Moist Soil Management Information:

[Fish Felon]

I'd like your opinion on this too Mr. Lee since you've got experience with it...

I see the real issue going forward as farmers and the DNR both not benefiting from doing MSM. A farmer isn't going to want more water on their farm ground going into winter out of fear of flooded fields and the inability to get crops in before the crop insurance deadline the following spring; a real issue farmers face especially the farther NW you go. The DNR isn't going to benefit from MSM because the general public isn't going to approve of them taking any land they own and not having it in "long-term habitat." We can't even get duck hunters to all approve with some feeling it'd be an 'artificial and expensive band-aid' and MSM would basically be just for us.

I was thinking this might be a potentially inexpensive way of trying a moist soil management pilot program that would benefit farmers and hunters alike and the DNR would avoid any criticism so it'd be a win for them too.

The new buffer law has a lot of farmers upset over having to convert portions of their land to grass buffers. What if they could get compensated for it better than simply enrolling it in CRP? It seems like everything you have is right there for a cheap and effective MSM. A water source and fertile farmland that can no longer be in production that'd be full of duck food if it had a few inches of water over the top of it sounds like....insects, bugs, worms, larvae, roots, tubers, sprouts, water saturated grass that they now like eating.....whatever the hell they like from it should be there in decent amounts I'm guessing.

Have farmers volunteer to enroll in a program to have simple water control structures installed along their drainage ditches, on a 3 or 5 year pilot program. Have the DNR with assistance by DU or MWA or whomever, install some cost effective variable dams that even at their highest setting wouldn't back up enough water to flood onto their ground being farmed and mess with harvest in October Have them be required to hay it in late August or early September, or have the DNR or someone else hay it, however it'd pencil out and be desirable to sign-up, and then put boards in the dam to start holding water once it's mowed so that a MSM area would be ready a couple weeks before opener. Have it be part of the Walk-In area program as well so the farmers get paid more and guys can hunt it.


Just an idea, there'd be a lot to iron out. Funding and construction for the dams themselves would probably be the toughest. Obviously these aren't Swan or Lake Christina type dams with electric fish barriers and reverse pumping capacity.....I'm talking a couple concrete abutments with some planks used to raise the level. Hell, if one could be made out of railroad ties and function well enough go that route. Timing for mowing and damming would take some trial and error. You could even work with farmers on planting certain types of grasses or other cover/food. I'm guessing you could plant cheap regular grass seed and it'd work if you could time the flooding right. If it was my ground and I had the money or part of a club the extra expense of a pump for use in dry years would happen, I'm assuming it'd be too expensive under this scenario.

The best part is that the WIA program already exists and since it's obviously not a "long-term habitat solution" no one can bitch about starting MSM under that umbrella. The land stays private and Dayton can get another photo-op in blue jeans shaking some farmer's hand that's excited to get paid doing something with the farmland he just made worthless to him.

It'd be a win-win for everyone if it worked and attracted a fair amount of ducks.

[Waterfowlist]

Would also like to hear your thoughts Mr. Lee

[Bullet21XD]

The DNR already has the ability to run a system very similar, and equally as effective as what MO is doing. The MDC wasn't afraid to piss off thousands of hunters by going to thier current system. MN could easily do the same thing, it's possible the entire project could be self funded. I'd really like to know if MO makes or loses money on thier managed areas.

[Bailey]

The DNR already has the ability to run a system very similar, and equally as effective as what MO is doing. The MDC wasn't afraid to piss off thousands of hunters by going to thier current system. MN could easily do the same thing, it's possible the entire project could be self funded. I'd really like to know if MO makes or loses money on thier managed areas.

Sure it would piss off hunters at first but 10 years down the road my guess is they would talk about how great it is and how many more opportunities at ducks they now have.

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[Mr. Lee]

I see the real issue going forward as farmers and the DNR both not benefiting from doing MSM. A farmer isn't going to want more water on their farm ground going into winter out of fear of flooded fields and the inability to get crops in before the crop insurance deadline the following spring; a real issue farmers face especially the farther NW you go. The DNR isn't going to benefit from MSM because the general public isn't going to approve of them taking any land they own and not having it in "long-term habitat." We can't even get duck hunters to all approve with some feeling it'd be an 'artificial and expensive band-aid' and MSM would basically be just for us.

I was thinking this might be a potentially inexpensive way of trying a moist soil management pilot program that would benefit farmers and hunters alike and the DNR would avoid any criticism so it'd be a win for them too.



I don't know all of the issues. If the DNR was willing to try moist soil…..all they need to do is pay some wild rice farmers. Growing wild rice is almost exactly like a moist soil unit. If you can grow rice…you can have a MSU. Wild rice farming is a difficult business to make money in. Most people who tried it in the past have failed. It would not cost to much money to get a farmer to disc up a field and flood it in the fall. He could do it for maybe 5% of what it would cost the DNR if they did it themselves. Lets face it….they are incompetent when it comes to doing a job at a reasonable cost. There is no incentive to do it quickly and cheaply.

But to me the biggest obstacle to overcome is the environmentalist and some of those are in the DNR. They value what was native/natural even in cases where the native stuff is basically worthless to animals and also people. You know why land is 500 bucks an acre in many areas? Nobody wants it and if they think they do they soon find out it is worthless because hardly and animals live there and since it is deemed a type of wetland there is almost nothing they can do to improve it. To expensive to dig ponds because you have to haul the spoils to and upland site. Can't build and dikes or levees because you are putting the spoils in the "wetland".

A tamarack swamp is a shithole….yet this is the goal of many of these wetland restoration sites. Most of the wetland banks are just garbage on top of that. Sure they are decent for the 7 years you must manage them….but after that they just mostly grow back to reed canary grass and then you can't even hay them. Even a hay field provides so much more food than the same field that is just left there…especially to deer.

If the end goal was to create wetlands that were beneficial to both ducks and humans…we would have a chance. In Palisade if given the choice to do so, Gilbertson would have just put up 10 foot dikes around the two thousand acres and created basically a shallow marsh….with the ability to drain it dry. Imagine how incredible that would be. But no tamarack swamps and spaghum moss is what they want. I suspect even if he could have built the dikes and never drain it…..it would turn to 50% wild rice on its own. As it stands it basically drys out in the summer and it will eventually just turn back to willows and reed canary with a few spots that will hold water all year long. There might be a few ducks that will nest there…but thats it.

I don't blame Gilbertson at all. With the diseases and problems with wild rice and the high costs to grow it it is a no brainer. Would you rather give the ducks something and have good hunting while going bankrupt and losing it…..or become a millionaire?

IMO the dnr should be paying people to build rice farms. But as it stand I don't believe another rice paddy will ever be built. This is not MO or Ark where people actually put ducks ahead of snakes or some stupid shrew.

[Fish Felon]

I've hunted Aitkin county a lot. I agree with your assessment but I'm asking more along the lines of Polk, Big Stone, Murray, Blue Earth and Fillmore counties. Good farmland without worthless tamaracks swamps and $500 acre lifeless bog.

But to me the biggest obstacle to overcome is the environmentalist and some of those are in the DNR. They value what was native/natural even in cases where the native stuff is basically worthless to animals and also people.

I totally agree, which is why my idea didn't use any state land. Converting land the DNR owns is not an option. As soon as some granola eating hipster saw land purchased by hunters being altered from its "natural state" they'd start 'Shrew Lives Matter' and protest shutting down Lafayette in St. Paul.

I'd say flood cropland but for the reasons I addressed no farmer is going to want their cropland flooded going into winter to then worry about getting planted before the crop insurance deadline next spring if it's unseasonably wet. Plus until the crop is out you can't flood it either. Which means you're not going to be able to flood it until mid-October if lucky and mid-November if unlucky. Which means there's no benefit to trying because even if you had a pump the season is damn near over.

There's also no way for the state to buy Ag land to rent out for cash payment and then flood, which is the only way you could possibly do it because no farmer would do it. Many farmers don't like the DNR buying land for conservation as it is....can you imagine the uproar if they were buying farmland in direct competition to other farmers and then renting it out? Even tilling up public land you might get that impression, which for other reasons already discussed wouldn't happen in the first place.


So we're left with one option, altering private land that farmers aren't farming and don't really care about that won't effect their bottom line and might actually put a few bucks back in their pocket....

....The buffer strip initative is the perfect opportunity, it'll be nice fertile low lying grass and it even has a water source already flowing through it. Farmers are currently unhappy with the financial hit they took and would probably be very apt to recouping some of that loss. If we wait too long we might get a couple decent spring's where pheasants or deer rebound and they might value it too much to sign up for a MSM contract after they, their family, or friends and neighbors start hunting it and shooting stuff off it. Now would be the time.

I think it'd work. There's been several times hunting the SW early in a wet fall year that I've seen a couple ducks scouting and floated a canoe down a drainage ditch only to flush up hundreds, and over a grand I estimated one memorable time...just hanging out on the edges where it went over the bank in scrub and grass.

[Fish Felon]

The DNR already has the ability to run a system very similar, and equally as effective as what MO is doing. The MDC wasn't afraid to piss off thousands of hunters by going to thier current system. MN could easily do the same thing, it's possible the entire project could be self funded. I'd really like to know if MO makes or loses money on thier managed areas.

Yeah, I thought that's why we wanted the Legacy Amendment.... .to get all the new fangled and awesome public land just like MO has, that's what DA promised!

They're handing out hundreds of millions in funds and the DNR goes before the LSOHC for funding on $450K for a pilot project???

They didn't have to do that, they have those funds elsewhere. Landwehr chose to put it in front of the council so it'd get shot down.

[Bailey]

[quote="Bullet21XD"]The DNR already has the ability to run a system very similar, and equally as effective as what MO is doing. The MDC wasn't afraid to piss off thousands of hunters by going to thier current system. MN could easily do the same thing, it's possible the entire project could be self funded. I'd really like to know if MO makes or loses money on thier managed areas.

Yeah, I thought that's why we wanted the Legacy Amendment.... .to get all the new fangled and awesome public land just like MO has, that's what DA promised!

They're handing out hundreds of millions in funds and the DNR goes before the LSOHC for funding on $450K for a pilot project???

They didn't have to do that, they have those funds elsewhere. Landwehr chose to put it in front of the council so it'd get shot down.[/quote]
Still amazing to me they would rather restore a mud hole that may produce 20 teal that will probably leave before the season starts instead of something that works. They could produce a moist soil unit holding 5000 ducks instead but have no interest. It must be an ego thing and refusing to copy something from someone else. It is mind boggling. Is it any wonder people think the Minn dnr lacks any vision.

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[Fish Felon]

It must be an ego thing and refusing to copy something from someone else. It is mind boggling. Is it any wonder people think the Minn dnr lacks any vision.

You have it all wrong. It's not the DNR.

Steve Cordts is a legitimate ally. Keep in mind he's the waterfowl specialist meaning he's more on the numbers and regulations side than the habitat side. I bet he'd really like to try things like MSM. So would his supervisor Steve Merchant. He's another ally.

Landwehr is the issue.

He was appointed Commissioner coming from the Nature Conservancy. Do you know what the Nature Conservancy took in for revenue on their most recent tax year that has been made public (7-1-2013 to 6-30-2014)?

$949,990,421

They took in almost a $Billion dollars.

$6,503,755,176 is what they had in total assets at the end of the year.

Where do you think they got that ridiculous sum of money? By holding a shitload of really successful banquets serving beaf tips or chicken that net a whopping $25K? Nope it's all through cash donations from private companies, from private companies in the form of grants from, grants from trusts, trusts themselves wholly functioning within the organization, endowments for endowments for trusts to give out grants and it's all coming from the super rich.

Part of me is thankful and part of me is a little sad. All this time you think buying your duck stamp, excise PR tax, and blowing a few hundred bucks and still not winning shit after having too many beers when you're feeling flush at a banquet......we thought it meant so much and was important....it really doesn't mean jack shit.

The amount of money out there pouring in is absolutely insane. Especially now that we have the Legacy Funds. Billionaires can plunk down a $mil and and get up to ten times that back to make all their 501(c)(3)'s Form 990's look real good for the year.

The money is impossible to account for it all from just a single member of the super rich. I tried. One trust leads to money to this organization over here, then they give out a nice grant there, they have securities lending agreement, and real estate investment trusts, one of their thousands of umbrella companies donating there, several dozen more trusts that you found before giving up over there, and thank god for the quasi-endowment earning 75.14% on top of the permanent endowment that's only getting a measly 14.74%...so sad. Good luck keeping track of where the money goes. They literally have teams of accountants at their companies and companies of just accountants and I'd be surprised if sums of money don't get moved to where they're easily not found.

What I'm getting at is that Dayton isn't running for reelection and that means Landwehr might not have a job. Dayton himself is one of the people I'm talking about but he himself is on the lower end of that spectrum. There are people a lot more powerful and influential than Dayton in play here. For all we know Dayton was given orders to appoint Landwehr.

The Nature Conservancy is where Landwehr came from but it's just one of countless "non-profit" vehicles for the rich to play their game of philanthropy from. The board members are intertwined, the money is all intertwined, hell....they use a lot of the same accountants. If you piss off one you piss off them all.

Do you think Landwehr is going to risk pissing them off and losing his six-figures and golden parachute?

Phuck no.

[Bailey]

Yeah I've always had good communication with cordts via email. Never liked landwehr from day one with his smug arrogant god complex. Then that email he wrote back that was on this site. He is a class a jerk who I guess really doesn't care that he works for us

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