Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1174258
farm406 38 e NRCS offered a cost-share program called EQIP, which stands for Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Bret Lesh was familiar with EQIP and asked Knapp about it. At that time, Carter County already had a sizable number of EQIP applications in the works and Knapp understood his chances of geing funded wouldn't be very good. Instead, she decided to discuss the program no one had yet discussed. "I mentioned that there was a national initiative focused around sage-grouse conservation," she says. "I asked if he might be interested in having his application evaluated in the Sage-Grouse Initiative funding pool. And to my surprise, he agreed." e rancher saw an opportunity to improve his cale operation; the conservationist saw an opportunity to secure and improve prime sage-grouse habitat on private land, where 64 percent of all sage-grouse live in Montana. Bret made application for the cost-share agreement. Soon aer, Knapp and her team went to work on a field assessment of his property. It turns out that one of the time-honored formulas for surviving as a rancher in Carter County happens to be equally beneficial for the life cycle of sage-grouse. It's an unscientific rule of thumb for stewardship of the native rangeland and insurance against bad years: take half, leave half. Walk through a section of Bret Lesh's rangeland in mid- May, when the new grass is coming up, and the bright green growth is obscured by a foot-high cover of residual grass. is is the half of last year's crop that Bret le ungrazed. e grasses and other plants were able to store up nutrients and strengthen their root systems before going dormant. A plant that has been grazed will spend the final weeks of the growing season expending nutrients to rebuild itself. Its crown will be less insulated and more susceptible to winterkill. If the next spring should arrive dry and hot, it may not produce as much forage. Ranchers like old grass for their cows in spring, as the Melissa Foster, Wildlife Biologist, Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks, Baker, MT. Photographer, Eliza Wiley, Helena, MT. Rebecca Knapp and Jalyn Klauzer, NRCS Sage Grouse Initiative Wildlife and Rangeland Conservationist, viewing a sage brush steppe in southern Carter County. Photo, Eliza Wiley, Helena, MT.