16 A Practical View of Drought Planning with Mitch Faulkner

In this podcast we take a deep dive into drought management and the South Dakota Drought tool. Our guest is Mitch Faulkner, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Rangeland Management Specialist, out of Belle Fourche, SD where he talked to us about his own background in rangeland in dry areas, why we need to think of drought planning and how what happens aboveground affects the soils, especially in dry years. Mitch also does a nice job of Explaining the South Dakota Drought tool, a very simple-to-use Excel spreadsheet which is an excellent fist step to being proactive in drought management. Just search “South Dakota Drought Tool” to go download from the NRCS website site. At the time of this podcast’s release (March 2021), it looks like this growing season will be a dry one. Now is the best time to begin to think about drought planning to begin the process of building resilience on your operation– visit https://bit.ly/GrowingResilience for more information on drought planning. Remember the R’s for Rangeland Resilience: Rotate, Rest, Recover