BWSR Academy Update
BWSR looks forward to seeing you at the 2025 BWSR Academy, taking place Oct. 21-23 at Cragun’s Conference Center near Brainerd. Registration opens the week of Sept. 8. The daily registration fee is $85, and lodging is $106.30 per night. The Academy webpage for the 2025 BWSR Academy will be updated as more information becomes available here and click on 2025 BWSR Academy.
Successful Outreach Strategies Launches in St. Paul
On Aug. 12, Successful Outreach Strategies (SOS) held its first regional workshop in St. Paul. Participants had the opportunity to learn from both the workshop facilitator and fellow attendees about meeting/event preparation, design and management. They also had an opportunity to experience a process to gather information that keeps the input focused and interactive for meeting attendees. Workshop feedback included “Thanks for another great SOS workshop,” from Jessica.
SOS provides an opportunity for BWSR’s LGU partners to enhance their outreach skills. Click here to learn more about SOS. After one year of SOS offerings, the program is being refined based on feedback from BWSR staff and past participants. One of those updates was to change the locations of the regional workshops.
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Prescribed Grazing
Prescribed Grazing training will be held in Mahnomen on Sept. 9. This daylong classroom and field training covers the planning requirements used when developing prescribed grazing systems, such as producer goals and objectives, resource inventory, forage balance, contingency planning, and monitoring plans. This training also includes pasture fertility and soil testing. The field portion of the training covers pasture monitoring and the requirements of CPS 528, including measuring stubble heights, paddock rest, reviewing grazing records, photo documentation, and opportunities for improvement. For additional information and a link to register please visit the Prescribed Grazing page.
Learn, Connect, and Grow: Soil Health Training for Producers and Agriculture Professionals
A soil health field day is scheduled for Sept. 11 in Dakota County. This hands-on event will provide farmers, producers, and agricultural professionals with tools to assess soil health, explore practices such as adding a third crop to rotations, and planting cover crops. Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussions on a variety of topics.
Two sessions will be offered to best serve different audiences:
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Morning session (9 a.m.-12 p.m.): Designed for conservation and agency professionals, agricultural organization staff, and other agricultural service providers. This session includes presentations, hands-on demonstrations, economic discussions, and networking opportunities.
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Afternoon session (1:30-4:30 p.m.): Geared toward farmers, producers, and the general public. Topics include practical applications for the field, including equipment, grazing with cover crops, and crop diversity.
Both groups are invited to a shared lunch at 12:30 p.m. to connect and exchange ideas.
Additional information can be found on the event registration page.
Wetland Restoration Training
A two-day Wetland Restoration Training will be held Sept. 16-17 in Hutchinson. This training will focus on a mix of engineering and ecological aspects of Wetland Restoration (CPS-657). Topics covered will include Site Assessment, Wetland Restoration Design, Seed Mix Selection, Site Preparation, and Seeding with a classroom and field portion. For additional information and a link to register please visit the Wetland Restoration page.
Agroforestry Institute
Agroforestry is a land management approach that provides opportunities to combine productivity and profitability with environmental stewardship, resulting in healthy and sustainable agricultural systems that can be passed on to future generations.
The Minnesota Agroforestry Institute, which includes classroom workshops and field visits, will be held Sept. 23-25 in Baxter. Participants will learn about agroforestry options and how to apply agroforestry practices in their educational and technical assistance programs. Participants will also be able to discuss agroforestry options with colleagues and policymakers, and have an opportunity to integrate the concepts learned into a practical farm plan.
For additional information and a link to register, please visit the Agroforestry Institute page.
Complete Your Individual Development Plan
The Individual Development Plan (IDP) cycle begins each year with identifying local conservation priorities. These local priorities could be identified in Local Work Group meetings, One Watershed One Plan plans, watershed assessments, or by other methods. This process will identify the local priority resource concerns and the conservation practices that will treat them.
Once the local priorities have been established, managers and technical staff should work together to assess the local capabilities to perform assessments as well as plan, design, and install the priority practices identified. If technical staff lack the technical skills and/or conservation practice credentialing, such as Job Approval Authority, these missing capabilities become the priority training needs for those employees.
This year we are asking everyone to complete or update their IDP by Friday, Oct. 3.
Have you previously completed an IDP? Please review your technical training requests to ensure they are up to date. For the coming year, we will not consider any training needs dated prior to Jan. 1, 2025. Having an accurate assessment of technical training needs is critical to ensure our training delivery will address local needs. There are a couple of things you can do to improve the accuracy of your training needs:
- Review and update your existing training needs. You identified a training need last year, but is it still a training need? It only takes a few moments to either remove outdated training needs or to update them as a current request.
- Be as specific as possible. When requesting training, there is a space to enter additional comments to identify the topic or content of the training you need, such as specific wildlife species or plant regimes.
- When identifying a practice as a training need you can select which phases – planning, design, construction – you are requesting training on. There is also an option to identify On the Job Training (OJT), classroom, field, or virtual training preferences.
- If you are a newer employee and need some examples of typical practices by land use, check out the common practices by land use tab in the New Employee Training Guide.
To assist both managers and technical staff in completing IDPs, we have put together several resources. This includes two short videos that have bookmarks so you can jump to the specific section you need help with.
Do you prefer visuals and written instructions? Check out the IDP User Guidance resources.
If you have questions or need further assistance please contact us.
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2025 Shared Training Calendar
An updated working version of the 2025 training calendar is now available. This 12 month view of training offerings is regularly updated and provides information about upcoming training events, including potential dates and locations. Please see the legend at the top and note that the further out a training is proposed the more likely adjustments will need to be made. The dates, locations, and other details are always tentative until the event is posted on the Training Calendar.
BWSR Sponsored Training Events
October
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Minnesota Wetland Professional Certification Program |
Upcoming MWPCP Training Courses:
Introduction to Wetland Delineation and Regulations – Northland Arboretum, Baxter, MN – Sept. 8-12
Introduction to Wetland Delineation and Regulations – Shoreview MNDOT Training Center – Oct. 6-10
Hydrogeomorphic Method of Classifying Wetlands – Hartley Nature Center, Duluth – Oct. 28-29 (Two one-day classes)
Wetland Banking & Monitoring for Consultants – Shoreview MNDOT Training Center – Nov. 12-13
More information on MWPCP courses: https://bwsr.state.mn.us/wetland-training-opportunities
Technical Training & Certification Program Trainings
September
- Through Aug. 27, Minnesota Outdoor Skills and Stewardship - Summer Series, DNR, Online
- Sept. 4, Building Habitat Friendly Right of Ways Workshop, MN MECA, Andover
- Sept. 11 Soil Health and Small Grain Field Day, Dakota SWCD, Hampton
- Sept. 17, Succession Solutions: Creating Habitats for Early Successional Wildlife, PF, Sandstone
- Sept. 18, Rice Lake Field Event, MECA, Rice Lake, Wisconsin
- Sept. 25-26, Tribal-State Relations Training, State of Minnesota, Prior Lake
- Oct. 14-15, Minnesota Water Resources Conference, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
- Oct. 22-23, Tribal-State Relations Training, State of Minnesota, Mahnomen
- Nov. 5-6, Tribal-State Relations Training, State of Minnesota, Grand Portage
- Through Nov. 10, Livestock 101: Livestock Production Fundamentals, Conservation Webinars, Online
- Nov. 18, MGWA Fall Conference, Minnesota Ground Water Association, Brooklyn Center
- Dec. 1-3, MASWCD Annual Convention, Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Bloomington
- Dec. 2-5, MN Watersheds Annual Conference, Minnesota Watersheds, Nisswa
- Dec. 8-10, AMC Annual Conference, Association of Minnesota Counties, Bloomington
- Through Dec. 16, Managing Forests as Habitat in a Changing World, USDA Northern Forests Climate Hub, Online
- Feb. 10-11, Soil Management Summit, University of Minnesota Extension, Dubuque, IA
Not all training takes place in a classroom. Check out the links below to learn at a time and place of your choosing.
We’ve also put together a searchable library of recorded modules, webinars, videos and other resources to help our staff and partners find professional development information on a variety of topics. You can visit BWSR's Online Learning page to find web based technical training resources sorted by category.
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Program Contacts
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