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Speakerie.

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Warden T.��.

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��.

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on the second.

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Second.

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I, I proposed.

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And I am abstinence.

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I'm here, so I'm soon in Jen of staying, since they weren't here.

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I hope like participation for items not on the agenda.

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Do we have anyone from the public or the digital public who has anything not on the agenda?

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Moving on.

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It was first on our list that would be Sandy with Tucker,

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our first victim.

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Good evening, Sandy.

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Senator Land Officer for the real estate division.

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And tonight we're here proposing to acquire a fee title to approximately 322 acres of forest and lands and a conservation easement over an approximate

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one acre building lot with a historic cabinet on it for $3 million, $120,000.

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And the property is located west of Nettarland and along Carabou Road in a zone by the M.A. Tucker

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Investment Company.

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And the M.A. Tucker Investment Company is one of the last large pieces of private land in the

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area and it's about a quarter mile west of the town limits of Nettarland.

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And you'll see here it's in between El Dora Road and Carabur Road.

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And it's immediately adjacent to the Hendrix,

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Blakely and Beach Open Space Properties.

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It's north of U.S. Forest Service Properties,

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which are all the line green areas there.

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It is north of the Arabo Ranch property,

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which is a conservation easement with Colorado Open Lands.

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And then just over to the right there,

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There's a 40-acre piece, which is also owned in fee by the Colorado Open Lands.

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And then that's where we're proposing to have the one acre house slot where the existing

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historic cabin is located.

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And acquisition of the Tucker property would provide a continuous block of a thousand acres

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of protected land right through this area.

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And this important acquisition will remove eight unused development rights and keep the surrounding

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protective habitats blend it together as one continuous core habitat area and protect the

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important natural features of the property. And the proposed acquisition, I think I said

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includes the CE over one acre of land where the cabin is located. And this is, uh, so Colorado

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Open Lands is very supportive of this acquisition. And this is, uh, given to me from them, there's this

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is their property, the other side is the Tucker property. So obviously you can see it's excellent habitat

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for the deer, elk and moose, and moose there, and let's keep it. But that's going to

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find. The property has been in the same family ownership since the 1800s and this small

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1871 historic cabin near the road will be retained by the sellers and protected with the CE

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on surrounding the cabin,

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and that's where we would put the building lot over there.

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It is, it does house on there in North Beaver Creek and Cune, track Creek, and has multiple

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independent meadows, tree-lined slopes, and assorted wetlands, and a date howlic, a well-respected

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local wildlife biologist, and a former natural resource planner with a county, highly

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supports this acquisition, and this letter I believe was forwarded to use, so you should have received that via e-mail.

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He indicates that this acquisition contributes to the protection of the middle boulder Creek Montaine Parkland,

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which are important locations for herds of elk and mousse.

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The Tucker property contains one of the largest montaine willow cars in the county,

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and willow cars have some of the highest breeding bird densities in Colorado,

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and have high diversity of small mammals in our favorite natural habitat of mousse.

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So Dave also indicates the properties and important part of the transitional spring and fall range for the Winger Ridge L curd as it moves between Magnolia Road area to the Indian peaks.

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And this is on the road going towards the property actually the property starts here, so we're heading west on Caribou Road.

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And this is during the fall, this is from Caribou Road and the cabins a little bit over to the right there.

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And that's actually just being south of the cabin next to the creek.

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And we didn't get very far. We've only gone out there once.

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This was back in 2017 as we were working with the family to get under a letter of intent.

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So we did get some photos, but we didn't get very far and you'll see here.

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That's about as far as we got. And so it's a pretty big piece of property.

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And so from this location here, we took a picture looking out further on this snow that we were at.

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And that's kind of looking back towards the cabin itself across the meadow.

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And that was just last week.

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So, we haven't been able to get out there just yet because of the snow.

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But we have gone ahead and ordered a phase 1 environmental assessment for the property.

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And of course, if that does show to prove any mining hazards,

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we'll go ahead and notify the Division of Mining Work Committee,

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Reclamation and Safety for a former closure of those areas.

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So until we get out there, we're not quite sure what it's going to look like.

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And then we've got obviously we've got our Boulder County Comprehensive Plan

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designations and as a reminder, the maps are intended to be illustrative rather than

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specific and the following designations are indicators of importance but not

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confirmation that these features exist on the property. So the property is in

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AB3, high biodiversity significance area called the North Beaver Creek. It is also in

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Indian peaks and environmental conservation area.

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We have an area of critical wildlife habitat,

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which has been labeled the Arapaho Ranch in Tucker home

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stead.

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And we have wetlands and riparian areas out there.

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And we've got significant natural communities out there.

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So after, after acquisition, I've

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approved, Parks and Open Space will determine

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if any portions of the property need to be closed

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to protect the property's natural resources.

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And determining potential closure in a situation like this is an involved process because we need ample time to evaluate the property.

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And those evaluations can only be done after we acquire the property.

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So that's going to take quite a lot of people when we go out there starting with the phase one environmental assessment.

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So for the public process.

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A public division of land process is required because this transaction will create a one acre cabin, not around the historic cabin. And divisions of land under 35 acres require, maybe require board board of county commissioners approval, pursuant to the community facility, lots split regulations contained in the land use code.

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adjacent property owners have been notified of the proposed proposed division of land.

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The notices included an invitation to attend this meeting and comment if they wanted to.

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We did hear from Colorado open lands, and as I said, they're extremely supportive of this acquisition.

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And today I heard from three neighbors up there, including one that has had her property for 29 years,

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and has always been grateful that the Tucker Homestead was not developed.

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She, as well as the other neighbors,

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are mentioning the crucially important

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riparian area for wildlife and the

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adjoining meadows and forests,

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especially for the elk, the moose,

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the coyote, and bobcats,

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and they all strongly support the

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sacrositium.

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And so I think I left you that third

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comment here, the other two had been

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emailed over to you.

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And so staff recommends the approval

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of the acquisition of the property,

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preservation and protection of

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the property is critical to prevent

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fragmentation of the property's

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important continuous natural resource habitats.

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The acquisition also complements other lands

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that are protected by the US Forest Service

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in Colorado Openlands.

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This will greatly assist the county's efforts

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to preserve undeveloped land around Maryland

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that has significant open space resources.

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Boulder County identified this property

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as a priority acquisition actually back in the 1970s.

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And since the 1990s we've been in regular contact

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with the family, we're very excited

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that this has come together, and the Tucker family

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is supportive of the property being protected

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and used for open space purposes.

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So our action requested tonight is recommendation

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to the Boulder Board of County Commissioners

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for approval of the acquisition of the fee property,

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the division of land to create the one acre cabin lot,

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and a conservation easement over the cabin

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that has described.

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Thank you.

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Questions from Post-A.

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Trace.

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Yes, Trace Baker.

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Thank you, Sandy.

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three questions. If the future evaluation does not recommend closure, what will

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public access to this land be? I don't know if we've determined that yet because we haven't been out there to take a look. I do know there is a forest service road that kind of scoots up an over near our open space properties on the west side.

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Okay, thank you. Number two, in your right out, it says the county feels there's no reasonable chance that someone would ever try to extract minerals from the property.

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At the current time, is that based on any geological survey, or is it the opinion of staff right now?

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I asked the county council about that and he said that if anybody number one were ever to mine the property the family member or the

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Airs of that one six interest I apologize I forgot to mention that of the one six interest

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They would have to pay for all damages to crops metal is in timber and since the land was patented under the land active 1820 and not the hard right hard rock mining act

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The county has the opinion that there's not a lot of valuable minerals out there, so it's highly unlikely somebody would want to go ahead and try to extract those.

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Okay, thank you. And third question, you mentioned the division of land process other than the input that you forwarded to us this evening.

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What are their opportunities for public input to this acquisition of the made?

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That the notice that we set out also includes an invitation to attend the BOCC meeting on February 11th.

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So people are welcome to come to that and or submit their comments prior to that.

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Okay, thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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Steve.

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I'm going to follow up on the mineral interest.

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Was there any negotiations to acquire the mineral interest?

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Yes, actually we are recorded.

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And that's right.

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I'd like to say that.

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Thank you for bringing that up.

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The purchase does include all mineral rights except for the 1-6 interest that was given to a family member back in 1961 and so was there any effort to acquire the 1-6 interest

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What we haven't had an opportunity to talk about that with the land owner yet, but we'll certainly bring that up if we can

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Um, you're recommending we go ahead even though there is, although you think it's a low

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possibility.

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There is a possibility of the right of them in role or to extract them at also some point.

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That was a vice-figure by a council.

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Yeah.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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A couple of questions, which I guess you probably can't answer if you guys haven't been on

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the property right for us wondering if there were a lot of social trails or if given that

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up there there are a lot of social

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trails on other public properties, and also a lot of people living rough on public properties,

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do you anticipate having to put a range around this property?

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We haven't talked about that yet, because we haven't been out there to see it.

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I have, you know, if you go on an aerial, you can see some social trails going through the

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properties.

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I've probably been there for a very long time as well, so that's, I don't know anything

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more than that.

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the most about putting a range of out there or anything like that?

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I don't know what we're going to do.

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Janice was cement get evening. I think Sandy has it right. We always need to buy these properties first

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and then figure out what we're going to do with them. And that process is Sandy described as involved

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and we can't speculate at all about what's going to happen in the future. I think that because we

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have a resident range rapid carabou, which is nearby here, they would be able to get over

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there very easily. They often already patrol the other areas around the carabou ranch.

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So we would look to that. We would look through the whole planning process. We've done something

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similar in the past few years on the upper sure would galt property that some of you may

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remember having been on Pozac 4, it was maybe, I don't know, 2013, 14, right in that time frame,

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and we did a mini planning project to decide whether or not we could use the social trails and open them.

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But that's just something we need to, we need to get up there in good weather in the spring, see what's up there.

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We certainly patrol all the properties that we own, and there would be Rangers up there,

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even if there wasn't a caretaker there, there would be people around frequently.

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but we just can't predict, we can't promise, we can't speculate.

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For you the way, I might have one other question that I had.

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I was trying.

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From the aerial, it looks very forced, forested,

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and I know that we keep our trees very much in check with respect to thinning

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and making sure that they're prepared for fire and whatnot.

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Has any work been done on this property by the owners

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to send their herd of trees so that we're not going to have to go in with a lot of forestry

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and take care of this or is it just just been growing for a long, long time and we're going to

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be growing for a long, long, long time.

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It doesn't look like any, you know, let's see how I can get.

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It's pretty dense.

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And to me, it doesn't look like there's been a force to work out there.

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Janice was fin again. I agree. It doesn't look like there's been any treatment. I think the family's been an off-site family. There are many, many dozens of family members.

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So I'll just take the opportunity to interject it's pretty remarkable that Sandy's been able to pull this deal together with met many family members.

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And our forestry crew is actually really anxious to gain ownership of a lot of properties so they can get in and do treatments.

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Right. Thank you.

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Any other questions from folks?

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Any questions from members of the public?

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Yeah.

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Oh my god.

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Oh my god.

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Okay, I was like there.

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I live in Janapore, Parks and Open Space staff.

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We have two online comments tonight.

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The first one's from Ian Wilson.

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He's at 4651, Dappel Lane in Boulder, 301.

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And his statement is, I am pretty concerned

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that in acquisitions such as this

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will be categorically shut off a recreation.

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We are spending millions of public funds

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by a piece of land and you are stating that there will be no chance to responsibly recreate

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on it.

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You will likely state something to the effect of this is protecting the land forever from development.

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That land has not been developed in over 100 years.

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Yes, we can still protect it from development but we should be able to enjoy the land as responsible

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recreational stewards, instead of just looking at it longingly from the road. Yes, it is possible.

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Recreate to recreate and enjoy the land while still protecting it. Buying this and shutting it down

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is just taking it from one private owner to the next, even if the name open space is next to the name.

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As it is public money, the public should be able to enjoy it.

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The next comment is from Steve Bond,

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His address is 5120, a liney way in Baldur, 80303, and he says it would be great to see new trails on this open space, particularly a new mountain bike trail.

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Many of the days I ride have me driving an hour or more to ride a new trail.

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Having more trails closer to home would be a great thing to finally see.

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Let's make sure none other ones have come in and that's it.

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Anyone else?

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Okay, do we have a motion from post-act?

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It's trace-faker.

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I move approval of this transaction as described.

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Do we stay out?

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It's a very interesting second.

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Discussion?

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Trace.

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I'll go first and she motion.

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I'm sorry.

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Discussion?

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Oh, for the vote.

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Do you want to go first and she made the motion?

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I did not have any discussion.

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Here.

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Back.

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Anyone?

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Okay.

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Since we have no discussion,

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and I'll have a vote on paper.

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Hi. Hi. Hi.

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Post?

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Extension.

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No. Thank you, Sandy, for any wonderful present.

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Thank you.

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Hey, next up on the agenda.

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We've got Herbus Seaclus or Carbon Carbus.

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Here I'm on the brain. Carbon Seaclus Station study updates.

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But I have to point out that Scott Miller is in attendance now.

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Good evening, like for the Division Manager for Agricultural Resources Park,

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Stopen Space, and we're going to tag team present tonight, because we've already established

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the fact that I can put your, this, I guess, body asleep very easily.

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So you won't have to listen to me too much, and in the interest of time, I'm going to

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allow my two co-presenters to introduce themselves right now, and we'll just proceed with

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them.

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Good evening, Posec.

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I am Vanessa McCracken.

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I am a former Ag Resources Specialist

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of Boulder County Parks and Open Space.

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So do you want to introduce yourself now or after?

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All right, so I'm just going to get us started

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with the carbon sequestration update.

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So this started a few years ago.

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The goal of the project, as you see there,

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was to undertake a pilot project to determine

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the feasibility of sequestering additional carbon in soils

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in agricultural fields, forests, grasslands,

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rangelands, and urban, and residential properties.

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So that goal is quite broad, and as we moved forward

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with the project, we narrowed it down

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to really focus on the agricultural fields,

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which also include the grasslands and rangelands.

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This was also in conjunction with Colorado State

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University, and so the first thing we undertook

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was the phase one feasibility study.

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There were several meetings with producers and different ways to gather input from them that were hosted by CSU and Parks and Open space.

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And when we compiled all that data, we came up with five different treatments that we could use to move forward.

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And you can see those up there. Number one is apply compost as a soil amendment plant wind breaks and restore riparian buffers.

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integrate cover crops into cropping systems, reduce tillage, and use nitrification inhibitors

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and slow release fertilizers where possible. And these were really deemed to be like the best

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bang for our buck, like what could we get done with available resources. So we've moved into phase two

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after some time, which is the actual implementation of the project. And so we implemented on range land

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and on irrigated crop land and on range land what we did on the ground was small scale compost

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on the range land and then on the crop land we were able to do more where we applied compost

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reduced tillage planted cover crops and used slow release or spoon fed fertilizer. So on the

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crop land we were able to incorporate four out of the five recommended treatments.

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everything except planting a windbreak. So where did this occur? Up in the very far north

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00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:14,420
part of the county up there, that's the yellow circled in red, that's the DeBerry

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00:22:14,420 --> 00:22:19,820
property. That's one of the range land sites down on the southern part there in the

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southeast grasslands. That's the Mayhapa property. That was our other range land

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site. And we spent quite a bit of time in the field looking for these sites. There

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for certain requirements that the site

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It's had to meet, had to have the slope couldn't be too great. There had to be the ability to graze.

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And they also could not be impacted by prairie dogs. And so that really limited our areas where we could choose to do range land applications.

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And then the east county line road there is the quick silver property in red, and that's where we were able to do implement the crop land treatments.

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So, the experimental design here, on the range land, basically we have four treatments.

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So, we set up areas where we had compost and no compost.

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And then within that there were areas of the field that were allowed to graze,

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and then set up a grazing exclosure.

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So, on both range landslides, we had the same experimental design,

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where we had basically four different treatments there.

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Here's just a couple pictures. These are both up north on the Debarri property on the right there

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You can see kind of what the compost looks like

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Applied on the range land and they're on the left. That's

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They hauled CSU did most of this work

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Triton, I just did a little bit, but they hauled out the compost and spread it. I think we have

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Here does this video? Let's see if the video

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So this is the small scale applications that's Mark Easter from CSU. They're applying the

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00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,720
compost on the range land on the Debarri property.

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And that's where I'm going to stop and

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pass it over to Blake to talk about the irrigated crop land.

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Okay, so we had the irrigated crop

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land and I'm going to try to bring you up to date on that little section of the project.

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This is, as Vanessa mentioned, we spent quite a bit of time in 2017 finding properties that fit the criteria.

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And on the crop land side, it had to have overhead sprinkler irrigation, and you might be able to equate that that caused some difficulty with tree wind break planning.

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But, after looking at several properties, we settled on the quick silver property, which is between

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00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,120
119th and County Line Road, just on the southeast edge of Longmont.

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That field is really unique because it's the only one in our system that we have a linear

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irrigation system on, and that makes laying out and designing experiments much easier to do.

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So, the tenant is an excellent family, the tenant on that property are the Schlado family, Paul and his son Scott,

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and just for reference, what we're standing in there is about a ten ton to the acre for a sorghum window.

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We'll come back to that a little bit later.

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Whoop!

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The wrong arrow direction.

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And in terms of timeline, and we're going to go through this fairly quickly, as I mentioned

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in 18, we spent a good deal of time planning and site selection, and in the early spring

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of 18, we actually did a baseline soil study, and we'll talk about that in just a second.

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We didn't really get this experiment really up and running until the last spring, but we applied

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16 tons to the acre of compost. It's a lot of compost. After that, we drilled a Ryan

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Harry Vetch cover crop, the tenets did. Corn was planted with the intention of taking that

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to grain corn, but about halfway through the season,

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the farmer had a change in plans. He works a lot

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with front-ringed dairy, out in Plattville, and they wanted to take that corn off for installation

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and then replace it with another crop. So the the cropping plan changed a little bit and that's

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pretty typical for a lot of agriculture. You just kind of have to go with the flow and what the

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00:26:48,940 --> 00:26:56,340
year gives you. But the corn was planted. It was three days after it was planted.

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We sprayed that field. The entire field was sprayed with round-up to kill the cover crop.

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And then, as I said, in the September, we harvested it for insolage instead of for grain corn.

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After the insolage is taken off, we planted tritakaily, and we applied an additional four tons per acre of compost.

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So, by way of kind of going back through that time to line now very quickly, the upper little corner there is a satellite map of this property.

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And I think, have a, do I have a,

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00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,140
doesn't look like I have a, like, oh, there it is.

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You can see that little line right there.

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This is dry creek, left-hand creek intersects

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with the saint rain up in here.

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00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,660
So it's pretty obvious looking at this

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00:27:52,660 --> 00:27:55,920
from a satellite photo that there's, this is the field right here.

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00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,960
It's a 128 or field one mile long by about the tent,

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00:27:59,960 --> 00:28:06,280
a little over two tenths of a mile wide with a linear that runs this direction, it literally takes a

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00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:13,000
week for them to make a pass with the sprinkler system to irrigate it. But you can see that there's

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a very distinct difference in soil type here, and so we wanted to go in and get a baseline. And

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00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:27,820
we went out and we took 30 samples, 30 gridded samples of GPS, hold those samples,

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00:28:27,820 --> 00:28:34,580
and symptoms off the ward lab and had the soil analysis come back about right at

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00:28:34,580 --> 00:28:39,840
50 different things that were measured in each sample. We took that data and put it

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00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:45,420
into a statistical program and for every one of those 40 50 traits we were able to

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00:28:45,420 --> 00:28:51,380
generate a two-dimensional map that showed the approximate gradient of that

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00:28:51,380 --> 00:28:55,320
material. So this one's phosphorus but there's 44 other ones of these that

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00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,420
that out. So that's literally a mile, a mile long, oop,

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00:29:03,630 --> 00:29:07,450
going the wrong way. That's a mile,

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00:29:08,210 --> 00:29:16,410
long, and about two tenths of a mile wide. And based on that, we were able to identify

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00:29:16,410 --> 00:29:20,410
the extreme eastern end of the property, and the extreme western end of the property,

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00:29:20,930 --> 00:29:25,390
had areas that were uniform enough across the trades that we could, we could set an experiment

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00:29:25,390 --> 00:29:30,890
and have two uniform pieces of ground to work with.

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00:29:33,340 --> 00:29:35,600
We established, again, for treatment combinations,

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00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,880
with and without compost, and with and without a cover crop.

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00:29:40,380 --> 00:29:42,880
So that gave us the four combinations of a control

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00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,000
or nothing was applied, compost only,

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00:29:45,460 --> 00:29:47,960
compost plus cover crop, and cover crop only.

385
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,700
And we had two reps, one on the east side of the field,

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00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:52,080
one on the west side of the field.

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00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:59,960
And those, the bigger blocks are about basically approximately about a 10 acre book.

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00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,600
Walk, out of that 120-acre field.

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00:30:06,070 --> 00:30:06,490
This

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00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:13,040
is a complex video.

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00:31:13,140 --> 00:31:21,200
So literally, that was February 28th of this year, of last year, 19, the next day, the

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Schlegels went out with their other tractor, GPS tractor, and a big air cedar, and they

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00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:33,880
the cover crop sections into a straddle part of the compost in place where there wasn't any compost.

394
00:31:34,020 --> 00:31:44,900
So, they planted in two passes with their drill, a Harry Vetch cover, and then they offset literally the rows were seven and a half inches.

395
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:55,840
They offset with the GPS, three and a half inches. So, every 3.75 inches, there was either a row of Harry Vetch, and then a row of Rye and then a row of Harry Vetch and a row of Rye.

396
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,780
So we really densely planted that.

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00:31:59,500 --> 00:32:03,820
And when Scott's in the tractor and Paul's on the back

398
00:32:03,820 --> 00:32:06,040
and when he got off, he looked like a West Virginia coal

399
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:09,780
miner because those two passes pulled up a lot

400
00:32:09,780 --> 00:32:10,980
of that compost thus far.

401
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,480
So about 40 days later, on April 12, this is everything

402
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:16,100
it emerged.

403
00:32:16,900 --> 00:32:20,380
And you can see a Harry Vetch plant, the little lighter yellow

404
00:32:20,380 --> 00:32:23,220
one there, and a couple of right plants.

405
00:32:23,220 --> 00:32:37,660
Our tenants are, most, all of our good tenants are already practicing three out of these five practices, and you can see a lot of trash on the surface because they do minimum till they're faithful about doing minimum till.

406
00:32:38,740 --> 00:32:46,980
Another 40 days later, a crop had grown fairly tall, you can see the veteran now starting to grow up underneath it, and the riot was starting to join up.

407
00:32:46,980 --> 00:32:59,680
And then on June 25th is what this look like, this would have been after we had sprayed the crop with round-up to kill the thing.

408
00:33:00,660 --> 00:33:10,880
The ride died very well. The hurry of etched did not, particularly in the compost areas. The compost actually protected the hurry of etched from the round-up.

409
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:19,580
So, we learned something there, we learned that there was an interaction between compost and plants and there are buildings to protect around them.

410
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:21,880
So, now we're going to turn it over to Trent.

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00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:23,760
He's going to talk to you about the building.

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00:33:26,990 --> 00:33:29,950
Hello, my name is Trent Kishar, I'm an AG Resources Specialist with County.

413
00:33:31,550 --> 00:33:35,590
So, I was not with the County when this whole project first started.

414
00:33:35,590 --> 00:33:43,030
So I joined this year, so I just kind of got in on the whole implementation of this whole project.

415
00:33:44,810 --> 00:33:52,590
So on July 2nd, we hosted a field day where we went to various properties showing different projects that we're going on.

416
00:33:52,670 --> 00:33:55,770
And one of our stops was add our carbon sequestration projects.

417
00:33:55,770 --> 00:34:05,750
And at the field day, John Slagel, our tenant, as well as Mark Easter with CSU and myself,

418
00:34:06,570 --> 00:34:15,820
shared about the current project and all the different treatments with all the farmers and people from the community about what's all going on there.

419
00:34:17,100 --> 00:34:25,420
This picture was taken in August, Vanessa and myself host soil health monitors and so one

420
00:34:25,420 --> 00:34:34,660
of our field days we went out to the Quick Silver Project and did soil health samples

421
00:34:34,660 --> 00:34:40,960
in the different treatments and this was in the treatment where like Blake just mentioned

422
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:44,140
the Harry Vege was not killed by the round-up application.

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00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:48,580
And so it started acting more as a companion crop instead

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00:34:48,580 --> 00:34:49,840
of a cover crop with the corn.

425
00:34:50,380 --> 00:34:54,180
So this is a picture of that Vege plant growing up

426
00:34:54,180 --> 00:34:55,400
the corn plant.

427
00:34:58,240 --> 00:35:00,540
I'll Blake mentioned earlier that the original plan was

428
00:35:00,540 --> 00:35:03,060
for this corn crop to go to a grain harvest,

429
00:35:03,500 --> 00:35:06,920
but then it was decided to go to be harvested for silage.

430
00:35:07,340 --> 00:35:09,340
So on September 16th,

431
00:35:09,340 --> 00:35:12,760
Farron's dairy harvested, the crop.

432
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:18,140
And for our purposes, we wanted to collect yield data

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00:35:18,140 --> 00:35:18,640
from it.

434
00:35:18,720 --> 00:35:21,280
And so what we did was a one pass through with the silage

435
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:25,400
cutter, and each pass be harvested separately,

436
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:29,380
weighed, and have a sample taken from it,

437
00:35:29,660 --> 00:35:32,440
so that we could have nutritional data taken,

438
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:33,320
and send it to a lab.

439
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:39,020
And then after the harvest, the shlegels went

440
00:35:39,020 --> 00:35:49,000
through and did a tillage pass with their new vertical till machine and then was then planted

441
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:55,500
with a tritakaily and then compost was applied later in the fall.

442
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:04,740
So with all this Blake mentioned earlier, the baseline data and then I mentioned the soil

443
00:36:04,740 --> 00:36:12,220
assessment and then we collected a lot of data when it came yield with yields when it came to the

444
00:36:12,220 --> 00:36:19,700
silage in the grain at harvest and then we got that for example return back so I gave it a

445
00:36:19,700 --> 00:36:25,280
lot of data and as well Vanessa and I went out and took more soil samples to see the difference

446
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:33,300
between our baseline and post treatments. So we had a lot of data to start working with at the end

447
00:36:33,300 --> 00:36:38,880
at the end of the year. And so I have a few slides here talking a little bit about what we

448
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:47,680
are able to find. So this is a green yield comparison between the different treatments. We are

449
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:54,100
able to gain this by going through each variety and selecting 10 random years. And I have a picture

450
00:36:54,100 --> 00:37:00,300
of that on the next slide. And then from there calculating the approximate yield that each treatment

451
00:37:00,300 --> 00:37:06,760
of gotten. And as we can see, it's starting to trend in the right direction. This is a first year

452
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:12,760
of a five-year study, so we're hopeful to see more and more trends as the years progress. But

453
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:21,040
this first year is encouraging to see some differences in the ways we're hoping. So this is a picture

454
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:25,940
of the 10 different years from the different treatments. And you can see there is quite a bit of

455
00:37:25,940 --> 00:37:29,980
difference just within one year of the different treatment styles.

456
00:37:32,030 --> 00:37:50,130
We were able to get our silage yield back as well. And this one was a little bit harder to see any statistical difference, just based on being very consistent, there are some highs and lows, but overall with the size of the test, it didn't show a lot of differences.

457
00:37:50,130 --> 00:37:56,410
has a quick question. What's the one that just has legal on it? Is that just where he

458
00:37:57,250 --> 00:38:00,870
pharmed it? Is that the rest of the field where he pharmed the way he

459
00:38:00,870 --> 00:38:05,430
oughta thinks it oughta pharmed? Yes that is the average for the rest of the field.

460
00:38:05,650 --> 00:38:10,230
That's yep. So he did better than all your test plots if he did.

461
00:38:11,970 --> 00:38:17,350
But yeah and yes so the reason being is on the rest of the field he was able to

462
00:38:17,350 --> 00:38:22,170
infero fertilized with the drip throughout the year and we did not do that on our test

463
00:38:22,170 --> 00:38:27,390
spot. So the rest of his field was soon fed a little bit more nitrogen and as well this

464
00:38:27,390 --> 00:38:33,330
was kind of original we thought is going to be a grain crop and for it to be a silage there

465
00:38:33,330 --> 00:38:40,490
are some differences in the end. And then we got from Range Dairy sends off all their samples

466
00:38:40,490 --> 00:38:46,650
to get tested for nutritional value for their dairy cows and so there's a ton more data

467
00:38:46,650 --> 00:38:49,450
there that we had no idea how to even interpret.

468
00:38:50,710 --> 00:38:53,730
And so this is just one that we find very interesting now

469
00:38:53,730 --> 00:38:57,350
is shows the pounds of milk per acre that the cows could produce

470
00:38:57,350 --> 00:38:58,110
on the forge.

471
00:38:58,470 --> 00:39:02,310
And so it just kind of goes to show cows are pretty sweet

472
00:39:02,310 --> 00:39:05,890
and they can produce a lot of a lot of milk off of just one acre.

473
00:39:06,290 --> 00:39:10,330
And so again, these numbers, there is no statistical difference

474
00:39:10,330 --> 00:39:14,690
between the trials, but it's still good information to have.

475
00:39:16,950 --> 00:39:23,090
So this sign is posted along the, there's a trail going along the north side of this property.

476
00:39:23,970 --> 00:39:30,430
And so we periodically throughout the year post updates to what's going on in the project in the field.

477
00:39:30,990 --> 00:39:34,690
And so, yeah, if you guys are ever interested, always check us out there.

478
00:39:39,990 --> 00:39:41,230
So we're going to finish off here.

479
00:39:42,430 --> 00:39:47,950
And again, just point out the fact that the sluggles are super good farmers.

480
00:39:47,950 --> 00:39:53,310
and his practice would be really hard to beat, and we did not

481
00:39:53,310 --> 00:39:58,170
fertigate in the plot. I think in retrospect we almost wish that we

482
00:39:58,170 --> 00:40:04,590
would have done that, but it was interesting like in the silage part and in

483
00:40:04,590 --> 00:40:10,650
the grain corn estimate we actually talked, we actually, we were better with the

484
00:40:10,650 --> 00:40:21,150
most than he was with his practice, so the bottom line is a mountain of data, soil data, crop

485
00:40:21,150 --> 00:40:28,040
data, forage quality data, NIR, and at the end of the day so far we haven't seen anything

486
00:40:29,170 --> 00:40:37,780
that relates, it doesn't amount to a statistically different between the treatments, but we

487
00:40:37,780 --> 00:40:45,360
have two reps. We were kind of using truck scale science here, so it's not surprising

488
00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:50,380
that we do not have statistical significance in some of these treatments yet. Stress

489
00:40:50,380 --> 00:40:55,580
again, this is a five-year study so that we're going to continue to look at this over time

490
00:40:55,580 --> 00:41:01,540
and we really do expect at the end of the five years we're going to start to see some statistical

491
00:41:01,540 --> 00:41:07,260
differences, not only in the soil health, but in the crop yields that come off of this ground.

492
00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:12,080
And the real reason that we're doing this in the first place, it's a demonstration project,

493
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:19,380
these kind of things work. So we know from other places around the world that this works,

494
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:24,980
but this is a chance to demonstrate it and show it to tenants and farmers that it works here,

495
00:41:25,140 --> 00:41:30,480
and that it can be done. And that gets us back to this slide. And this slide essentially speaks for itself,

496
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:37,440
and its economics. Right now, the compost that we put on was very special compost came from

497
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:44,500
heco cycle, or I mean from A1 compost, outside of the county, very high carbon to nitrogen

498
00:41:44,500 --> 00:41:54,080
ratio compost pretty expensive. $40 a ton, we put on 16 tons, plus another four tons. You

499
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:55,840
can do the math on that pretty simply.

500
00:41:55,860 --> 00:42:01,460
That's $800 an acre of fertilizer costs, OK?

501
00:42:03,100 --> 00:42:05,120
At that current price, we're not

502
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,120
any more close to being able to break even.

503
00:42:08,260 --> 00:42:10,900
So in order to make this take off,

504
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,160
I don't know that it's going to work.

505
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,280
So the only linchpin to making this really work great

506
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,780
is getting the cost of that compost down

507
00:42:19,780 --> 00:42:21,320
to where it pays for itself.

508
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:27,960
So if we can get that compost in the future down to $10 a ton or underneath, all of a sudden,

509
00:42:28,620 --> 00:42:32,020
this doesn't have to be pushed uphill, it pulls itself.

510
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:40,400
In fact, it should pull itself to the point that farmers will be able to actually replace

511
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:51,300
a good deal of the synthetic fertilizer like we did in this case already, because we didn't

512
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,240
So, cost is the key.

513
00:42:57,370 --> 00:42:58,670
Quick question for you.

514
00:42:59,710 --> 00:43:05,370
Will the same sort of thing could the same sort of thing be done on your organic?

515
00:43:05,670 --> 00:43:05,990
Yes.

516
00:43:07,270 --> 00:43:10,370
And so what would, I mean, other than that spring with round-up,

517
00:43:11,150 --> 00:43:14,970
would you have to get organic compost that would cost more or more?

518
00:43:15,610 --> 00:43:22,090
You would need to have organic NLP certified organic compost and it will be a lot more expensive

519
00:43:22,090 --> 00:43:29,270
to have even if even I don't know where the county will be if if we get this internally

520
00:43:29,270 --> 00:43:36,330
going but yeah it will cost more to have NLP certified compost than this would be.

521
00:43:36,510 --> 00:43:43,150
So if we met our goals for the number of acres of organic with that overall tick down

522
00:43:43,150 --> 00:43:48,930
the number of acres that we can sequester carbon on because it would be really expensive

523
00:43:48,930 --> 00:43:50,650
for them to be able to do that.

524
00:43:53,370 --> 00:44:00,630
That's a good question, Jan. I'd have to do a little bit more math. I don't know that. I can answer that entirely.

525
00:44:01,710 --> 00:44:04,430
I think from the carbon sequestration standpoint,

526
00:44:06,670 --> 00:44:14,810
an organic approved compost is going to be about the same kind of carbon, carbon and nitrogen ratio, put that same amount of carbon into the soil.

527
00:44:14,810 --> 00:44:20,670
So I think from the carbon balance and point, which is where a lot of the economics and stuff

528
00:44:20,670 --> 00:44:27,570
were driven in the feasibility study and even in the subsequent study is based more on carbon

529
00:44:27,570 --> 00:44:29,890
balance and it is on farm economics.

530
00:44:30,930 --> 00:44:37,630
But at the end of the day, if you can make the farm economics work out, and organic has the

531
00:44:37,630 --> 00:44:41,930
other advantage, I mean, yeah, the compost may cost more, but theoretically the produce coming

532
00:44:41,930 --> 00:44:43,470
off is also worth more.

533
00:44:43,470 --> 00:44:50,590
so there's still kind of a balance to be achieved there. Part of that balance is the carbon balance sheet,

534
00:44:51,210 --> 00:44:57,810
which we have want for obvious reasons, and then the other way to drive that in large scale,

535
00:44:57,810 --> 00:44:59,970
whether it's on organic acres conventionally.

536
00:45:16,720 --> 00:45:29,860
So, one of the things that was contemplated in this study was they recognized that in order to make this work that they were going to have to have a lot of good compost developed locally.

537
00:45:29,860 --> 00:45:33,040
at a price point that it would make sense.

538
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,400
And so part of that, this is just a stock photo,

539
00:45:36,540 --> 00:45:38,880
this is not there yet, this is just a stock photo

540
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:44,720
of a compost facility, but as a portion of the deliverable

541
00:45:44,720 --> 00:45:47,840
that see issue delivered, they subcontracted

542
00:45:47,840 --> 00:45:52,000
with a denmage of Ecosycle and Calaroso Stranger

543
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,760
of the Marine Carbon Project.

544
00:45:55,820 --> 00:45:57,820
And they did a very sophisticated

545
00:45:57,820 --> 00:46:06,920
had actually a business analysis of where to locate that compost facility locally. They looked

546
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:14,040
at several possible sites. And I mean, I was actually very impressed by what they did

547
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:20,160
in this phase of the deliverable, because they almost returned to business plan that showed

548
00:46:20,700 --> 00:46:27,480
why they needed a located at a certain place, preferentially over the other places, and projected

549
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:34,660
a cost that they could deliver compost in quantity to make this thing really take off.

550
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:41,320
And so of the sites that they looked at, and part of this, again, it's really, it's driven

551
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,260
by the carbon side as much as it is the farming side.

552
00:46:44,700 --> 00:46:49,800
They need to be able to be close, proximity to the municipal waste streams.

553
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:56,400
So part of what makes sense for that little red dot out there is that it's kind of more

554
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:03,240
less liquid, distantly located from Longmont Boulder, Erie, Lafayette. It's within travel

555
00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:10,320
distance of the trash or the compost, the input. They also did very detailed studies

556
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:17,340
on traffic patterns. At the end of the day, this was their preferred site, and it's a property

557
00:47:17,340 --> 00:47:24,580
that we had acquired, not that long ago. It's basically just east of Highway 287, and just

558
00:47:24,580 --> 00:47:30,820
about a mile south of a mineral road or highway 52 and it's the Rainbow

559
00:47:30,820 --> 00:47:36,980
Tree Nursery. So that is the site that they have you know projected and I

560
00:47:36,980 --> 00:47:41,260
think they're now starting to look at what it would take to make that site

561
00:47:41,260 --> 00:47:42,840
really take off and run.

562
00:47:45,700 --> 00:47:50,680
I guess the other thing the outbound side then we don't

563
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:54,560
have it on the map here but you can tell that the outbound side is very close

564
00:47:54,560 --> 00:48:03,400
proximity the farms. So you've located that facility in an area that allows it to effectively

565
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:08,460
and efficiently move the compost in, compost it, and then move it back to the farm.

566
00:48:12,470 --> 00:48:17,590
How many of you are familiar with the term green manureing? This is basically the last slide.

567
00:48:18,630 --> 00:48:25,470
So green manureing is effectively just taking a green plant, like that 10-toned forage

568
00:48:25,470 --> 00:48:28,610
Oregon wind row that Paul and I were standing over.

569
00:48:29,090 --> 00:48:31,110
If we would have chopped that up very fine

570
00:48:31,110 --> 00:48:32,970
and blown that out on the ground

571
00:48:32,970 --> 00:48:34,630
and worked it back into the ground,

572
00:48:35,170 --> 00:48:36,850
that would be green maneuvering.

573
00:48:37,470 --> 00:48:40,190
So that 10 ton per acre,

574
00:48:40,630 --> 00:48:43,370
a forage-sorghum crop is about 40% carbon.

575
00:48:45,490 --> 00:48:47,630
This is one of the practices that I think

576
00:48:47,630 --> 00:48:50,030
that we want to explore as we move forward

577
00:48:50,030 --> 00:48:50,990
and we'll see a shoe.

578
00:48:51,630 --> 00:48:55,450
I honestly believe that there was a bit of an effort

579
00:48:55,470 --> 00:49:00,190
to make sure we get to this compost piece, and I think they may have stepped over some other

580
00:49:00,190 --> 00:49:05,470
possibilities of sequestering carbon. So I think we need to take a look at this and they can do

581
00:49:05,470 --> 00:49:10,850
this very easily with their comet prediction tool. They have a computer program that will allow them

582
00:49:10,850 --> 00:49:17,010
to predict this, but that tinted forage sorghum would have been equivalent of 20,000 pounds per acre

583
00:49:17,010 --> 00:49:22,310
and at 40% carbon that's 8,000 pounds of carbon that could have been dropped right into the soil.

584
00:49:22,310 --> 00:49:28,030
And instead of composting it off-site and then hauling it back or sending it off to a dairy

585
00:49:28,030 --> 00:49:32,570
and running it through a cow and taking the brown manure and composting that, putting it back on,

586
00:49:32,790 --> 00:49:38,790
you compost it in C2 and it'll take 5, 6, 7 years for that to happen. It's a slow process.

587
00:49:39,550 --> 00:49:46,710
But that 8,000 pounds of carbon over about a 7-year period will basically compost in the field

588
00:49:47,330 --> 00:49:52,850
down to leave about 3,000 pounds per acre of very resistant,

589
00:49:52,850 --> 00:49:58,810
humid, acid, humid, humid, that won't degrade any further, and that carbon will essentially

590
00:49:58,810 --> 00:50:05,730
stay in that soil for millennia. So I think this is an area that we want to explore

591
00:50:05,730 --> 00:50:12,150
with CSU. I think we can kind of do it on paper. It may or may not pay out.

592
00:50:16,130 --> 00:50:16,690
There's

593
00:50:16,690 --> 00:50:22,470
But I think this is getting us closer to another method that might, that might pay.

594
00:50:23,370 --> 00:50:30,490
And it really relies, as most of these things do, whether it's biochar, compost, or whatever,

595
00:50:30,790 --> 00:50:33,790
the ultimate source of this carbon is photosynthesis.

596
00:50:35,230 --> 00:50:40,510
And so it's just a matter of how that carbon is dealt with after it's photosynthesized,

597
00:50:40,510 --> 00:50:46,690
Whether it's, you know, harvested, fed to a cow, manure brought back on, there's a lot of

598
00:50:46,690 --> 00:50:50,490
different ways to get that, but at the end of the day, the reason it works is because

599
00:50:50,490 --> 00:50:56,450
photosynthesis is super efficient and it takes carbon dioxide out of the air and puts it into a

600
00:50:56,450 --> 00:51:02,370
form that's stable. So we need to take a look at this. That's the last slide.

601
00:51:04,710 --> 00:51:07,710
Thank you. And any

602
00:51:07,710 --> 00:51:11,470
questions that you have about kind of where we're headed on it.

603
00:51:12,910 --> 00:51:18,050
Let's leave my, I think we explored this last time you presented on this about irrigation

604
00:51:18,050 --> 00:51:26,010
practices and it correct me if I'm wrong, all of this was done under unirrigated with the irrigated

605
00:51:26,010 --> 00:51:26,910
sprinkler.

606
00:51:27,190 --> 00:51:32,490
I just correct one of the requirements that see issue specified was that we have overhead

607
00:51:32,490 --> 00:51:33,470
sprinkler irrigation.

608
00:51:34,150 --> 00:51:40,890
And that is because of, if you can imagine putting on this much compost or leaving this much

609
00:51:40,890 --> 00:51:46,610
trash in the field to surface irrigate that with furrow irrigation, you could get into a lot

610
00:51:46,610 --> 00:51:52,330
of problems with trash build up and not be able to move the water through the field correctly.

611
00:51:52,710 --> 00:51:57,170
That's the same reason why a dream and you might only be able to do it one year out of 7 or one year

612
00:51:57,170 --> 00:52:02,890
out of 10 because you're going to put so much trash on top of the surface, which is good because

613
00:52:02,890 --> 00:52:08,390
to protect the soil, but it makes it hard to run water with a fur or irrigation.

614
00:52:08,750 --> 00:52:10,910
So sprinkler irrigation was kind of a requirement.

615
00:52:11,730 --> 00:52:17,010
Just thinking ahead about these kinds of practices on either Donner, Gatedland, or surface

616
00:52:17,010 --> 00:52:21,870
irrigated or flood irrigated properties and how much of that would be transferable.

617
00:52:23,070 --> 00:52:28,930
I think we're going to start to, we did deliberately, we were not asked to find a dry land

618
00:52:28,930 --> 00:52:29,230
side.

619
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:41,700
But I do believe Steve, that this year we're going to take a look at least at the cover cropping portion of this on some dry land acres. We have about 3,000 acres of dry land in the system.

620
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:58,840
And a lot of that land is fragile. It could definitely use more organic matter. It could definitely use right now a lot of the dry land in the county is.

621
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:04,980
wheat, summer, fall, all alternate years, and so you have a year when you have pretty much

622
00:53:04,980 --> 00:53:10,980
bare soil, a lot of erosion to wind and blowing and stuff. And so I think we're going to start

623
00:53:10,980 --> 00:53:18,280
to look at what some of these practices could do on dry land in the system. And I think clearly the

624
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:26,960
covercropping will help some of that. I think the compost will go there as well. Again, the potential

625
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:33,920
to recover and invest a return on the investment for those inputs is a lot lower in dry land.

626
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:38,760
So it's got to be figured out how to make it work. But the same principles that apply

627
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:46,880
under irrigation should work as well or maybe even better in terms of protecting the soil on dry land.

628
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:56,140
Scott? Scott Miller. On your, you were talking about your composting facility potential.

629
00:53:56,140 --> 00:54:14,140
I know the big issue that keeps coming up, armors are obviously just the volume, do they, in their study of the, you know, they say that and they, is there any gauge as far as whether or not there's enough sources to come in,

630
00:54:16,980 --> 00:54:24,300
I should have gone back and re-read that in detail, but the answer to your question is yes.

631
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:32,240
There is almost an infinite supply of input coming from the municipalities.

632
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:37,080
And in order to meet some of the zero waste bills,

633
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:40,760
makes a lot of sense to see this happen from that side of the equation.

634
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:43,900
So I think they have the volume there.

635
00:54:44,540 --> 00:54:48,820
And I think that getting the volume there is part and parcel

636
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:54,140
of getting the cost, the unit cost, uh, per tonne down.

637
00:54:56,180 --> 00:54:58,520
And it's, so it part of its quantity.

638
00:54:58,820 --> 00:55:02,740
And I think that they're in analysis said that it was plenty of quantity.

639
00:55:02,740 --> 00:55:06,860
I think the other part of it is quality and it is a farmer.

640
00:55:06,860 --> 00:55:14,040
You know that one of the things that a lot of times, guys, will bark about chunks of plastic

641
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:18,400
and the sort of things in the compost that they don't like to see, I thought this compost

642
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:19,120
that we put on.

643
00:55:19,140 --> 00:55:24,120
There was a few little blue newspaper wrapper things in there, but it was pretty clean.

644
00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:30,220
It has to be not, it has to be not just cheap compost, it has to be high quality.

645
00:55:30,220 --> 00:55:34,300
Yeah, we talked about some from Western way back when and it was basically

646
00:55:34,980 --> 00:55:38,940
Like putting on saw dust when it was they're just did there wasn't any value

647
00:55:38,940 --> 00:55:45,840
Yeah, it all said and done really if you guys are interested I that that documents actually public now

648
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:51,500
We can figure out a way to get you a copy of that it was the next is probably the best bang for the buck

649
00:55:51,500 --> 00:55:55,720
We've got out of this so far because it I thought it was extremely professionally done

650
00:55:55,720 --> 00:56:00,180
Virtually a business plan right like I said right down to the oh the traffic

651
00:56:00,220 --> 00:56:05,420
is going to work going in this way and going out that way, others. Very thorough.

652
00:56:11,940 --> 00:56:20,180
Yeah, Trace Baker. So your last slide. Check my understanding, please. That was one direct

653
00:56:20,180 --> 00:56:28,460
estimate of sequestration. This slide? Yes. Now, this is just to show what would happen if

654
00:56:28,460 --> 00:56:35,120
you took a green living crop like that 10 tons per acre of sorghum chopped it up. And instead of

655
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:37,840
taking it, feeding it to a cow, just put it right back in the ground.

656
00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:44,820
And so that's what the carbon from that 10 tons of sorghum would do over a seven-year period.

657
00:56:45,380 --> 00:56:52,520
It would compost in the field, and some of that carbon goes back into the air, unfortunately,

658
00:56:53,660 --> 00:56:55,540
just as it would in a compost facility.

659
00:56:56,320 --> 00:57:03,460
But at the end of that seven years, three-eighths of the carbon that you dropped in to begin

660
00:57:03,460 --> 00:57:07,660
with would be in a form that would be there forever.

661
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:10,420
It would be like Mother Nature's biochar.

662
00:57:11,140 --> 00:57:13,480
Okay, so then as your study progresses,

663
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:15,720
will you be measuring this directly?

664
00:57:16,500 --> 00:57:18,840
Well, number one, we haven't done this.

665
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:23,140
Okay, okay, this is, I think we'll do this on paper first

666
00:57:23,140 --> 00:57:25,500
because CSU has this comment program

667
00:57:25,500 --> 00:57:29,520
and they can actually come in and say, all right,

668
00:57:29,700 --> 00:57:31,380
if we did this every so many years,

669
00:57:31,380 --> 00:57:36,060
this is how much carbon we would save, how many megatons per, you know, I mean they can calculate

670
00:57:36,060 --> 00:57:39,840
that and they can estimate what the cost would be to do that.

671
00:57:40,220 --> 00:57:42,320
And so I think we can do this on paper.

672
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:46,440
I think we can see whether green minoring makes sense on paper.

673
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:49,120
I don't think it can be done every year.

674
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:56,560
I think it could be done every so often because if you put that much green matter in every

675
00:57:56,560 --> 00:57:58,200
year, it's going to do a couple of things.

676
00:57:58,380 --> 00:57:59,740
It's going to tie up a lot of nitrogen.

677
00:58:00,580 --> 00:58:06,040
So it'll be hard, you'll tie up some nitrogen in part of this process and you'll get such a

678
00:58:06,040 --> 00:58:12,280
duff or such a layer on top that's going to be hard to farm. So you can only get away with

679
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:18,800
that to about a certain extent, but if it's cost effective and we're already telling guys to

680
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:24,960
grow cover crops, it's almost a way to measure what that cover crop effect is if the cover

681
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:30,220
Trump's turned him under as opposed to taking it off as an off take.

682
00:58:30,220 --> 00:58:31,460
Thank you.

683
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:38,020
One more, one more.

684
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:38,540
Sorry.

685
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:39,560
The other.

686
00:58:39,860 --> 00:58:42,940
How much telling is required in green and the new ring?

687
00:58:44,810 --> 00:58:49,150
Well, you obviously would need to start to work that into the soil where it will break down.

688
00:58:49,930 --> 00:58:49,950
Right.

689
00:58:50,690 --> 00:58:57,050
We mentioned a little bit about this new Dingleman vertical tillage machine that the Sholegels purchased.

690
00:58:57,050 --> 00:59:01,830
They purchased it used $90,000, brand new as a $100,000,

691
00:59:02,070 --> 00:59:03,630
kind of shows you what kind of an investment

692
00:59:03,630 --> 00:59:07,050
the our tenants are willing to make to see this happen.

693
00:59:09,130 --> 00:59:12,650
That trick is to work that into a shallow part of the soil.

694
00:59:12,870 --> 00:59:15,630
I'm not really, you know, disturbed the deep part.

695
00:59:18,190 --> 00:59:21,830
And get it to a place where you can farm.

696
00:59:22,190 --> 00:59:23,950
You can do other activities like planter,

697
00:59:24,070 --> 00:59:25,350
whatever you're going to do the next step.

698
00:59:25,350 --> 00:59:27,850
So again, it's a five-year process.

699
00:59:28,430 --> 00:59:30,730
It's setting in, it's setting in Triticaley today.

700
00:59:32,270 --> 00:59:34,950
One of the things that happened because of that,

701
00:59:35,150 --> 00:59:38,070
the entire 120 acres is plunged to a cover crop.

702
00:59:39,090 --> 00:59:39,590
And that's great.

703
00:59:40,730 --> 00:59:43,330
The bad part is that we've now lost our ability

704
00:59:43,330 --> 00:59:45,910
to measure the effect of cover in the interaction

705
00:59:45,910 --> 00:59:48,130
of cover in that for this one season.

706
00:59:48,430 --> 00:59:49,230
But that's okay.

707
00:59:49,770 --> 00:59:50,350
That's normal.

708
00:59:50,390 --> 00:59:52,650
That'd be part of a normal farming practice.

709
00:59:52,650 --> 00:59:59,970
just like we would have, just like we made an adjustment this year, so hopefully that

710
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:29,880
Prop goes ahead and maturs is coming off as a seed crop next year. And you know, what goes in after that, there could be a cover crop planted of maybe a millet or another 4-age crop could be planted prior to this, prior to the sorghum that you saw, when we were getting ready to start this in 2018. That was a, that was a, of course, Mart Marti, partly field. And you remember in June 19th, of 2018, they got it.

711
01:00:29,880 --> 01:00:39,460
1,000 acres of crop land held out in the county that barley field was wiped out and what was left of it was taken off for silage and then there was a surrogum crop planted

712
01:00:39,460 --> 01:00:49,000
So the one thing we've done on this thing since its inception is we've been very close to the idea of having a living room to a living crop in the soil cover it all time

713
01:00:49,660 --> 01:00:54,180
But as close as we can get so what we what we do now

714
01:00:54,180 --> 01:00:59,480
We'll kind of partly be up to the tenant because we promised the sluggles when we did this

715
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:03,360
We we wanted to ask them if they would help us participate with this experiment

716
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:12,600
We promised them that we would try to make it as transparent to their operation as we could and they've been over backwards doing special things and

717
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:16,880
They turned rose different and did all kinds of stuff for us, but

718
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:23,760
You know what they have planned next year. I mean the year before it was in Barley it was it raised 40 tons sugarbeats

719
01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:33,960
Good sugar beet field. So where it heads, I mean it might get another shot at beats. One more, you might have one more go at beats at some point before those are gone.

720
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:51,760
It could go back to corn, it could go to barley again. I mean, I don't know exactly where we'll go, but we'll figure out a way in the next cycle to put in a control strips again that will allow us to measure the effect of cover and compost and the interaction between those two.

721
01:01:51,760 --> 01:02:03,840
So it's a five-year study and to sit down and say, well, you know, we know exactly what's going to kind of have to, you kind of have to adjust as you go.

722
01:02:08,100 --> 01:02:08,720
Thank you.

723
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:09,320
Thank you.

724
01:02:10,040 --> 01:02:10,960
Directors reports.

725
01:02:25,570 --> 01:02:26,590
Good evening, everybody.

726
01:02:27,550 --> 01:02:28,650
Happy new year.

727
01:02:30,110 --> 01:02:32,370
Just a few things that have happened in January.

728
01:02:33,630 --> 01:02:37,010
People know the Boulder Area Trails app is out.

729
01:02:37,010 --> 01:02:41,090
Right on, has anybody chance to use it?

730
01:02:41,970 --> 01:02:42,730
And?

731
01:02:44,370 --> 01:02:48,910
I'd much rather create my own maps and use them in events.

732
01:02:49,630 --> 01:02:53,970
There's just not enough information in the trails out of the

733
01:02:53,970 --> 01:02:59,010
about your elevation gain, and I did put these

734
01:02:59,010 --> 01:03:02,130
my comments in when it first came out.

735
01:03:02,130 --> 01:03:06,070
So, okay, but I'm not fond of that useful.

736
01:03:06,710 --> 01:03:06,870
All right.

737
01:03:07,190 --> 01:03:10,910
We'll look at those comments for Vrigen 2, too.

738
01:03:10,930 --> 01:03:13,190
I mean, I have to get first quick.

739
01:03:13,750 --> 01:03:16,890
I have to, you know, where to go, let's open.

740
01:03:17,830 --> 01:03:18,050
Mm-hmm.

741
01:03:20,610 --> 01:03:21,050
Okay.

742
01:03:21,430 --> 01:03:22,090
All right, so.

743
01:03:22,130 --> 01:03:22,370
Okay.

744
01:03:22,650 --> 01:03:22,910
All right, so.

745
01:03:22,910 --> 01:03:23,210
I don't know.

746
01:03:23,210 --> 01:03:26,800
I don't mind when you're going to contact that.

747
01:03:26,920 --> 01:03:27,280
Yeah.

748
01:03:27,540 --> 01:03:27,840
Okay.

749
01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:31,280
Well, I encourage the rest of you to take a crack out at some time

750
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:32,360
and give us your feedback.

751
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:35,080
So far, the feedback that we've gotten is largely positive.

752
01:03:35,460 --> 01:03:36,480
Thanks a lot, Trace.

753
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:37,940
You're bringing the average down.

754
01:03:38,660 --> 01:03:41,540
But I appreciate the substantive comment, so that's really great.

755
01:03:42,540 --> 01:03:45,180
It took a long time and a lot of work to get there.

756
01:03:45,180 --> 01:03:48,040
Who knew that creating an app with, you know,

757
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:52,860
it doesn't public agencies could be so difficult, but we got there.

758
01:03:53,060 --> 01:03:54,280
So we're happy with that.

759
01:03:55,100 --> 01:03:56,900
Happening at High Valley Ranch.

760
01:03:57,080 --> 01:04:00,040
We have a big forestry project that's up and running.

761
01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:09,080
It's about a million dollars, most of it is all grant funding, and they've started the work already.

762
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:15,740
It will be like the Potasso project, which will require a helicopter to pull out the logs given the steepness of the slopes.

763
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:21,100
So there'll be some trail-crop closures at the hyle when the helicopter is operating.

764
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:28,420
Right now, we're looking at early in the February, and that could last four to eight weeks, depending on weather conditions on the ground.

765
01:04:28,420 --> 01:04:31,640
So far, it's been a pretty dry winter, at least of late.

766
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:35,780
So a lot of our field operations are moving at rapid pace.

767
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:40,200
If it continues, same thing, we get a lot of weather, good slow things down.

768
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:48,660
Point of interest, I think Deborah Price has given a presentation before to you on the work

769
01:04:48,660 --> 01:04:53,980
she's done with local school done dark skies. And she actually just gave her presentation last

770
01:04:53,980 --> 01:05:01,280
Friday night, I think, in birth, but we've installed a sky quality meter at Walker Ranch

771
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:01,940
Homestead.

772
01:05:02,380 --> 01:05:07,720
It's by the National Park Service Natural Sounds and Night Skyest Division, and that meter

773
01:05:07,720 --> 01:05:11,860
is going to continuously collect data throughout the spring into the summer measuring light

774
01:05:11,860 --> 01:05:16,640
pollution and reflection from the light off the clouds from the city.

775
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:20,560
And if you have more questions, Deborah Price is the one to reach out to.

776
01:05:21,260 --> 01:05:25,380
You're probably aware that we held our annual Prairie Dog stakeholder meeting a couple of weeks ago.

777
01:05:25,460 --> 01:05:38,600
There were over 70 people who attended, and this year we invited the Birds of Prairie Foundation to come and give a presentation on how they use the Prairie Dogs that we donate to them and they brought a live red tail hawk, which always makes a meeting better.

778
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:41,200
We can probably ring that for you if you like.

779
01:05:42,860 --> 01:05:49,180
And then I wanted to remind you, until the end of this month, we're accepting nominations for the Land Conservation Awards.

780
01:05:50,060 --> 01:05:54,720
Categories are land conservation, environmental stewardship, and historic preservation.

781
01:05:55,260 --> 01:05:58,800
You've all gotten a stuff on the email, hopefully the brains have been churning.

782
01:05:59,220 --> 01:06:00,120
Kind of last call.

783
01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:02,320
We haven't told the end of the month to accept those.

784
01:06:02,740 --> 01:06:07,600
And then we will be presenting the awards on April 21st at our park building.

785
01:06:08,060 --> 01:06:12,180
If you haven't been, it's one of the best events of the year.

786
01:06:12,260 --> 01:06:16,540
There's nothing better than honoring people who've made a real contribution to the community

787
01:06:16,540 --> 01:06:18,160
in a lot of different categories.

788
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:27,320
So I invite you to that and then last I just want to let you know we're working on a draft for the agenda for your annual February retreat

789
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:38,420
And I think we'll probably have emailed to you with topics in high level times lots next week so you can see what we're packaging up based on the feedback and suggestions that you provided to us.

790
01:06:38,520 --> 01:06:40,400
We're just kind of organizing it at the staff level.

791
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:43,360
So that's what I've got. What do you got?

792
01:06:49,190 --> 01:06:55,910
Well, Sue Anderson, for my usual request, any updates on the Madag and DMO transition project?

793
01:06:56,550 --> 01:07:06,650
Oh sure, no thanks for asking. So our goal in the fall and early winter was to work with all

794
01:07:06,650 --> 01:07:14,570
the farmers who are affected by the GE transition to work with Madag to develop an initial

795
01:07:14,570 --> 01:07:21,910
farm vision and determine if taking the essentially the two-year extension on GE

796
01:07:21,910 --> 01:07:27,420
corn as a mechanism to transition and partnership with us and and supplied by

797
01:07:28,170 --> 01:07:29,970
technical support for MATA.

798
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:41,080
Ag was acceptable. All of the producers would be exception of two. One of whom is John Slegal, who's retiring from farming.

799
01:07:41,980 --> 01:07:51,740
And the other is doing Kishman, who does way more grazing and hasn't really done a lot in the way of corn and hasn't been a sugar reducer.

800
01:07:52,660 --> 01:08:06,760
All the other producers have signed on to Alisa Denham that gives them that extension and commits them to the process that we outlined through the Board of County Commissioners.

801
01:08:07,420 --> 01:08:20,840
So now actually the board and I just met with Phil and Tanner from Attack today to kind of catch up for the new year and start plotting out what's happening in 2020 and I think things are in a good place where

802
01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:34,500
Some of the initial workshops which are which bring in an outside expert to talk about a particular aspect that would be of interest to many of them to think about how to improve their operations or new things that could be done.

803
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:36,780
Those are starting up starting next week.

804
01:08:38,900 --> 01:08:44,780
There's a lot to do to sort of put the finishing touches on sort of mapping out

805
01:08:47,080 --> 01:08:52,240
experimental plots for people who are doing things like beans, or non-G, E-Corn, et cetera.

806
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:58,300
So there's a lot kind of up and running during the quiet months to be prepared for 2020.

807
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:00,120
So it feels like it's in a good place.

808
01:09:07,050 --> 01:09:07,410
Kind of.

809
01:09:07,650 --> 01:09:08,090
Thank you.

810
01:09:09,690 --> 01:09:09,890
Hi.

811
01:09:09,890 --> 01:09:10,530
I

812
01:09:13,440 --> 01:09:17,320
could just, no, it's fine. It's going to be adjourned.

813
01:09:19,320 --> 01:09:21,720
I want to make sure we recognize Vanessa.

814
01:09:23,420 --> 01:09:26,300
And she's basically irreplaceable.

815
01:09:26,700 --> 01:09:29,480
But we're still going to get to work with the conservation districts.

816
01:09:30,340 --> 01:09:33,050
And so, you may know that when you leave parks,

817
01:09:33,740 --> 01:09:34,960
you get to select a photograph.

818
01:09:35,740 --> 01:09:39,060
And this was the photograph that Vanessa selected

819
01:09:39,060 --> 01:09:43,760
and all of the parks and open space, staff, sign the back of it.

820
01:09:44,280 --> 01:09:46,320
So Vanessa, here's your photograph.

821
01:09:47,340 --> 01:09:51,300
Thank you for four plus years of very, very good education.