Establishment of Permanent Habitat Strips Within Row Crops

$179,000 the second year is from the trust fund to the Science Museum of Minnesota for the St. Croix Watershed Research Station to research the viability of establishing prairie forbs and alfalfa as permanent cover strips in the bare soil between selected rows of corn and soybeans as potential pollinator, monarch, and gamebird habitat. Monitoring of the native plant strips must evaluate the effects of pesticides from adjacent crops on pollinators, including determining whether there is a reduction of pollinators that results in reduced setting of seeds on the native plants. This appropriation is available until June 30, 2019, by which time the project must be completed and final products delivered.