Livestock Wala'au

Ep. 7 - Natural Resource Conservation Service and Grazing Land Management

• Melelani Oshiro & Shannon Sand • Season 1 • Episode 7

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In this episode we will be talking with Carolyn Wong Auweloa who is the State Grazing Lands Management Specialist with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Kamuela. She will be sharing about some of the programs NRCS offers and tips for proper grazing land management.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us at walaau@hawaii.edu

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https://cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/forestry/Forestry-Agroforestry-Trees/Leucaena-leucocephala

Shannon Sand:

Today's episode is brought to you by the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and the livestock extension group.

Melelani Oshiro:

Aloha welcome everyone to the livestock Walaau podcast Inc to provide educational support information, guidance and outreach to livestock stakeholders in Hawaii. We are your hosts Mele Oshiro and Shannon Sand today we'll be talking about managing your grazing lands. To do that, we're

Shannon Sand:

going to introduce you to Carolyn Wong, who is the state Grazing Lands Management Specialist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, for short, income whaler.

Melelani Oshiro:

So I first met Carolyn during my undergrad studies over at u h. Hilo, or maybe through some mutual friends, I can't really remember for sure which came first. But fast forward to many years later. And our paths crossed again. While I was working as a research assistant for project with you, H CTAHR. And I was sent out to go meet with Carolyn. I was like, whoa. And they're just the same Carolyn that I know. And sure enough, we both walked in and went Oh, it is depressing. I know. So you know. And since then, we've kind of continued to work alongside in many different capacities and projects. And I'm going to hand it over to Carolyn so she can share with us more about a little bit about her background and her programs and what she does with the NRCS Yeah, so excited.

Unknown:

Hey, ladies. Yes. Thanks for having me on your show today. And mele. It has been a long but wonderful journey with you different times. Always been a pleasure to work with you. And I'm so grateful we can continue to do that. It is funny, isn't it? How we started out? Many, many, many years ago. That was a lot of many, how many? It seems like forever ago now? Yeah. I came from the hyena. I don't wanna graduate. And hi, Luna has an ag program. I'll be really honest, I was in that program for all the wrong reasons. But anyway, I got through high school and decided to continue to pursue this elusive idea of maybe studying agriculture and getting a job. I actually came across an old scholarship essay where I said in that essay that I wanted to get in a career that involves land management, and I had no idea at the time, what NRCS even was, I had no idea what this agency was or did. And it was while I was a student at uhg low that I learned about NRCS. My professor I was working for at the time. Dr. Randy cineq, he encouraged me to consider applying for an internship that I had heard was being advertised. So I was I pursued my Bachelor of Science at USC law, I got my degree in agro ecology and environmental science. And it was a great degree path. It basically focused on that area where agriculture and the environment kind of overlap. And it's a perfect degree path for the work that natural resource conservation services do. I got that internship and I trained for two summers as a student. And upon graduation, they offered me a full time permanent position here in Waimea. My first position with the agency, I was a soil conservationist. So as a soil conservationist, I did conservation planning work with farmers and ranchers, foresters, just folks that are doing different things on their land, mostly geared around agriculture or, or natural resource management for like native, endangered species and whatnot. I was a conservation planner in the white male office for about 13 years there. And during that time, I worked with many farmers and ranchers and we would basically, as a conservation planner, we come alongside folks and help them in what they're trying to do and help them to do it in the most beneficial way possible for them and the environment. And so we strive to help them identify ways to improve, enhance or preserve their land. Our model used to be helping people help the land, and that really sums it up really, really well. Natural Resource Conservation Service is a agency in the US Department of Agriculture. So we're a federal agency. We provide service to land managers free of charge. They don't pay a dime for the services that we provide. We are funded by taxpayer money. We are federal so we are all across the country, including the American tax towards the Pacific Islands area area that I work for. We encompass Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, sigh pan and the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands, as well as we have two staff positions in Pompeii and Palau. In 2016, after about 13 years as a planner in the field office, I was able to apply for the position of the state range land or grazing land management specialist. I just finished my master's degree with Utah State University about a year before. And by that time in my career, I had worked a lot with ranching. And I was very, very interested, I had gotten very, very interested in the ecology of grazing lands. And a few years before I decided to pursue my master's degree, I did most of it through distance programs, that I was really grateful if at the time, it wasn't very common. Utah State University was very, very supportive and flexible. And I had a great major professor who worked with me, I was able to work with Mark Thorne and mele, and they helped me to get my research project done. And got that written up for my thesis. My thesis focused on fire weed and the problems that it creates in Hawaii. And we were exploring whether we could find complementarities to the toxin in fire weed, whether we could provide a complimentary secondary compound that would effectively protect cattle from the ill effects the fire we pauses, and see if we couldn't use cattle was more of a control for fire week. Yeah, it was a very interesting study. Very interesting experience. And it, it was just part of my path. So since 2016, I have been in this new role of what we call a technical specialist. So as the grazing land management specialists, I am responsible for conservation program in Hawaii, or in the Pacific Islands area on grazing lands, more or less me and my team. But the development of tools and practice tests, technical specifications, providing training to the field staff, all of that falls on to my purview. I am also involved in the development of ecological site descriptions with our soil survey office. So ecological site descriptions are similar to our soils, survey maps. They're kind of similar in that sense, where we're trying to classify and categorize the different ecological types across the islands. very daunting task,

Shannon Sand:

especially different like species, and just everything here.

Unknown:

climate zones. Yeah, it's very, very complex. So lots of lots of work to do always. I'm always I'm gonna

Melelani Oshiro:

throw a question at you. I mean, I think have a lot of questions. And I tend to pick Carolyn's brain about a lot of things. And we do about all kinds of different things. But I think, you know, natural resource management when Sharon and I were talking, it's, it's tough because nature is nature as a mind of its own. And, you know, I mean, we see that already, you know, in many different areas right now dealing with the drought and all this stuff in our in our state and across the across the nation. Right. Yeah. So I guess, can you share something in your planning, when you in your planning days, maybe some of the common challenges that you found that ranchers or producers deal with here? And as far as like in pasture and grazing management, and how you worked around? Or how did they resolve some of those issues or big challenges? I guess the common challenges you can see across everyone?

Unknown:

Sure, sure. Oh, man. Um, for sure. The the biggest one, or some of the ones that you guys mentioned, especially affecting ranchers is drought, wildfire, those are the two biggest ones that affected the folks that I worked with the most invasive species would be another one. And so, you know, across the board with all everyone that we work with, we are obviously we're working to address the real obvious or specific natural resource concerns that there might be maybe it's inadequate water situation for, you know, livestock, or maybe it was a solar erosion problem. But along with that, and kind of always in the background is a lot of discussions about sustainability and resilience, and how can we help? How can we work together to make their land as healthy and as strong as we can and resilient as we can, so that they can, they can withstand these different natural resource challenges when they come because they will come when we can, but when we can do what we can to work together to make sure that the plant community in the past Sure, is diverse and healthy and thriving and vigorous. When we can we working together, make sure that the soils are healthy and strong. And we've got really good environment for for supporting that plant community, that we can make sure that the hydrologic function of that landscape because everything is part of a watershed, right, when we can be sure that even our grazing lands are well equipped to provide the function of water infiltration and filtering, in order to absorb as much water that can be absorbed when it falls, and take it deep into the soil profile, those types of things are in all of our conversations, or they should be with with ranchers. And so I'd say, in dealing with with Mother Nature, we just want to try to work together to make that land as strong and resilient as possible. And really work with the producers to to add wherever we can some perspective on maybe some, some some, some new level of understanding of ecology, because in Hawaii, particularly just about all of our grazing lands are managed, like range land, they're managed with the ecology of we don't we have very little land that's irrigated, very little land that's fertilized or seeded on a regular basis, like is common in the mainland when you talk about Crashers. Yeah, we're in this kind of weird, funky space because I want you doesn't have any real well, it's not considered to have had native rangelands because we didn't have any native grazing animals, aside from the birds. Right, right.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, you talk about soil health, too. And I think that's another good or important part, right? Because I think that's essentially what keeps everything productive as well. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because a lot of folks come in and ask, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna test my soils and whatnot. I'm like, Well, you have grass grazing, you have grass growing, they're like, yeah, like, so? Yeah. So how, how can you maybe I guess, before they start to dive into really doing sport, soil quality stuff, what should they be looking for in their general lives, pastures, to understand, you know, and make it more productive for them to not have to sample a whole entire pasture, but look at those areas, you know, what kind of key things are they looking for in those areas? If they're managing to ensure it's healthy? I guess?

Unknown:

That's a good question. So we're soil testing is involved is mostly looking at like the soil fertility. And I'm very Paki. So I take it from that practical perspective of if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right. So unless, unless you're having like, very, unless you're having problems on the pasture, that you think could be related to soil fertility, like your grasses are just real pale and yellowish. Or you seeing other signs that there could be some kind of a micronutrient deficiency like purplish leaves, or, you know, other things that could be suggestive that there's a problem. Most of the time, especially our pastures that have been in pasture for a really long time. They're, they're usually already populated with plants that are adapted to that environment. And unless there's a problem with production, we usually don't even pursue that soil fertility question. We're looking more for soil health, from the aspect of not having any soil erosion, having good aggregate structure that supports good water infiltration, having diverse plants that have different routing depths, having a ecosystem that supports even healthy insect populations, things like that, is kind of where we focus more of our soil health work on pasture or in grazing lands, making sure it's covered, not disturbed, that diverse roots and good good growing plants, you know, pretty much all the time, right in our native environment. We didn't have any grazing animals, right. But we did have a lots of around birds that consume things at the ground level. We don't know very much about them, per se, but it's not in it's not impossible that they utilize some of the native grasses that we do have as well as some of the other native forbs and little growing shrubs and whatnot. So obviously, forest birds, but

Melelani Oshiro:

you never know whether your audience nowadays through your planning programs that you have it in RCS, the other programs that farmers and ranchers can get support from their existing operations. Do you can you share more about some of those programs that you folks offer through NRCS?

Unknown:

Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah. So our conservation Technical Assistance Program is that planning program that just just provides technical assistance, assistance, technical advice, it's free. It's available to whoever comes in ask for it. But we do also administer Farm Bill programs. The Farm Bill programs can sometimes provide financial assistance Since to help a producer implement solutions on their land to address natural resource problems, so for example, a rancher has a problem with a really bad invasive species, like the two lines, but above, and it's causing all kinds of issues. And those issues are also bad for the environment. Sometimes, we have programs, one of them, for example, is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program that can come alongside them. And from the technical assistance they got, we've developed a conservation plan. Sometimes the program can come alongside and say, Okay, for the practices in your plan, this program can help offset some of the costs that it's going to take to adopt some of those and implement some of those practices. So practices are things like fence or brush management, or pasture and hay planting pipelines, stuff like that.

Shannon Sand:

So that's the equip program, right? Correct. Okay, I was like, I've never heard anyone actually say all the acronyms out loud. And I was like, oh, dance for it. It's like,

Unknown:

yes, that's the equip program. And I try not to talk in acronyms. But there. Appreciate you

Shannon Sand:

not doing that. That was a discussion we had the other day. I was like,

Unknown:

oh, yeah, confusing. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. So to be eligible for equip, basically, a producer just needs to come and express interest in the program, that field office will really be the first step for them to determine their eligibility. But in general, some of the general environmental eligibility requirements are, they have to have control of the land. So they either have to own it or have a lease on it. And the lease has to be long enough to allow them to implement the plan. They have to have their records updated with the Farm Service Agency, from service agencies, our sister agency, and they were established them in the USDA system and get a bunch of their paperwork squared away. They have to be compliant with the highly erodible land wetland conservation compliance rules they have, and the field office can help them determine whether they are and they're not, they have to meet the AGI limitations. So AGI stands for adjusted gross income. And what that is seeking to do is you can only you're only eligible if your average adjusted gross income over the last three years, is 900,000 or less, unless it's all coming from agriculture. So that's to help, you know, make sure we're not giving the money, the movie stars or you know,

Shannon Sand:

money, athletes much money. And

Unknown:

you'd be surprised how many of the people that come in apply. But we try to make sure that funding is going to folks that is intended for really mean to help to implement the practices. And so 900,000 or less, unless majority of that comes from agriculture, like if somebody's making good money, because they're just big and they're successful farm. That's okay. I believe they need to double check with the field office. But the last

Shannon Sand:

one is also sometimes that's like, you might have hit a part in the like egg cycle where it's really high for those three or four years. So I was like, because I know when I worked, not here on the mainland, in extension, I was like, there were a few years when I was working in the teens, and I was like corn and soybeans people were making bank but now not not. Yeah, she knows. Yeah.

Unknown:

The cattle, the cattle market similarly went yeah, yeah. Crazy high. Like, what was it? 2014 2015? Yeah,

Shannon Sand:

I think even like that. I was like, it was like, oh, because I had a lot of papers on like, purchasing like bred heifers versus like, unread and like long term returns. And I was like, it was amazing. It was completely different than what it would be now. So yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, so that's the equip program. So have control of land be eligible as far as Farm Service Agency and AGI requirements are specific specified, and then have a natural resource problem that the program can help you with, because that's the purpose of that program is to solve these problems. Somebody already has all their problems all kind of figured out, they can still come and approach our offices because we have other programs, one of the Conservation Stewardship Program, and that program is for folks that kind of already have most of their issues all buttoned up. And they're they don't really have any more problems per se, but they might be interested in talking story about if there were a little bit more they could do to kind of, you know, take it to the next level, you know, even healthier, even better. So the Conservation Stewardship Program seeks to provide incentives for that type of activity. So pretty much anybody that's that's doing AG, you know, can can provide can probably get some kind of benefit from working with their local conservationist. Yeah,

Shannon Sand:

if for no other reason than to create your own Land, I was like, I would think it would help. And also just establishing yourself within. I know a lot of people don't like to establish themselves within the federal government or kind of get on that radar. But that's really one of the best ways to get funding to be honest. So at least again, in my experience, I don't know about mele or Carolyn, but yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, for sure. And Farm Service Agency, they often have some programs that can be helpful when you need it, you know, especially right, right now, with all the disasters that are affecting,

Shannon Sand:

I was gonna say, over the last year and a half, they've had some really nice ones, if you were lucky to hop on it and stuff. I was like, yeah,

Melelani Oshiro:

yeah. The the services and programs that they provide, it's good. It's good to get on the list and just have that communication with them. Yeah. So is there any specific you know, Shana, and I were talking about, we have little mini episodes that we do. And we're talking about record keeping? Sorry, are there specific records that would be really important for these programs for people to be keeping. So if they do start to think about it, when apply or wanting, Is there specific records they should be keeping as far as their production numbers or yield? Yeah, things like that, that they need to be aware of,

Unknown:

um, you know, when when they have their economic data, it's sure helpful, because one of the things that we try to do through the conservation planning process is help them consider like, do like a cost benefit analysis of Option A or Option B, or Option C. But if they don't have that kind of information, it presents a challenge, most of them have a good idea. And we're not trying to get all up in their business and know all their numbers. But I don't even really need to know necessarily what they're what the actual dollars and cents ended up being at the end. But more of the numbers as far as like, Well, what did your calf crop look like? Know what percentage of your herd is actually productive? Because a lot of times for us, it's we're getting down to talking about their grazing management. And the grazing management is going to be linked to their herd size, and the productivity of that heard, and are their nutritional needs being met in a way that is optimal for what they're trying to produce? You know? Or if they're grass finishing? Then again, okay, why are you hitting your goals? Are you keeping track to know if you're hitting your goals, they usually have a good idea of what a lot of those types of numbers are, like, it sure is nice when they have it specifically. So we're not just guessing. That other record keeping that we encourage our through through our grazing management practice, in particular, is keeping records of their grazing rotations in numbers. I'm keeping records of their rainfall, and knowing what their normal rainfall is like for their environment, because we do have so much variability. And especially on the Big Island, we are don't always have the best coverage of weather stations and climate

Shannon Sand:

stations so well. And it's hard because we have a loved one of the world's 13 sub climates here. So it's you have to have a lot of them just to keep track of them. And even within those little pockets. Yes. A lot of difference, you know? Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown:

Absolutely. Yeah. It changes very quickly over a very short distance. So yeah, those are some of the basic ones. If we're working with farmers, then we're wanting to, you know, if they have records, obviously, on their nutrient applications or their pesticide, if they use any pesticides, how they're used, what they're using, when there's There's definitely lots of other types of records that are more specific to different types of land use.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, and I know we're the livestock Wala'au Talking to Carolyn, and we always talk about livestock, but these NRCS programs are now available, not just for livestock, they're open to farmers and production in any kind of other crops. Yeah.

Shannon Sand:

Veggies. Yep. I don't know why I just want to say veggies. Right. And I was like, I know like, because I know some people in that because I work across all commodities. I was like several people in like, the coffee industry and stuff have taken advantage of working with people from NRCS to help them like Yeah,

Unknown:

yeah, we do our best to help everybody no matter what they're doing, to do what they're trying to do and you know, help the environment in wherever possible. So we work with a lot of orchards. in Hilo, we work with a lot of truck farmers and ranchers and up here in Waimea, we, I mean, we've in service like taro farmers in YPO. You know, we've been trying to see what we can do to help them and all the above all the above.

Melelani Oshiro:

That's amazing. Yeah. And talking about records, you know, animal performance stuff, I think is very important because that really starts to show you how your LAN is working for you and being productive for you. Because if your animals are producing and performing well then that's really a reflection of your management strategy. Using your grazing, as well as your production in your area. So, um,

Unknown:

yeah, a lot of our clients or the folks that we service a lot of them are weekend, ranchers, weekend warriors, you know, agriculture being what it is today and the land especially. Yeah, just a guy you can

Shannon Sand:

get into here is very, very high. So, right, family long term minutes.

Unknown:

So a lot of our ranches are on the smaller end. And so for those folks, it's, it can be difficult to treat your treat your operation as a hardcore business. But we do try to help them in, you know, do keep track enough of the numbers enough so that they can make good decisions, particularly when they're considering something that's going to cost them a considerable investment, you know, and being able to really do a good job weighing the cost benefit. That's, that's ultimately the goal. We don't want anyone to regret a decision, because they didn't have, you know, all of the all the cards on the table, so to speak, when making that decision.

Melelani Oshiro:

So it sounds like some of the producers can use a lot of these programs to help them manage risk and whatnot to on their properties or in the herds or whatnot that they're doing. So how, how would you say that these programs could help them in that sense and managing risks within their production?

Unknown:

Um, that's a great question. For managing risk, I think mostly, our programs can benefit them, it kind of comes back to that subject of resiliency, and having your landscapes be as strong and resilient as possible, as well as as efficient, keeping their their system as efficient as they can, in order to try to be cost efficient in a way that helps them better Buffett, ups and downs of, you know, the things that can affect their economics. So I think that's kind of probably the best ways that that our, our programs can help them manage risk. And if they can get into CSP, you know, that provides an annual payment for them to keep doing a good job, which, again, kind of provides a little bit of a buffer. It's not a whole ton of money, but it's a little something that can help better than nothing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And if they put that back into, you know, investments to improve their land or their operation in whatever ways that they need, it will help them in the long run, I think it'd be better insulated risk,

Melelani Oshiro:

right? Yeah, for sure. So you must be I mean, I can keep throwing questions at Carolyn, but maybe you can share with us some of the what are some instances, you know, you probably you helped so many different people on finding different things. But I'm sure there's stuff that probably stuck out to you, or how to, you know, big impact in your position, or just your work, you know, I mean, when you go out there and help somebody, it just, it just feels good to be able to go out there. So you want to share maybe on one of your impactful stuff, summaries. I'm gonna put you on a spot.

Unknown:

That's hard. Um,

Melelani Oshiro:

right. I know, because you probably worked at so many in so many cities, but I think, you know, I mean, yeah, you you can wash them all together.

Unknown:

Um, you know, one of my, one of my, one of the bright spots for me in my career, and there's so many really, I got to help a ranch put in a very large reservoir that had been a dream of the rancher for a really long time. We got to help put together the technical information as as well as help offset some of the cost to put in a big, really big water storage system. And I just thought, you know, water, you know, even culturally, it was a had a connotation of wealthy advised by wealthy and water makes so much possible. And for this instance, it really did, it made a lot of things possible. It made the ranch more water secure, and less prone to water shortages and drought. And it also provided, you know, new opportunities for them to to explore other things like like irrigation and stuff. And so that was a that was a huge one. I worked with another ranch that had been operating on this landscape for a really long time and had a hard time making change. But we, he he didn't really have a lot in the way of a rotation. And it was difficult to convince him of the benefit of adopting a rotational grazing system. Because he didn't. He didn't necessarily think that it he said the pain much. But one of the things that was really cool by going through the process and walking with Him through helping him see on his landscape, what constant grazing was doing, it was, you know, we, we thought he didn't even have any more kikuyu grass, because he couldn't, you couldn't find it anywhere. It looked like all carpet grass. And we also I asked him to share his numbers with me, and it was difficult to get that information. But once we finally did, we realized his calf crop was actually really poor. It was just barely better than 50%, which, you know, for the industry. That's, that's not, that's nowhere near acceptable. You're aiming for 80% or better. And so by helping him identify these things, and walk him through, and help him see the cost benefit, because with every cow that was on his land, it was costing him money, he had to pay money for the water was very expensive. He had to and then of course, for all of the vaccinations and health supplements that the cows did get when they came in once a year. It was costing him all this money, and he was getting very little return back. So when I was able to help him walk down that road, and give them a safe space in which to walk down that road and just assess the situation from just the practical realities of what it's costing and what he was actually getting. I could help him see how actually bringing his herd size down. And destocking because he would always tell me, you kind of tell me I gotta get rid of cows. I need every single cow on this

Shannon Sand:

ranch or thing, doesn't it?

Unknown:

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. But if that call is up paying her rent, and she's not doing you any good. And so when we put the numbers together, say okay, I mean, it was real rough pine like this pen and paper numbers, like, approximately, what are we doing here? What does it cost and just just running those basic numbers running that little analysis, I saw a light bulb going for him. And he realized, all these non productive cows are the reason I'm not profitable. And he immediately, I didn't after that, I just had to get out of the way. Because he immediately started making decisions to get those animals out of and his resources on the animals that were productive. And then he also was willing to listen to me about getting some cross fences in and training these cows to get into a rotation. And you know, his pastures rebounded so beautifully. I mean, to see the response on the land afterwards, it was just an extra, you know, was gravy. I mean, we found kikuyu grass, where we thought we hadn't had it anymore. And then now I got to work with him on Alright, let's let's nurse this land back to health and build its resilience. And I believe he's still pretty happy with the system that we put together. And I haven't been able to work with him for some time now. But I know he continues to work with our planners. And, you know, it's kind of on to the next thing. And the next thing because you're that far, you feel that far underwater. It's very, very hard to even begin thinking about building alone Fiat, right? To help him get his head above water first to be able to get to that place and then become stronger and stronger. And now he's he's tackling other issues is really, really gratifying. That's awesome.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, sometimes you just have to really paint the picture for them, yeah, to be able to see and it does it take, sometimes it takes an outside person to kind of paint it for you to be able to show you those things that are hurting you in the long run. But

Unknown:

absolutely, sometimes you're just too close to it. And having that outside perspective is really, really valuable. But you know, after spending as much time in his career as I have, I've really, really come to realize and understand and appreciate just how important relationships are, you know, rancher doesn't want to talk to you and share these kinds of details and really make themselves vulnerable in this way. Unless they feel like they can trust you. And that's so, so important. And so, you know, I felt good that I had finally gotten to a place where we could have that conversation. And you could realize, like, I'm not trying to be critical of you. I'm, you know, I'm wanting to help you. And we can just get through these difficult conversations, we might get to a place where okay, what can help what what does helping you look like, you know, what is it that needs to happen and, and get to a place where we could agree on those things and understand why, why that was important. That all takes time. You know, that development of that relationship and the time to put together that type of an assessment, but it's so worthy. It's so worth it. And I don't know how we can get there without making those investments.

Melelani Oshiro:

It's very, it is very gratifying as you say, when you can see those changes and help it, you know, turn something around for somebody and have a positive impact in their production and whatnot. So

Unknown:

I guess with that talent, anything else would you like to share? You know, you need to do all these lead EKG programs. I remember coming out whatnot. Is there any programs on the horizon for NRCS? I mean, I know it's hard because everything's really kind of, you know, it's hard. You want to plan something, but then it might just get shut down if you plan it. You know, that feels like no, we Yeah. Yeah, for sure. We have so many plans that COVID has had to put on the backburner. But we are, we have been doing outreach with the GLC doing some rainfall simulator, demonstrations, those are really fun. We went around the island a couple of years ago, and we did it. And I think you know, it'd be really fun to do again, I'm trying to get it to the other islands, we did take it to the Hawaii was really well received there. And it's just really, it really makes a difference when people can see soil. And

Shannon Sand:

well, yeah, can you see samples and the differences like because I've seen it not not here, but like on the mainland. And it's amazing to see like, they'll pull it from like even the same field, but different spots that are better or less well taken care of, and with the cows dropping on it, and like them doing it, but it's amazing to see

Unknown:

it is and it it sends that message home more effectively than any PowerPoint or any presentation or talk ever can. And so it's it's always a real delight for me to take that around. And because everybody can can get something from it too from, you know, the five year olds in the family to the grandpa's and everybody in between. It often leads to so many fun questions and conversations. And that just opens the door for again, talking about these what the healthy landscapes look like, and what are the different things that are affecting that landscapes health and its function. So yeah, as soon as COVID will allow, we want to do more of those, we definitely would love to work together with some partners to look for grazing, you know, workshop type things that we can help to sponsor or help to coordinate. Yeah, yeah, we've done stuff in the past with low stress, animal handling lots of different grazing management types of projects. Looking even at the carbon cycle, and carbon sequestration on grazing lands, we've we've brought in speakers that kind of covered the gamut. And we'd love to continue to do that. We've also brought in guys that talk about economics, ranching, the Prophet was out here a few times. And so yeah, all that stuff, it's all connected, you know, it really is all connected to, to the management. And there's those little pieces that connect them all. When you can improve or enhance one part of it, it just helps the whole thing to float a little better. Right? Yeah, we're also working in trying to build some relationships during COVID. With some of our other partners that maybe we haven't worked too closely with before. University has a wildlife lab, I think they call themselves. And so getting into that conversation of those conversations around non native wildlife and the impacts that they have on landscapes, particularly when their numbers get out of control. And or when landscapes get impacted by drought. You know, that's been a very, very hot topic, Mali County for last couple years. And it's gaining momentum here, because you've got very, very large herds that are growing in some areas and having very severe impacts in some areas. And then I hear from ranchers that other areas are really low their numbers and you know, whether that's from some type of eradication effort that had been implemented at some time, or, or over over utilization of the resource, I'm not really clear, but we want to be part of those, we want to be a part of those conversations, because I think some of the tools that we use for assessing landscape health can be really useful for incorporating into wildlife management planning, because ultimately, our landscape has a carrying capacity, that that it's that it has right now. And when we're stocked heavier than that, whether it's domestic livestock or non native wildlife, we are affecting that land, and not in good ways. And so, you know, we try to get into those conversations more and more. It's a little bit of a dicey area. As you can imagine, there's some controversial things in there, but we're focused on the health of the land and the health of the resources, and it's all connected. Whatever is happening on the land is affecting the ocean. And so you know, as much as we can and make those connections and see where, where we as humans in this ecosystem can be responsible for our kuleana. And taking care of things because we are the predator. In this case, there are no other natural predators that keep these in check. We are the management, we are the ones with, you know, the motto and understanding to try and be wise about what we're allowing to happen. I spend a lot of time thinking about that lately, you know, no action is actually a choice. And we are paying dearly, in a lot of ways for no action decisions. So there's that two lines, middleburgh COVID, doesn't really stop us too much from some of the work that we're trying to do there. That's good trying to work alongside Mark and his team, and really try to answer so many other questions that really fall into our, our, our realm of trying to figure out solutions to the problems that are being created by the two lines, but above, mostly solutions. They're involving planting resistant species. So we've got a bunch of different field planting projects that we're working on gathering data, trying different methods, trying to figure out what can work and that is scalable. And so we've we're halfway through many, many projects, and just starting to get some really cool results. And now trying to see what what is those are repeatable? And what can we then say, All right, we have a strategy that can work for these situations. And then, you know, continue pursuing solutions for those strategies that, you know, we're still lacking. We have a prototype that we just just put together for a light trap, that we are trying to see if we can develop a low cost, simple light trap that can be used to confirm low level Spielberg, when spilborghs first get on the landscape, it can be very hard to find when they first arrive. But light traps can be very effective, because they're attracted to that light that we might be able to know earlier, before the grass all starts to die. And before the weeds will start to take over that little book has arrived, and then be in a better position to start monitoring and being ready to respond to the problems that Spielberg usually brings with it. We just put together a new website on Spielberg, it's www.tl, SB hawaii.com. And on that website, several partners were involved in putting it together. But there's pretty much almost all the information that we have on the spittle bug. It you know, in a nutshell, I mean, we try not to make it too long and boring. But there are lots of links to additional resources, information on the bug itself on what producers can do. And as we learn more, and we get better information on what what can be done, will we try to use that as another communication platform to get that information out to people? Yeah, that is awesome. I saw the website and thanks for inviting me out to go and see some of the plantings that you guys did, because that's, it was very impressive. You know, we were seeing good to see, just to see, right that there's it does provide some hope, I think for people to be able to know that there's going to be something that we'll be able to try to replace some of the grasses that have been displaced due to this little bug. So it's good, very, very good. Yeah, yeah, that day was very awesome. It's nice to, for us to to know, like, Okay, we know that this can actually work and we know what the planting rate needs to be in order to get to this Iron Mountain. You know, all of that kind of information, because Kona is so unique. It's so unique. You can't take solutions that work in the Midwest, or even in the western rangelands and be like, Oh, here's all you got to do. Yeah, like, actually, when you got this, oh, their

Melelani Oshiro:

work, you can't even take things at work and on Hamakua or

Shannon Sand:

another part of the same island, so Yeah,

Unknown:

true. Good point. That's exactly right.

Melelani Oshiro:

Kona is just, you know, the the environment, they're just sometimes its own little creature, I think. And you got to kind of treat it that way. And you know, so that's good.

Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah, I must have thought I was getting bored or something. Because here he went and slapped me up with a huge challenge. All of us, you know, I mean, I'm not the only one trying to find solutions. But I was like, wow, didn't see this coming. And never in my wildest dreams that I imagined that we'd see. A new invasive species that is having the kind of impact that this little bug is having. Exactly. Going It's just quite Yeah, definitely job security for a long time because the cards are still falling,

Melelani Oshiro:

you know? Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, we unfortunately, it's not something that definitely is gonna go away in the next few years or no, you know, but hopefully we'll have some type of management strategies for them or just, you know, the alternative forages that we can use and stuff. And so that's where we're going to

Unknown:

be one silver lining that Spielberg has provided a couple of them. Number one, I get to work with ranchers, again, which has been fantastic with my field offices, but you know, putting our heads together, being on the two lines, but about subcommittee, you know, we've got some ranchers on there. And we've, we've been able to brainstorm, and that's where a lot of these ideas are coming together, you know, is as we kind of do this together. So getting to work with them, again, has been fantastic, and spotted me in the field a lot. And I'm so grateful for that. But also, the greater appreciation for biodiversity. Because equal you grass is such a monoculture, because it's so aggressive. It kind of makes it so vulnerable in that say in that way. But now, you know, we really get a huge appreciation for just why biodiversity is important. It's not easy to get when you have healthy kikuyu grass pasture, it is not easy to get. But I have had the pleasure of working with some pretty awesome grazing managers that have managed to have some diversity in there. And you know what, what you can mix in with the choreographs really depends on where you are. But there's almost always something that you can have in addition to people, you might not have a ton of it. But as much as you can be raising in a way to encourage it to stay and to persist and to increase. You know, you'll be in a better position if and when Spielberg ever gets.

Melelani Oshiro:

One. I don't think any of us ever really expected or thought that there was going to be something that was going to come through that attack that Kikuyu, you know I mean, it's it when it's when it gets set it you'd like you said it's a monoculture in there. And it just, it sets it up so well. And it just is really resilient. I mean, you go through periods of drought where you just think everything's dead, you get a little bit of precipitation, and it all comes back. So we never really thought that there was going to be something that was going to come and take it out so, so aggressively. So

Unknown:

you even run a huge fire across it. Right. A lot of it comes back pretty quickly. But not we've we've also had fun some patches that are not coming back so well. So yeah, it's been so dry. So dry. They'll dry. Yeah, yeah. And the windows are

Shannon Sand:

ready for Hawaii counties in D three D 4223. I

Unknown:

think only in two, three. Not the whole county, but certainly certain parts of it. Yeah,

Shannon Sand:

I knew Molly was already declared. Yeah.

Unknown:

Molly's in a real severe drought. I just was on the job map this morning. And yeah, Mali county is way worse affected. You guys have a program, you guys are working with the deer on Maui or you just trying to get something started. I mean, there's been some questions to us to about that. But I don't know that there's anybody doing any. We don't have a program or practice that can specifically directly deal with the deer. But we can help land managers to look at the numbers of deer and the number of cattle and help them assess kind of that forage animal balance again. Yeah, doesn't matter what type of animal it is, the more animals that are out there, the more of a demand you have right grass. So we can help them in assessing those things. We can help them in looking at the ecological condition of their land and making the connections about what it's tied to. We can encourage them to explore possible solutions. I'm a big believer that we could be doing more for harvesting these wildlife, particularly the deer, the deer are a very, very desirable protein source for a lot of people on Maui in particular. And to some degree on Molokai II, there is some level of harvesting that is going on and I think that needs to be continued and we need to continue to look for ways to support and encourage that kind of management because that's really it is management and, and come alongside ranchers to do that in ways that are also sensitive to their concerns. You know, a lot of the ranches that have these animals like the deer they they don't want them eradicated, they recognize the value of these animals for recreational hunting and, you know, food sustainability for the community and stuff. And I think that's, that's all fine and well, but we have to, again, have these difficult conversations where we start talking about numbers, because our land is only gonna be able to do what is healthy enough to do just like us, right? We run ourselves ragged. And we did we erode our health to the point where we can't function because pretty soon we can't function. And our lives are the same way. I've, I've had the unpleasant experience of being in places in Hawaii that are being destroyed, we have coho LaVey, happening all over again, on a few of our islands because of overgrazing of wildlife animals. And, and sometimes, you know, there's cattle producers that are still trying to raise cattle in the same environments. And they are so far in the red when it comes to forage animal balance, it's, it's really, really sad. And it's really hard. And I understand where they're coming from trying to produce livestock, but they're stuck. Because there's this problem that is very, very large, very controversial. There's sometimes very vocal voices in the community that are very anti ranchers doing anything, or anybody really doing anything to touch these wildlife. And what they don't realize is it's costing everybody is, you know, who's bearing the brunt of the cost actually, is our children, because these lands are eroding, sometimes at phenomenal rates. And they are totally smothering marine ecosystems that are going to take decades, if not centuries, who knows how long to ever heal, or recover, if that will even ever happen? Right? Yeah, no, we can, we can sometimes we don't even know if it's even possible. And it could be preventable. It could be preventable. Again, the no action is still a decision. You know, and so try to try to figure out how we can come into those conversations and provide good decision support information, so that the ranchers and the wildlife managers, and even the special interest groups, the hunters and the conservation people, like, you know, we all got to come around the table. At some point, we have to agree that we have some compatible goals, and figure out how we can put our differences aside and agree on some solutions that help preserve our long term landscape health and, and really, overall islands ability to sustain our ecosystem. Because if we don't have a watershed that functions, we won't be here much longer either. Yeah, yeah, we can't have water. We're done. Are we done? desalinization is really expensive? Yeah. And desalinization doesn't do nothing to support a landscape that can provide, you know, all the other creature needs that we say, yeah, yeah. Climate buffering and all these great things. Yeah. So yeah, there's there's a lot there. And we want to be a part of those conversations. I know I sure do. And I'm grateful every time we get the opportunity we're working with are the real place where I think the real opportunity for us leadership and involvement at the local level for these problems, I feel like are really at the Soil and Water Conservation Districts. They have a unique position and responsibility, particularly in these landscapes that are eroding, to be able to come alongside the ranchers and because often the boards are comprised of people that are in agriculture. I mean, they're supposed to be, but that's where I think we can we can that's a table I think we can gather around and start having these conversations because that whole that entity's whole purpose is the lands health. Yeah, it's a Soil and Water Conservation District. I mean, that's their whole function. And so I really think there's an opportunity there, they are local partners. We we are at that table with them gladly. And we'd like to continue to be and I think that's where we can start to brainstorm and find creative ways. I mean, just because we don't have a practice yet that we can directly deal with the rent with the with the problem, maybe we can come up with some creative solutions for how we can we can use the practices that we do have. I don't know, there's I think there's there's lots of potential solutions we could discuss.

Melelani Oshiro:

Yeah, that's important. I think everybody just needs to be able to sit down and like you said, Have that conversation, because I think, you know, and gathering them around because there are there are a lot of concerns from different groups. And I think it's important for us as here and you know, try to find a solution together. So, yeah, respectfully. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much, Carolyn, for joining us today. And coming on. Show, I really appreciate it.

Unknown:

And taking the time out of your day, hope our listeners can have gained some insight to some proper grazing management and the programs that NRCS provide, and where to reach out to. And you know, and remember how important it is that what you do there on your grazing land, how it impacts our whole entire ecosystem of things that goes on. So really appreciate it is anything else you'd like to share? Thank you for having me. I was really tickled to be invited to come and talk story with you guys on here. And it was certainly a pleasure. And B, I really appreciate the invitation. And it's really nice to meet you, Shannon. Look forward to working with you. Yeah, I know. I have someone I can call when we have an economic problem.

Shannon Sand:

Yeah, for sure.

Unknown:

Yeah, yeah. Appreciate it. But I'm really glad you guys are doing this. I think podcasts are a great way to share information. I love podcasts because I can listen to them when I can listen to them.

Shannon Sand:

And I totally started it. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I'm

Unknown:

a big podcast fan. There's usually more podcasts that I want to listen to that I have time for. But they're good and I where I live out in the boonies, we don't have cell phone reception. So I like to I can download it to my phone and listen to it when I go for a walk or saying I leave the house. It's great.

Melelani Oshiro:

We are so glad that you were able to join us today on the show. We're very thankful for you to take the time, Carolyn, for talking story with us. And I hope our listeners were able to gain some insight into some proper grazing management strategies, and how it can impact their grazing, the grazing lands and the ecosystems that it's all involved in. So thank you again, Carolyn for joining us today. Make sure to

Shannon Sand:

join our Facebook page, the livestock extension group if you haven't already, and be sure to visit the U h CTAHR. Extension website and our YouTube channel listed in the show notes below.

Melelani Oshiro:

For additional information about this topic, you can see the NRC s website listed in the show notes of the podcast and the description box of our YouTube page. Thanks again for listening to livestock fallout. And before we go make sure you show some love for your favorite podcast as shout out. That's a review on Apple podcasts or any of the platforms that you enjoy. Then stay tuned again for next month's episode where we'll be talking about a paltry inspired by our holiday of the month. Thanksgiving. I'll follow up