(upbeat music) -[Carlee] Up next, a Nebraska family restores their ranch grasslands, field notes with Kyle Schumacher and harvesting native seeds to bring back Nebraska's prairies.

I'm Carlee Moates.

Welcome to Conservation Works.

(no audio) (bright music) (water babbling) (bright music) (nature sounds) -[Scott] One of the things that Aldo Leopold stated was the objective is to teach the student to see the land, to understand (bright music) what they see and to love what they understand.

And I think with the Hochsteins and many of the other landowners that we work with we're all the students.

(bright music) - Well, my wife grew up (bright music) close to where our home is, and that's how we ended up up here, about four miles from where she grew up.

At that point, why, we'd only farmed 240 acres when we moved up here.

Then we went on and we just kept expanding, and I ended up buying the first 900 acres, and then we've added another 200 a little while later, and then we added another 500 a little while later.

And that's kind of how we got here.

(bright music) -[Kyle] Nebraska is unique in that it's so much privately owned that in order for our wildlife to thrive on the landscape, it requires conservation on private lands, and it requires relationships between agencies like Game and Parks and private landowners.

-[Marvin] Some of our daily tasks, what they amount to is the wife and I. We get on four wheelers and we drive out and check each group of cattle.

-[Mick] The things we really need to check for when we go out on the four wheelers.

Things like watching for a lame calf or a calf that might be getting really thin.

We also try to keep the water where we need it.

The more places we can get water, the less gullies and washouts that you create.

-[Marvin] And we've had dry years and thank God we've had water where we do.

I mean, we've just got a lot of water piped around out here in the 1600 acres in different places.

We got four wells that service it.

- Your water development helps with the rotation.

To put the pressure on the less desirable grasses.

Makes the cattle to move where you want.

You shut one water tank off to make them move to another one helps make it way more manageable to maximize the resource.

As you know, we're talking about grass and actually capturing that as a resource and converting it into beef.

(bright music) -[Marvin] We raise all the calves out here and fatten them.

We sell it, sell all the calves as fat cattle.

That's kind of what we do every year.

(bright music) -[Justin] We probably have 9 or 10 paddocks around here.

-[Jeff] A paddock is a fenced in portion of the pasture.

-[Justin] The big thing is trying to manage our brome.

-[Jeff] I mean brome is decent grass.

It tons well.

It's just the quality isn't quite there that there isn't some of the other more native grasses that are out here.

-[Justin] The cedar trees get less of an issue.

(bright music) The hope is that rather than dumping the cattle in the same spot and doing the same rotation every year, I can actually change the rotation.

-[Jeff] You're trying to promote a diversity by putting pressure at different times on those different species.

Otherwise you'll end up with more of a monoculture in certain paddocks, and you'll be stuck trying to utilize that at a given time of the year.

(bright music) -[Kyle] The work out here started with a conversation between Marv and Scott, and it quickly grew to include the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Northern Prairies Land Trust, Pheasants Forever.

Everybody has common interests out here, whether that's cows or wildlife or the plants.

Everybody can get behind some common practices that benefit all of those.

-[Marvin] We had 40 acres on the front of the pasture that we needed to do yet, and the Game and Parks guy, Scott drove in and he said, we can help you with that.

They come in and do some cost share with it because it makes it affordable, because it's not a cheap project clearing that much land.

(bright music) - The reason that we we spend as much time as we do working with landowners like Marv and the boys is there's a lot of common ground that we share.

These grasslands are becoming increasingly rare.

And, you know, we face some some mutual challenges in this case.

We've got a lot of eastern red cedar that have moved into the grassland.

That reduces the capacity for you guys to, to run cows.

And at the same time, it reduces the available wildlife habitat.

(bright music) -[Justin] Our cedars were choking out our native grasses and the viability of us even grazing the landscape over time.

And with their help, we were able to... -[Jeff] Reclaim what was here.

We went at it hard.

It took us about three years to get it, but it's a paddock again that will actually raise cattle and has a healthy grassland in there.

(bright music) -[Justin] A big portion of what we're going to do long term is the burning.

(bright music) Without that burning, it's an uphill battle.

(bright music) -[Jeff] And there's a lot more that goes into doing an effective and safe burn than most people realize.

It's not just light a match and watch it go.

(bright music) -[Justin] It is a conservation effort and it can be done very safely if the proper steps are taken and it's necessary.

It is necessary in order to control the trees.

(bright music) -[Jeff] If you strictly mechanically clear, they're dropping seeds at their own base.

So you go clear one.

(bright music) All of a sudden there's probably 60 that germinate for every one you cut down.

You made an even denser carpet that is even less manageable if you don't do something like manage it with fire.

-[Justin] Burning can be scary, but at the same time, once you've done it a few times, you have the right guys out here, the right equipment.

It's really manageable process.

-[Scott] Getting rid of the cedar trees and opening things up.

Having big expanses of grassland are mutually beneficial to wildlife and to the landowner as well.

-[Kyle] When we complete practices like we clear cedar trees or we do a prescribed burn.

There's additional management that needs to happen after our big intervention practices.

-[Scott] We have other issues that we have to address and that provide challenges.

-[Marvin] Well, one of the challenges that you have that almost unpreventable is weed pressure.

When you clear those trees and do all that, the first thing you have is weeds.

-[Jeff] The real aggressive part of the cedar tree.

Yeah, they grow and they shade, but they're constantly dropping needles.

When those needles break down, they change the pH of the soil.

They make it very, very hard for the grass to even go.

As we clear, some of the first things you see (bright music) come up are more weeds.

Until the pH becomes more balanced, then your grasses have a better chance to compete.

They do compete well.

They need some help though.

If you don't get rid of the trees, they'll never beat it.

(bright music) - The weather is also another big challenge because there's such a short window to do the burning, and a little bit of wind change can shut you down.

-[Marvin] You need to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best when you're burning.

That's how it is.

We got water mounted on the tractor.

We carry 500 gallon tank on the back of the tractor, and we got four wheelers and pickups with tanks in them.

And the prescribed burn association started out here in our pasture the first time we did it.

We had more people than we had room for, you know, but that was kind of a training session for us as well as everybody.

(bright music) And I'm doing it on farms that I manage, also cutting trees, doing some prescribed burning on them.

And we take it and treat it just like it's our own and get it done.

They're pretty appreciative of the way we do it.

(bright music) -[Scott] There are a lot of things that I've learned from Marv.

Some of them I'm not going to share.

(bright music) (laughing) Um, but (bright music) but most importantly, from the very first time (bright music) I met you, you were trusting.

(bright music) That's pretty rare these days to put things into somebody else's hands and say, I trust you to help.

(bright music) - Well, I got to make a confession right now.

I knew that Scott had a lot more education in that field than I did, so I could use it.

Okay.

(laughing) (bright music) -[Justin] As far as working with Scott and Kyle and Cassidy, too, it's a big joint effort, really, over quite a period of time.

It's kind of evolved to burn association.

It makes some family community and it's nice to be able to lean on the Game and Parks.

Scott Wessel called me up (bright music) (laughing) and he goes, so how are you doing over there?

I said, oh, we're working.

(bright music) (laughing) And 20 minutes later he showed up out here and we were able to, you know, make a joint effort and come up with a little better plans.

(bright music) -[Marvin] There are people that are willing to help, probably in every county, paying them already through the tax system.

So you better look at it like you're hiring them anyway.

So for God's sake, ask for their help.

(bright music) -[Mick] You just have to look at the end results.

That's probably tells you more than talking.

-[Jeff] I think seeing the seeing the results of those burns has really helped it become accepted because they're actually the results are visible to people who drive by on the road and then can actually see there's healthy pastures there.

It's not gone.

It can be reclaimed.

-[Marvin] There's a lot of pride on their part in seeing what aggregately we've accomplished.

Now, we probably couldn't have done it without them and vice versa.

They probably couldn't have done it without us.

-[Scott] Each landowner is a little bit different.

Each piece of land is a little bit different, but this is just a lifelong learning process of us trying to find ways to do things that that benefit the land, the wildlife, and, and the people that make their living off it.

(bright music) (no audio) - Hi, I'm Carlee Moates and welcome to Conservation Works, a series exploring the creative and inspiring ways Nebraskans are helping people, wildlife and the land thrive together.

Joining me in the studio is Kyle Schumacher, private lands biologist with Nebraska Game and Parks.

As you saw in our story, Kyle worked side by side with the Hochstein family to transform their pasture back into a thriving grassland habitat.

Efforts like these don't happen overnight.

They're built on trust, partnership, and a shared commitment to the land.

Kyle, thanks for being here.

-[Kyle] Yeah, thanks.

- So we first overlapped, I think, briefly in the School of Natural Resources, but more recently have met each other at grassland conferences, I believe.

- Yeah, that sounds right.

How did you know that you wanted to pursue a career in grasslands?

-[Kyle] It started just kind of having a pretty connected life to the outdoors, growing up through camping, fishing, just, just spending a lot of time outdoors with my family.

And that eventually transgressed to going to school down here at the university.

It just kind of developed into really a passion for, for prairies, especially for the birds that they use, the prairies, the processes that these prairies have evolved with, that passion hasn't hasn't stopped growing.

- Awesome.

When you are looking at a grassland, what are you seeing?

You know, as a private lands biologist, a lot of times I'm meeting with a landowner.

And that landowner very much views the grassland within their within their fence line.

Or they might see a little bit outside of their fence line.

I'm looking at more of here's this property or here's this pasture, here's this place.

What else is going on around here?

And how is this connected to the rest of the landscape that's around it?

- So you're a wildlife biologist on private lands.

You're having an eye for wildlife in grasslands.

And landowners oftentimes may have an eye for wildlife, too.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- But they're also wanting to make some economic viability off of the land.

How do you find the balance with that, with who you're working with?

- Yeah.

Well, that's I mean, that's the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect of working on private lands.

I'm also trying to learn the entire time that I'm out there because I'm fairly knowledgeable about the critters that are out there, the plants that are out there, the landowners that are out there.

A lot of times they're multi-generational landowners.

Like what kind of what we were able to do with the Hochsteins, um, tell, tell stories of how the family is connected to the land.

Then that's, you know, that that's shared values with us.

A question that I like to ask, what wildlife haven't you seen in a long time that you remember?

Then that's where then we can open up, start to dive into a broader view of the ground.

But we also have to have that realization as private lands biologists, that it still has to make sense that shared time is valuable in and of itself.

- It sounds like it's a lot of mutual listening and learning.

- Yeah.

- You're not just a biologist coming in and telling them what to do.

There's, there's a foundation of trust and relationship.

- Yeah.

Right.

- So what, what level does that relationship play into the success of what conservation can look like?

- A lot of times when we are trying to implement conservation practices.

It's because these practices haven't been getting used yet on, on a property, a calendar year is, is pretty well set for a lot of farms and a lot of ranches of, you know, harvest is this time of year.

We carve out this time of the year, we turn cows out in the pasture this time of year, or we hay this time of year.

It's usually a pretty, pretty rigid schedule that's been happening because that's what dad did or that's what Grandma and Grandpa did.

You know, multiple generations of that.

And so introducing something new into the system is, is usually a shock.

-[Carlee] It can be risky.

- Yeah.

- Real risky, maybe.

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's unknown.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Of what the results could be.

One of our big goals with private lands is building communities around, um, around conservation, around our rangelands, around our habitats, our prairies throughout the state.

And so, um, while I'm one part of building that trust, There's way more value to introducing landowners to each other.

And in hearing from firsthand folks that have the similar priorities that care about wildlife, that they talk with other producers, ranchers, farmers that have been implementing those practices.

- Nebraska is 97% private?

- Probably give or take.

- Which is the majority.

- Yeah.

- So in many ways, these private landowners are stewards of the state and they're they're hosting the wildlife that's here.

- And I think that's important for folks to realize is that that our private landowners are the stewards of wildlife in our state.

And if somebody who doesn't own land wants to encounter wildlife and even just wants to drive down a gravel road or go through the Sandhills or, or go out to the Panhandle or go up to the Niobrara River and just drive down the road and see what's out there for birds.

There's a really high likelihood that individual spends a good chunk of their time on private land, on land that's being stewarded well enough to have that species have the habitat that it needs to, to thrive and continue to be a species here in the state.

- What legacy do you see the Hochstein family leaving for generations or even for the broader community?

-[Kyle] The legacy that they're leaving is a demonstration of trust in their neighbors and, and trust in and other folks who have knowledge of the things that are on their ground too and being open to trying to manage their ground with new practices, whatever is next in the toolbox to use, um, and continue to expand and be example landowners on the landscape for, for their neighbors and for their community.

But I think what's really important to them, especially the ones that we are able to partner with, that we were able to work with that we've developed trust with is to be able to pass that on to that next generation to pass, pass that land on and pass the knowledge of the land and pass the the stewardship mindset of the land onto that next generation.

- Do you ever consider how you are learning from who has come before you, and who you're going to pass off that knowledge to?

- I definitely think of a lot of days about who's come before me and the knowledge that they've passed on to me that's been passed on to them, that was passed on to them from previous generations.

Um, definitely standing on the shoulders of some really great biologists, some really great examples, um, within the game and parks and to be able to springboard off of their knowledge and their passion for the wild things in Nebraska.

And so, um, I'm very aware that I can be the one that's passing that passion, passing that knowledge on to the next generation too.

- I love ending the conversation on that.

I want to circle back one on one thing.

-Okay.

-[Carlee] You mentioned the burning on the Hochstein ranch.

-[Kyle] Okay.

-[Carlee] Is that for eastern Red Cedar management or is it for a variety?

-[Kyle] Yeah.

I think that as they've been getting more fire on the ground, they've been realizing more of the impacts beyond just cedar control.

And I think that's what the Hochstein are, are starting to develop too, is we're not going to wait for a problem to show up.

We know how good our rangelands produce with fire.

We know how much the prairie chickens like that we're using fire on our ground.

We're going to keep using fire to make our ground more productive, healthier for wildlife, instead of just being really confined with using it as a tool just for control of plants that they don't want out there.

-[Carlee] Healthier for wildlife and also more nutritious for the cattle too.

- Yeah.

- So there's two benefits out of that.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- Awesome.

Well, Kyle, it was great to have you in the studio.

It's good to talk to you again.

I'm sure I'll see you at another grazing conference or grassland activity.

-Thank you.

This was fun.

- Up next, we'll visit the Prairie Plains Resource Institute, where conservationists gather native prairie seeds and use them to restore our grasslands back to life.

It's part science, part stewardship, and a fascinating look at how these small seeds become the building blocks for restoring Nebraska's grasslands.

(no audio) (gentle music) -[Carlee] I am with Sarah Bailey, the conservation and education director at Prairie Plains Resource Institute.

Sarah what sort of things does Prairie Plains do?

- We work to connect people in prairie, and so we do that through our prairie conservation efforts to restore prairie and eastern and central Nebraska.

And also we do a lot of education along the way out on the land.

- Awesome.

And today we're going to be seeing the prairie seed mixing and the greenhouse.

- Yeah.

So we're mixing for a project.

You'll get to see that.

And then our greenhouse has thousands of native plants growing.

We'll go check that out as well.

- I'm so excited.

Let's go check it out.

- All right.

(gentle music) So this is our seed barn and this is where we create our restoration mixes.

So we spend the growing season going out and harvesting seed from all of these native plant species.

So the goal is recreating these native plant communities that belong to wetlands and prairies here in Nebraska.

- So it's like creating a recipe for a prairie.

- Yeah, essentially it is kind of like creating a recipe.

So we'll go meet Mike Bullerman, our restoration director, and learn a little bit more about it.

- Sounds good.

(gentle music) (fabric rustling) - Carlee, this is Mike.

- Hi, Mike.

- Hi, Carlee.

- Can you tell me about some of the seeds we're mixing up today?

- Sure.

We have a number of different species here, probably about 175 that will go to a site north of Saint Paul.

It's a mix of tall grasses, medium height grasses and wildflowers.

- And today, we're going to be creating this recipe to be applied on that site for that prairie.

- That's correct.

We have to mix the seed together before we can spread it on the site.

- Awesome.

- And I'll show you how we do that.

- Let's do it.

-[Mike] This is about a 25 to 30 species mix of warm season grasses, tall grasses, and some tall stature wildflowers.

And in this tub, we have two species of shorter stature grasses, side-oats grama and little bluestem, which is the fluffy stuff.

And this tub, we have our upland forb mix, which is a mix of probably about 75 species of wildflowers and minor grasses.

This is our wetland mix, probably 50 to 75 species that like wetter conditions.

And in these tubs is our lowland tallgrass mix.

Again, kind of a mix of wetter species, but a few drier species as well.

(gentle music) - And these all get mixed together to apply on the site that you're restoring?

-[Mike] Yes, they will be made into one big mix and it will go in our seed spreader and cover the entire site.

-[Carlee] And then plants will be accommodating all sorts of species for them.

- Exactly.

(bright music) -[Carlee] Now we have the ingredients for a very diverse prairie.

- Correct.

This is the final product, about 175 species ready to be loaded up and hauled to the site.

- Well, thanks for showing me how.

- My pleasure.

(gentle music) -[Sarah] Come on in.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) -[Sarah] So this is the greenhouse space.

We focus on growing things in here that might not come into a restoration as easily.

Just from seed.

We can really provide ideal growing conditions to get them started and get them growing and get them out into restored sites.

-[Carlee] A diverse prairie has a mix of different plants, so if one insect really likes flowers but another insect really likes tall grasses, having a mix of all those plants allows it to be accommodating to many different species.

- Absolutely.

So that's the main goal at the plant level behind these restoration projects that we're providing.

So one really great example of that is the violet species that we've been working with.

These violets are a really important food source for a threatened butterfly species.

So this butterfly species is a prairie specialist.

It's called the Regal Fritillary butterfly.

And their larvae need the violets to feed on in order to grow and develop, finish out their life cycle.

- And helping the butterflies also helps all the other insects and birds and other wildlife, and even us.

- Absolutely.

There's other, you know, early blooming wildflowers that benefit a lot of different native bee species that come out early, and the list goes on.

- What are some other roles that plants play in a prairie?

-[Sarah] They all really have their own specific roles that fit within that plant community, that benefit pollinators and other insects.

(gentle music) This is ground plum milkvetch, so it's one of the earliest blooming legume species on the prairie.

I see a lot of different native bee species and other pollinators that come to that in April.

So really early.

(gentle music) We have spiderwort species that we grow in here, like bracted spiderwort.

I've seen a lot of different flies on those which are very important pollinators.

Also things like prairie ragwort.

So in the Aster family, a really early bloom on that one too.

This one's about to bloom in the greenhouse.

And this is slender penstemon and one of our earlier blooming milkweeds in eastern tallgrass prairie.

So this is green antelope horn or green spider milkweed.

Also things like prairie turnip and then also echinacea or purple narrowleaf coneflower, somewhat early blooms.

Also ones that we don't see come into restorations often and have ethnobotanical importance too.

-[Carlee] Sarah, It's been such a great day and I really appreciate the conservation work you're doing.

- Thanks for coming out.

And I really had fun helping people learn more about prairie restoration and conservation work here in Nebraska.

(gentle music) -[Carlee] Thank you for joining us on this edition of Conservation Works.

We leave you now with the timeless beauty of Signal Butte, a place where the landscape holds clues to Nebraska's ancient past and helped advance the science of radiocarbon dating.

(gentle music) -[Announcer] Support for Conservation Works provided by the Clare M. Hubbard Foundation.

Ken and Pat Cheloha, the Carol Gendler estate, and Larry and Pat Ruth.

(gentle music)