Tuesday
February 7th, 2023
Registration
Welcome
Each of the following ranchers will share their insights and then there will be ample opportunity to answer your questions. Come prepared to get some questions answered!
Cole Mannix
Helena, MT
Korey and Wendy Fauque
Sunburst, MT
Alec Oliver
Grant County, OR
Ty and Sarina O’Connor
Ekalaka, MT
Panel and questions: Cole, Korey, Wendy, Ty, Sarina, Alec
Wednesday
February 8th, 2023
Registration
Welcome
The Regenerative Journey. Bringing the next generation back, stacking enterprises, and improving profitability
Jerry Doan
BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Balancing a Healthy Lifestyle Through Regenerative Grazing
Ryan & Abby Bruski and Justin & Beckie Elway
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.
The Dirty Details of Farming for Soil Health
Cory-Wendy Fauques & Dana Berwick
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.
Fostering Life: Soil Health 101
Jay Fuhrer
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.
Gardening for Soil Health
Evan VanOrder & Patti Armbrister
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.
Lunch
Unrealized potential of soil and crop systems
John Kempf
Implementing the Soil Health principles on Small Acreages
Corey Swenson and Dave Scott
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.
The Haney Test: How, Why, and What’s Next in Soil Health Testing
Lance Gunderson
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.
Managing Nutrition for Pest Resistance and High Yield
John Kempf
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.
Regenerative Practices and how to work with partners and bankers
Jerry Doan
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.
RECEPTION – with producer poster sessions / NRCS
Thursday
February 9th, 2023
Breakfast
From Disease to Abundant Life – Tying soil health to human health
Roy Thompson
Roy Thompson, from Akaska, South Dakota, will share his personal story of how his own human health journey led him to changing to regenerative soil health practices on his farm and ranch. As a young active man, Roy experienced a debilitating sickness that led him a new way of looking at the food he was eating. After he recovered, he realized that he couldn’t eat what he produced on his farm and ranch. Roy will explain what he did with his health and how is changed the way he farms and ranches. A true tie to soil health and human health.
Panel of Montana Grassroots Organizations
BFC (Jim Stone), ACES (Kendall Wojcik), RSA (Leo Barthelmess)
There are many grassroots groups in Montana that are accomplishing great things for the resources and their communities. Leo Barthelmess, a fourth generation rancher from Malta, will describe the Ranchers Stewardship Alliance organization. Kendall Wojcik, education and outreach coordinator, will cover Winnett ACES. Each group will explain how their group was started, what it currently does, and what they plan to do in the future.
Grazing and water systems for Soil Regeneration
Glenn Elzinga
Glenn will discuss how he and his team have fast-tracked soil regeneration on Aldersprings Ranch’s 800 acres of irrigated high elevation pasture and hay meadows and how the same lesson can be applied to their 46,000 acres of rangeland. Glenn will give the hands-on tools to getting success with herds of anywhere from 20 to 600 animals using electric fence and horseback herding. This is a practical tools and toolbox session that is going to move fast and provide beginning and expert grazers a place to start and build soils on their operations.
Fostering Life: Soil Health 101
Jay Fuhrer
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 farmer 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.
Biotic Farming Fundamentals and Applications: Comprehending the carbon cycle to support a healthy farm system
Brendon Rockey
Q&A Panel with Keynotes: First Steps
Jerry Doan, Brendon Rockey, John Kempf
Lunch


