strategically.
And again, that ties directly back into this model
that we just went through.
At that regional scale, where do we invest our resources?
We also just got word this week
that we have received funding to establish prairie strips
with that prairie strip program
that I mentioned from Iowa state
and here in the state of Nebraska.
And so we're going to begin rolling that out here
in the coming months, in the coming years here
with that effort and to focus on ways
that we can maximize the profitability for producers
while at the same time
reducing impacts on our natural resources.
So in particular, with the research objectives
with that grant, we're going to help facilitate
the establishment of prairie strips
as really a multi-state effort across seven states.
And you can see the different collaborators
that are a part of this grant effort.
And so University of Nebraska is one of those
and being able to start demonstrating from Eastern Nebraska
to Western Nebraska how prairie strips can help producers
and particularly on the natural resource conservation
side of things, but doing it in a way
that's going to help benefit their overall profitability.
We also with that are going to work on
how can we best communicate the value of prairie strips.
And I think that's one of the most important aspects,
especially given my role as an extension
is how can we work with our land owners
to best communicate the importance of establishing
these prairie strips in their farms,
on their farms, across the state
and what things can we learn
from our producers on the ground,
getting their feedback
and letting them communicate the value of these things
to others in their community?
So with all of that,
and we'll kind of wrap up here in the last few slides
and say that we can connect agriculture and conservation,
not only at that local scale.
So we can think about reducing habitat loss.
This is a photo from Ryan Heiniger
who is the director of precision ag slash farmer
in the state of Iowa.
You can see the area noted here in yellow,
the grass area there,
where he noted that was an area
based on his yield monitor data,
that it was not very profitable.
So he'd essentially chop that off,
put that into a perennial vegetation,
and then basically began to farm the rest of that field,
your soy beans,
but then provided habitat for other wildlife,
and then potentially could go in there
and potentially hunt pheasants,
or would that be a place for pollinators, et cetera?
Well, we can do this in a way
that helps increase the producer's profit across the board.
And I think that's one of the most important aspects
that we have to think about is how can we do this in a way
that's not going to negatively impact the producer
and their profitability,
especially given the amount of risks
that producers have to deal with
really on a day-to-day basis?
At that regional scale, as I mentioned,
we can think about this from patch connectivity
for wildlife and kind of where these patches,
where these farms are allocated on the landscape,
and how can we improve that through things like corridors
for wildlife across the landscape
and helping improve that connectivity,
but also helping to target
those limited financial resources.
We obviously have limited financial resources,
and we can't expect that we can put money everywhere.
And so how can we do that in a very sustainable
and strategic way to have landscape level impact?
So with that, I will conclude the presentation,
but I do want to note this slide here.
This is from Alto Leopold.
He is the father of wildlife management.
I really think this quote,
it really shows the importance of conservation
knowing that it is not something that happens immediately.
We live really in a microwave generation
or an iPhone generation
that I feel like we always have things instantaneously,
but really conservation takes time.
A perfect example of this is prairie strips.
For the first couple of years,
they may look like a weedy field,
but then from those weedy fields,
we begin to see emergence of these beautiful prairies
that come about, but it takes time.
It doesn't happen overnight.
And that's the thing that we have to always remember
that it's going to take time,
but we can do both of these things.
We can optimize agricultural production
and natural resource conservation.
So with that, if I have any time for questions,
I'll be glad to answer any of them.
Feel free again to contact me.
Here's my email address.
And again, go and like our various social media accounts
and follow us on there.
Dan: All right, thank you, Andy.
That was awesome, pun intended.
(Andy laughs)
We do have time for questions if there are any,
and as I mentioned, feel free to type those in the chat
or to raise your hand, and we'll unmute you.
While folks are thinking of their questions,
I'll get us started with one of my own.
I was interested in what the potential dimensions
of a prairie strip might be
and if there's any sort of research in the benefits of that
and how it changes with size or location.
Could you speak to that at all?
-: Yeah, so you're saying the question is,
the dimensions like the size of those strips,
whether that's like a 30 meter or 120 meter wide strip?
Is that what you're- -: Yeah, exactly.
-: Yeah, so there are.
And so, Iowa state actually has,
if you want to go to their website,
they have a lot more information on it.
They can get more detailed results on the different widths,
but 30 meters is really your minimum width.
That's usually what a lot of conservation programs
tend to focus on as kind of your minimum width
to have some level of impact.
Obviously, there is probably an optimal number,
but it's probably really gonna be dependent
on that field structure.
So a great example of this would be is
if you have a pretty substantial slopes within the field,
you're obviously going to need a little wider width buffer
to basically address that water runoff issue
versus something that's smaller.
And I do want to also note,
and this is in talking with prairie strips folks,
is that the strips, it's a nice name,
but it doesn't necessarily mean it has to come
in a linear strip.
The idea there is that you want to be able to put it in ways
that are going to help the producer be able
to farm around that.
So it probably doesn't make sense
to put it in irregular shape pattern,
but if it was in a block, for example,
you could easily do that.
It really just depends on the physical structure
of those fields.
So, Dan, I don't know if that answers your question or not.
Dan: Yeah, that's great.
And it actually leads into our next question
in the chat from Becky.
Are the prairie strips going to be statewide
through NRCS EQIP or through UNL?
-: So I assume Becky is referring to the project
that we're talking about.
The project that we're talking about
is a relatively small scale project to start out.
And so it's more of like an extension-driven effort
to start rolling out some demo sites across the state,
not only with more producers,
but hopefully with some of our research
and extension centers in the coming months or so.
And so with that, currently, I should say,
the prairie strip program is actually
in the current farm bill.
So producers can go in at CP43.
so they can actually get approved for CP43
in the state of Nebraska.
I believe there's over 200 some producers,
if I'm not mistaken, that may have that in Nebraska.
I can't remember the exact number,
but I know there were a number of folks
that are adopting it,
and a lot of that being based out of the work
coming out of Iowa.
And so there are folks that are getting engaged in this
across the state of Nebraska.
But one of the things that we want to look at
is Iowa and Nebraska are obviously two different states,
we have different topography,
we have different rain gradients.
And so that's part of our opportunities
to actually explore from not only an extension side,
but also from a research side where these are at,
and are there ways that we can kind of improve these things
and make these more customizable to farms?
So I don't know, Becky, if that answers your question.
If it doesn't,
I'll be happy to provide some additional response.
Dan: Thank you.
Another question.
Yeah, Becky, thank you.
Becky says yes.
Another question on strips,
and it's actually a two-part question from Kayden,
First, if there are any specific native flowers
that pollinators prefer in Nebraska specifically.
So what a species in the strip might be best?
And then secondly, how do you keep the prairie in the strip?
How do you keep plants from spreading out
into the crop field and negatively affecting yield there?
-: Yeah, so two really good questions.
I will say the first one,
I am not an expert on those plants
that are for the pollinators.
I will defer to somebody like Judy Wu-Smart,
or others in entomology
can probably give a better response to that than myself,
but in regards to affecting the productivity of the crops,
so, in general, the farmers are still,
they're farming right against those areas.
In some cases in which they tend to recommend
is they're actually managing those strips.
So it's not necessarily just taking and set it aside,
and that's all we're gonna do.
We're actively going to, in some cases, come through there
and mow those down at times, setting back succession,
because one of the things we've learned,
particularly through the CRP, Conservation Reserve Program,
is we can't just take a set aside these acres
and just let it go.
We have to actively manage that setback succession,
'cause what will happen is those areas
can become biological deserts for certain species
as succession occurs over time.
And basically things like, for example,
a pheasant chick may not necessarily be able
to get through some of those patches
if you don't have some type of management tool
setting back succession.
So, again, they are actively farming right up against them.
So they're planting corn, soybeans.
They may be plowing right up against those
and keep those in place.
So I don't know if that answers your question, Kayden,
or not, but, again, I would defer the first one
to somebody in entomology who would give you
a little bit better ideas.
I can also note too,
Iowa state has a tremendous body of literature,
not only peer reviewed literature,
but general extension materials
tied to some of these questions
that you can go just type Google prairie strips Iowa state,
and you can actually find
a lot of that information out there
to help answer some of these questions.
Dan: Excellent, thank you.
I'll just continue to pose another question of mine
related to continuing along the prairie strips.
Andy, in your experience,
and this might fall into your ongoing project
on land owner attitudes, but what our producer perceptions
if they're interested in something like this,
doing it through a conservation program
like a conservation easement
versus just doing it on their own?
Is there a preference there you're hearing
as far as additional flexibility
to use those areas for other purposes?
-: Yeah, so thinking along the lines
from the participants
that are in our conservation programs,
I will note that obviously my work in those NRCS offices
and work with those producers on a day-to-day basis.
So they would have a better idea of that,
but in a larger perspective,
I think it's really gonna depend on a lot of situations.
There is an interest, I think, from some producers,
especially now we're seeing with cover crop adoption
to think about the longevity of conserving their soils
and managing those systems more sustainably.
And so something like we think about prairie strips,
one of the challenges that a lot of cases
we're always gonna have is
if I'm not getting necessarily a payment for that,
I'm not necessarily gonna always just want to go adopt that
and put it out on my farm.
I need to have some way to kind of offset costs for that.
And so that's where a lot of the conservation programs
come into play where they can help the producer
by paying for seed, and they can pay for diesel,
and basically everything to kind of get that plant
in the ground and help with management costs and such
into the future.
So the producer doesn't necessarily have to bear
the burden of having to do all of that
plus manage all their current farming operations.
So it's gonna depend a little bit,
but I do know there is more of an interest in general
that I've seen through other avenues,
but hopefully through some of our work
that we're doing right now, our human dimensions work,
we'll get a better idea of what are some of these barriers
or constraints to adoption of conservation programs
in Nebraska through that human dimensions effort,
as I mentioned earlier,
and also what ways we can work with producers
to help facilitate more adoption.
But a lot of this, again, is always you're gonna have
to come back to is that there is money
that's going to limit our ability to some level,
because we don't have unlimited funds
to adopt conservation efforts everywhere.
-: Yeah, thank you. -: I don't know
if that answered your question or not.
Dan: Yeah, absolutely.
I'll be interested to follow that research.
-: I'll note this.
if others have thoughts or ideas,
one of the things that I and our lab
really pride ourselves on
is developing multidisciplinary research teams.
I'm obviously not an agronomist.
So thoughts that you guys may have, we welcome them,
because we really, in my mind,
it's going to take a very multidisciplinary approach
to solve some of these very complex challenges.
And so, again, I'll welcome any feedback
that you guys may have.
Dan: Well, thank you again, Andy, for presenting today.
And thank you, again, to everyone for attending.
And we look forward to future seminars in the series
the rest of the fall.