Meet buffer requirements. Stop battling wet ground. Build a legacy.

Nine months into the new Minnesota Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program enrollment period, those motivations have sparked the most sign-ups throughout 54 eligible counties in the southern and western parts of the state, according to a press release.

“It’s going to accomplish a lot as part of the conservation goals for Minnesota,” said Dave Rickert, assistant easement section manager for the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. “These are areas that are playing an important part for water quality and wildlife habitat.”

MN CREP can buffer streams, restore wetlands or protect drinking water supplies. It puts marginal cropland into perpetual conservation easements.

Landowners enroll property for 15 years in the federally funded Conservation Reserve Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. That same land is enrolled in a state-funded, perpetual conservation easement through Reinvest in Minnesota, administered by BWSR.

MN CREP is funded with $350 million from the federal government and $150 million from the state. By mid-February, 35 soil and water conservation districts had submitted 130 applications. The 102 funded involve 3,582 acres and nearly $31.8 million.

“I would attribute the success of that to local SWCD efforts as well as wanting to leave a legacy for future generations. These may be areas that are getting drowned out every so often. It’s putting less stress on the landowner having to worry about constantly flooded areas,” Rickert said. Reasons for enrollment varied among landowners from three counties. But all of them mentioned creating wildlife habitat as a benefit.

Legacy creation

Bob Muilenburg has raised potatoes for Hormel’s Dinty Moore stew, onions for the open market, and sweetcorn for the local cannery. As he plans for retirement — he’ll turn 66 in June; his wife, Darlane, retired late last year — Muilenburg has pared down his 1,100-acre Freeborn County operation. This year, he’ll farm about 260 acres.

In recent years, the property his father purchased in the late 1960s just off Interstate 35 near Geneva Lake produced carrots and sweetcorn. Muilenburg described the land as peat or “muck” — a silty soil that falls away from the root crops at harvest.

“It’s been very productive land. It’s a farm I really love, but this was a good time to put it into an easement,” Muilenburg said.

Chad Billat of Freeborn Soil and Water Conservation District said a lot of MN CREP enrollees had been waiting for the next conservation easement program.

“They were waiting for something that makes financial sense to them,” Billat said, adding that payments over 15 years create less of a tax burden. “Landowners are getting close to retirement or their renters are getting close to retirement and looking for different options.”

With two different conservation easements, he previously enrolled parcels totaling 50 acres. From the window of the home he built for retirement, Muilenburg can see the MN CREP property a quarter-mile away.

Muilenburg said he never considered selling the land.

“It’s a nice wildlife area. We see lots of deer, we see lots of geese — you name it. Turkey. Right now I’m watching a bunch of deer,” Muilenburg said. “My wife and I love nature. We like to take the golf cart around the ditch bank.”

Buffer compliance

The Van Wyhes knew they needed to buffer the drainage ditch feeding Mud Creek. They could have seeded it to grass and fed the hay to Howard’s cattle. But they’d enjoyed the wildlife habitat that grew out of an existing 80-acre Reinvest in Minnesota easement along the Rock River.

“As long as we needed to put it in the buffer on each side, we decided we might as well get paid for it.

So we put it into the CREP program,” Leroy Van Wyhe said. “We do pheasant hunting and deer hunting; that’s another one of the reasons we decided to put it in the CREP program — so it gives us access to more hunting ground.”

Leroy, Howard and Greg Van Wyhe are Van Whye Farms, a 1,500-acre corn and soybean operation based in Rock County near Hills.

“The ground is good, real good for farming and raising corn and beans. It’s pretty valuable land down here,” Leroy said. He advised farmers considering MN CREP to determine their soil type and payment rate.

What Arlyn Gehrke called “fairly attractive rates for marginal crop ground” may be driving some Rock County sign-ups.

“We’ve had a surprisingly high interest in CREP. We’re not known to have a lot of conservation easements in the county because we have a lot of fertile ground and expensive ground as well,” said Gehrke, Rock County Land Management/SWCD engineering technician. “It takes a bit of risk out of the operation.”

This spring, the Van Wyhes will seed their 12.75-acre MN CREP easement with the SWCD-recommended six-grass mix.

“It’ll be real good for habitat, and then at the same time it’ll be helping the water quality, too, since it’ll be acting as a buffer to keep the contaminants out of the ditch water,” Leroy Van Wyhe said. “I would hope that nitrate level would go down (and) if it is high in Mud Creek that we do see a change. That’s what these buffer strips are for, to cleanse the water before it gets to the stream.”

Wildlife habitat

Twin Cities elementary school principal Steven Geis raises 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans, allows hunting in exchange for help managing 500 acres enrolled in conservation easements, and this winter enrolled 105 acres of marginal Redwood County cropland in MN CREP.

Geis grew up in the city. His parents bought a farm in 1976. Being new to farming, Geis said he was receptive to conservation practices from the start. He credits a well-informed and cooperative Redwood Soil and Water Conservation District staff with identifying options suited to his property.

“With us having less than 1 percent of wetlands in our county (remaining), every wetland restoration we can do is extremely important for water quality and for putting conservation on the ground,” said Marilyn Bernhardson, Redwood SWCD administrator.

Geis’ Redwood County MN CREP enrollment includes 55 acres near the Cottonwood River in Lamberton Township that’s often too wet to farm, and 50 acres of less productive, lighter soils in adjoining North Hero Township.

“In looking at the maps, you can see what the yield is. When we get an adequate rain it’s good. But it’s also nestled between two pieces that are currently also enrolled (in conservation easements) so it’s going to make a larger tract,” Geis said. “It’s the best use for the land, in the sense that you’re taking a piece of ground that may be marginal and utilizing its full potential by restoring it.”

Geis fields calls year-round from people seeking permission to hunt his land enrolled in conservation easements. He used to charge $150 per gun per day. Now, he tells hunters to call back in April or May when he needs help with controlled burns, cleaning up fence lines or picking rocks.

“City folk get to come out and do sweat equity, and then they get exclusive hunting rights,” Geis said.

Both of his Redwood County MN CREP additions will make good pheasant habitat. Geis also expects to see wild turkeys and deer on the piece near the Cottonwood River.

“You have to look (at) what’s the best use of the land for the long-term – especially if it’s something that’s going to help with waterways, that’s going to help with water quality and wildlife management,” Geis said.

The Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources’ mission is to improve and protect Minnesota’s water and soil resources by working in partnership with local organizations and private landowners.