BWSR Academy Registration Now Open
Registration for BWSR Academy is now open until Sept. 26. You are encouraged to register soon, as there are session and daily attendance caps.
For more information about the 2025 BWSR Academy, visit the website here. If you have questions about BWSR Academy, please contact Barbara Radke, BWSR Training Coordinator, at barbara.radke@state.mn.us. We are looking forward to seeing you at BWSR Academy.
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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.
Join us on Monday, Sept. 29 at 1 p.m. for virtual IDP Office Hours. During these office hours we can help you with:
- Creating eLINK accounts
- Resetting passwords
- Updating accounts (location, email, contact information)
- Entering organizational priorities (managers only)
- Entering new technical training needs
- Updating existing technical training needs
- Viewing your training history
- Viewing your Job Approval Authority (JAA) and/or other certifications
If you have questions or need further assistance, please contact us.
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Engineering Field Tools (EFT) – WASCOB Design Training
Water And Sediment Control Basin (WASCOB) design training will be held Nov. 5 in Mankato and Dec. 10 in Alexandria. This training will cover the basics of a water and sediment control basin design using the NRCS Engineering Field Tools (EFT) software. This training is intended for individuals who have some experience with the WASCOB practice but need training on designing a WASCOB using EFT-TDT. Please note that you will need to install the software well in advance of the training.
For more information and a link to register, please visit the EFT WASCOB Design Training page.
Tyler's Three Things: RUSLE2 (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation 2)
RUSLE2 does not measure actual values or make maps.
RUSLE2 cannot assess ephemeral or classic gullies.
RUSLE2 relies on accurate user inputs based on specific conditions.
Want to learn more? Visit the Soil Erosion 101 page.
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 – 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
- 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
- Jan. 14-15 Soil Management Summit and DIRT Conference, UMN Extension, Fargo
- 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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