Agenda 2023

Two Montana husband and wife teams will give an in-depth look at how regenerative grazing works on their farms. Ryan and Abbey Bruski from Ekalaka and Justin and Beckie Elway will share their regenerative grazing story including challenges and opportunites. They will also share infastructure tips, grazing logistics, budget tips and business models, bale grazing, cover crops and detailed in-depth grazing methods.

Two Montana farmers from opposite ends of the state will share their journeys of regenerative farming. Korey and Wendy Fauque from Sunburst will discuss lessons learned and progress made when transitioning from a conventional wheat fallow operation to regenerative farming. They have done this with an average of 7″ of rainfall over the last 6 years. Korey and Wendy Fauque have adopted everything from diverse rotations, new eqipment (disc drills and stripper headers) , intensive grazing, reduced inputs, and compost extract. Dana Berwick farms in Roosevelt county and uses a diverse no-till system on his dryland and irrigated acres. He started right into direct seeded/no-till sugar beets on his sprinkler and flood irrigated ground. Under no-till his beet yields and sugar percentages have been stable, he uses less water and uses less fuel. He has learned some of the “tricks of the trade” to make no-till beets work.

Jay Fuhrer is a long time conservationist who grew up in the Dakotas on a grain and livestock farm. Jay recently retired from the NRCS as a soil health specialist. Jay has traveled the world helping farmers and ranches understand and apply the soil health principles. Jay will discuss rebuilding and mainting life in the soil and how it is directly linked to longevity and reliability of our future agriculture.

Evan VanOrder and Patti Armbrister will give their step by step process of no-dig gardening. Evan is from Hardin and gardens outside and with hi-tunnels. He operates a CSA and sells vegetables at the farmers market. Patti teaches Ag-Ed and is a soil health coach from Hinsdale. She works with a regenerative greenhouse in Saco and helps other gardeners to convert to regenerative gardens. She has turned her lawn into a no-dig garden, has a high tunnel, does several methods of compost, and can share lots of knowledge of making plants healthy and resistant to disease.

Corey Swenson from Broadus will describe his grazing system for his horses on rangeland that has improved his soils and production. Dave Scott from Whitehall will describe his grazing system on irrigated ground which has increased production and eliminated the need for fertilizer. He has done this with 200 ewes. Although these producers, are small these same techniques can be easily applied to any scale, and any animal class.

Lance Gunderson of Regen Ag Lab LLC in Nebraska will offer insight into how the Haney test works and how the test was designed to help producers save money on nitrogen inputes. He will also describe several new advance in soil health testing ranging from tools to help track on-farm progress to the use of metagenomics to better understand the microbial community and gaps in the nutrient mobility and tranport processes.

John will describe how nutrition and microbiome intergrity can produce plants that are completely resistant to pest and disease. When plants have functional immune systems yields increases follow. This discussion will include crops and forages.

Jerry will discuss working with various conservation and wildlife groups to help with cost share and implementing regenerative practices. He will also discuss getting your banker behind you in new and exciting ideas. Bankers are imperative for your team, especially to bring back the next generation.