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Morrison SWCD Grows Cover Crop Adoption to 12,000 Acres in Three Years with Help from NACD Grant Funding

TJ Kartes from Saddle Butte Ag is in the root pit showing the crowd the root system of cover crops during the 2022 Cultivating Soil Health Field Day.

“We’ve gone from not having a program to now having a leading soil health program in the state,” reflects Shannon Wettstein, District Manager for Minnesota’s Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District, on the past three years. Over that time, the district established and grew a cover crop program that benefits soil health and now reaches 12,000 acres, which is 5% of all cropland acres in the rural county.  

Morrison County—situated northwest of Minneapolis and home to the military’s Camp Ripley Sentinel Landscape—is rural. Its agricultural production is diverse. About one-third of the county is forested. Two-thirds of the land is dedicated to a variety of agricultural uses, including hay and poultry, beef, dairy, and pork production. The county’s irrigated sandy soil near the Mississippi River yields specialty crops like potatoes, peas, and kidney beans. 

For years, the Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District had been talking with their local agricultural retailer, Centra Sota Cooperative, about ways to partner for soil health and help producers in their community adopt good soil health practices, but it was difficult to advance a plan without funding. After applying for and being awarded an NACD Technical Assistance Grant in 2019, the district found a way to bring soil health to the forefront for Morrison County producers. Funded by an agreement between NRCS and NACD, the Technical Assistance Grant Program provides funding for conservation districts across the country to hire staff where additional capacity is needed to improve customer service and reduce workload pressure. 

With the grant funding, the conservation district onboarded Conservation Agronomist Kolby Hansen to work with the district and Centra Sota Cooperative to grow the adoption of cover crops in the community. Hansen worked for the conservation district and spent time with the cooperative, working on shared tasks. The cooperative helped contribute to the grant match. Hansen quickly developed trust with Morrison County’s producers and has become a sought-after leader, providing technical assistance to producers on cover crop mixes and planting and termination methods and matching producers and their financial assistance needs with state and federal government resources. 

The 2022 Cultivating Soil Health Field Day. In the back from left to right is Forester Lew Noska, Engineering Technician Mike Becker, Easement Coordinator Destiny McDonald, and Conservation Agronomist Kolby Hansen. The front left is District Manager Shannon Wettstein, Jamie Adams, and Judy Kaiser local producers of Kaiser Dairy.

“There has been a great amount of pressure on farmers to be doing more, and farmers are doing a lot to adopt new conservation practices on their own,” says Hansen. Hansen focused on helping new and middle adopters of cover crops access financial assistance from the district, the Minnesota Board of Water & Soil Resources, and NRCS’ Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). One-year contracts have been key to the county’s growth in cover crop acres. “For middle adopters, one-year instead of five-year contracts help get them over the hurdle,” explains Hansen. “The majority that sign up continue. A shorter contract means a lower risk to get into the game. Now that the relationship is established, they’re interested in other conservation best management practices.” 

Pete Ratka and Dave Hubner are local producers who have built a trustworthy relationship with Hansen and the Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District. Together, Hansen and Ratka came up with the idea for Ratka to incorporate cover crop rotation in his pastures, seasonally changing the cover crops. With this approach, Ratka has been able to extend his cattle’s grazing season, delay buying feed, and build the health of his soil. “It takes a little time to show, but in the long run, you’re building up your soil to be better,” says Ratka. “Having her on the ground instead of having somebody who knows nothing about the crop side of it is a great asset,” Ratka says about Hansen.  

For local producer Dave Hubner, cover crops were a new thing. In the fall of 2023, he noticed a lot of cover crops as he was driving around the county and reached out to the Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District for assistance getting them started on his land. “Cover crops are something hard to measure and the benefits are something that you don’t see right away the first year, which is why some are reluctant to try it,” observes Hubner. “If they do try it once, it might not go very well, and so they’ll throw their hands up and say, ‘I’m done with this.’ That’s when the district comes in and tells them ‘try this’ or ‘try a few of these species together,’ which is why our district is a great resource for cover crops.” Hansen is an “asset to us producers,” says Hubner. “She’s the go-to person for cover crop and soil health issues…if we have questions, we can always run it past her.” 

Kolby Hansen with some turnips she pulled out that she had growing in one of her fields as a cover crop.

Three years of NACD Technical Assistance Grant funding, combined with funding from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program, has added up to 12,000 cover crop acres to the county. Outreach activities such as field days have reached a variety of land stewards, including young, beginning farmers now introducing their parents to cover crops, as well as veterans, and even the gardens tended to by the local Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls. The district writes articles about soil health for the local newspaper, which reaches 10,000 people a month. The impact is noticeable. Back in 2012, before these efforts, dust storms were typical in the fall. “Now almost all of those acres are green thanks to cover crops,” says Wettstein, and “that has minimized the calls we get in the fall from folks in the community unhappy with the dust.” 

In 2024, the Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District handled 40 cover crop contracts, and the district’s efforts continue to grow. Hansen recently helped Morrison producers apply for financial assistance from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The producers received $86,000 in funding for the purchase of soil health equipment. With a different grant from NACD, the district has conducted outreach to encourage landowners around Camp Ripley—a Sentinel Landscape—to conserve working lands for military readiness, agriculture and forestry, and resilience. 

The Morrison Soil and Water Conservation District now has one of the leading soil health programs in the state of Minnesota and provides resources to new soil health technicians employed by districts and NRCS. Their impact has grown from local to statewide. “This wouldn’t have happened without the capacity NACD has given through the Technical Assistance Grants,” shares Wettstein.  

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