NextGen Habitat Projects

Transcription

1 NextGen Habitat Projects Minnesota Application NextGen Habitat Projects is a program being offered to improve honey bee, native bee, and monarch butterfly health. Cooperators accepted in the program receive a program incentive payment, the option of an annual rental payment, and free seed to plant 50% of contracted acres to a high quality forage mix designed for honey bees and 50% of contracted acres to a high quality, diverse seed mix designed for monarch butterflies and other native pollinators. Name: Address: City, State, Zip: Phone Number: Address: Legal Description of Land: Sec ( ), T ( ), R ( ) Acres: County: I am currently working with a beekeeper and hives are located on the property: I am not working with a beekeeper, but would be interested in having hives located on the property: I have access to equipment and am willing to help with Site Prep, Seeding or Mowing (circle all that apply) Are you interested in signing up for the Walk-in Access Program? Are you interested in doing more pollinator or other habitat plantings in the future? I would be willing to have the site used as a future demonstration site on a tour: I would be willing to have the site used to document the benefit of the plantings for honey bee and monarch butterfly health: Submit this application form along with aerial map to: Map needs to include aerial property overview with seeding boundary marked, number of acres being planted, and section, township, range. If a shapefile is available please provide that also

2 NextGen Habitat Projects Minnesota Program Guidelines Allotment of Program Funds: Landowner will receive honey bee seed mixes and monarch butterfly seed mixes at no cost to be planted either by a contractor or the landowner at a ratio of 50% acres being planted with each seed mix. Site prep, planting, year one maintenance, and rental payments are all eligible activities. However, applicants will be more competitive if they are able to reduce their per acre costs. The program will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. We will have 4 batching periods per year (see below in sign up dates). In addition, several factors such as project size and location to the nearest registered apiary will be considerations. This is done to speed up the enrollment process. Funding for program enrollment is available through support from a broad coalition of commercial beekeepers, the honey packing industry, the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund Grant, Agricultural Industry and Quail Forever/Pheasants Forever, Inc. Sign-up Dates: Funds are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, with 4 batching periods per below: 1) April ) July ) October ) January Eligibility: Land that is currently in native rangeland is not eligible for enrollment in the program. In addition, land that is currently in grass cover (non-native rangeland) will need to have the existing grass cover removed prior to enrollment in the program. Application Process: The first step in the enrollment process is to complete the Honey Bee and Monarch Butterfly Partnership application form. Outline the proposed planting area on a map, add the number of acres to be seeded, and Section, Township, Range. Submit application and map to Steven Burdick at the contact information listed at the bottom of the page. Please make sure the form is complete and the information is legible. Ranking Ranking of projects will take place after each batching period. Projects will be ranked for funding based on: Proximity to an Apiary Landowner Involvement (cash/in-kind match)

3 Existing site conditions Location of project (e.g. proximity to existing habitat, rare features, wellhead protection areas, etc.) Number of acres being planted Landowner Payments: Planting Incentives Planting incentive payments are available at a rate of $15.00 per acre if take an annual rental payment or $75 per acre without an annual rental payment. Landowners will receive their planting incentive payments according to the schedule listed on their contract and following 2017 Minnesota BBHF Program Guidelines the completion of planting. Planting incentive payments are issued in the establishment year of the project. For a project that is enrolled and planted in the spring of 2017, the planting incentive payment will then be issued by Pheasants Forever, Inc. in June 2017 Annual Rental Payments Annual rental payments are available at a rate of $50.00 per acre. Landowners will receive their annual rental payments following the schedule listed on their contract. Annual rental payments are issued on the anniversary date of the establishment of the project. For a project that is enrolled and planted in the spring of 2017, the first annual rental payment will be issued by Pheasants Forever, Inc. in May Annual rental payments are issued after each project has been verified to have complied with the Use Restrictions of the contract on an annual basis. Contract Length: For the 2017 program, Landowners will have the option of enrolling the contracted acres for a 3, 4, 5 or 6-year contract at the time the application and contract materials are submitted. At this time, there is no assurance that contracted acres will be eligible for re-enrollment in the program when the original contract term is completed. Landowners should consider this factor when selecting the contract length at the time of original enrollment.

4 Seed: Pollinator seed mixtures will be provided at no cost to landowners. This partnership is being offered to help meet the critical habitat needs for both Honey Bees and Monarch Butterflies. As such, landowners will be provided with seeding mixtures designed to meet specific habitat and nutritional requirements for the target species. Pollinator habitat seeding mixtures are designed by Pheasants Forever biologists to ensure that maximum wildlife benefits are being obtained. The seed vendor will ship the seed directly to the name and address provided under the applicant section in the program application. Unless otherwise specified, all seed orders will be delivered with the fluffy seed separated from the small, slick seeds. This seed mixing combination is designed for projects that will be planted using a no-till grass drill with multiple seed boxes. Pollinator Habitat Planting Guidance: For this program, enrolled landowners will be supplied with two separate seeding mixtures. 50% of the enrolled acres will be established to a pollinator habitat mixture designed to provide superior forage and nutrition for honey bees. This mixture will be comprised primarily of legume species known to benefit honey bees. 50% of the enrolled acres will be established to a pollinator habitat mixture designed to provide plants necessary for the life history and nutritional needs of Monarch butterflies. This mixture will be comprised of a wide variety of wildflowers and contain critically important milkweed species as Monarch larvae are obligate herbivores of milkweeds. Landowners or contractors are to plant the pollinator habitat seeding mixtures they receive into two separate block plantings by May 25 th of the initial year of the contract. The pollinator habitat seeding mixtures are not to be mixed together at the time of planting. While both Honey Bees and Monarch butterflies will use and benefit from each of the pollinator habitat seeding mixtures, they are to be planted in separate plantings to help ensure the success of the planting establishment and development. Pollinator habitat seeding mixtures should be planted using a no-till grass drill to ensure the proper planting of mixtures. Additional planting guidance includes: Seeding depth is critically important to the success of pollinator habitat seeding mixtures. Due to the nature of the species used in the mixtures and their associated seed sizes, seeds should not be seeded deeper than 1/8 of an inch at the time of planting. Tillage before seeding this mixture is not recommended or encouraged. The use of a no-till grass drill should allow you to properly plant seed mixture without the use of tillage. If the site has any known history of noxious or invasive weeds like thistles and sericea lespedeza, tillage before seeding will only encourage those aggressive weed species and reduce the success and effectiveness of the seeding mixtures. An herbicide application of Glyphosate at a rate of 2 quarts per acre prior to the initial seeding of the pollinator habitat seeding mixtures may be necessary to help reduce early weed competition. In areas with known or suspected weed competition, this strategy will help ensure your overall success. Follow up maintenance may include mowing or prescribed fire. Landowners will work with project leads to determine best management.

5 Pollinator Habitat Project Use Restrictions: Acres are restricted from haying, mowing, shredding and/or grazing from April 15 th to September 30 th of each year of the contract. This requirement is in place to ensure that the pollinator habitat benefit of the planting are in place and available at the most critical times of the year. Landowners are able to hay or graze the contracted acres outside of the April 15 th to September 30 th timeline. Partnership Program Signs: Landowners will receive 2 Partnership Program signs inside their seed mixture bags that are required to be posted on the project. These signs are an important part of promoting the partnership and its success. Where possible, the signs should be posted on the project in a manner that the public is able to see the signs and learn about the program. General Program Requirements: The goal of the program is to establish new pollinator habitat in an area that did not have pollinator habitat. Areas that are in existing grass cover can qualify only if the current cover will be completely removed through chemical application (using both a fall and spring spraying of a nonselective herbicide) and re-established to an approved pollinator habitat seeding mixture. Areas that do not currently meet these requirements can be prepared with herbicide application in 2016 and enrolled in the 2017 landowner signup period. There are no requirements allowing the public access to lands that are enrolled into the Honey Bee & Monarch Butterfly Partnership. All rights and decisions regarding access to the land for hunting remain with the landowner. Violation of the contract can result in forfeiture of paid and future payments. This includes annual rental payments, planting incentive payments and the cost of pollinator habitat seeding mixtures. Prior Land Use Herbicide Considerations: For areas that were formerly in cropland with herbicide applications on them in the preceding 40 months, the herbicide use must be reviewed prior to enrollment. Crops that have had herbicides with a residual carryover will not be successful in their pollinator habitat establishment efforts if the herbicide residual impacts are still active. Some examples of herbicide use considerations that would prevent successful pollinator habitat establishment would include: Herbicides and the number of months needed before planting pollinator habitat after the last herbicide application *: Anthem months Authority Assist months Callisto months Dicamba... 4 months Dual II Magnum months Extreme months FirstRate months Flexstar GT months Glyphosate... 0 months Hornet WDG months Impact months Liberty 280 SL... 6 months

6 OpTill or OpTill PRO months Outlook... 4 months Princep 4L months Pursuit months Starane Flex months Stinger months Surestart months This herbicide summary is incomplete and does not contain all of the pre and post emergent herbicides that will have a negative impact on the establishment of pollinator habitat. When project sites have a history of herbicide application in the 40 months prior to enrollment in the Honey Bee & Monarch Butterfly Partnership, herbicide history must be reviewed by a Pheasants Forever biologist prior to enrollment. Program Contacts Applications to: Bee & Butterfly Habitat Fund th Avenue St. Paul, NE 68873