Middle Niobrara NRD Receives Grant from

Nebraska Environmental Trust

Lincoln, NE – May 1, 2021 – Middle Niobrara NRD announced today that it will receive $47500 from the Nebraska Environmental Trust for the “No-Till Drill” project. The Trust Board announced funding for the project at its meeting on April 8, 2021 in Lincoln. The project is one of the 113 projects receiving $18,350,515 in grant awards from the Nebraska Environmental Trust this year. Of these, 42 were new applications and 71 are carry-over projects.

The demand for the use of a no-till drill far exceeds the availability of drills to inter-seed perennial grasses and legumes. The cost of a large no-till drill is over $47,000 which makes it cost prohibitive for an operation to own a drill and seed a limited number of acres in any given year. The no-till drill will be used in Cherry, Brown, Keya Paha, and Rock counties (North Central Nebraska). The drill will be headquartered out of the Middle Niobrara Natural Resources District office in Valentine, NE. Having no-till drills available to the public has proven successful. Historically 5 no-till drills were available and used across the district. Currently, 3 drills are publicly available: 2 in Ainsworth and 1 in Valentine. By having a 2nd and larger drill for the Valentine area, producers will be able to seed larger tracts more efficiently. Access to two drills will allow multiple producers to seed at the same time avoiding wait times during the spring and fall seeding seasons.

The Nebraska Legislature created the Nebraska Environmental Trust in 1992. Using revenue from the Nebraska Lottery, the Trust has provided over $349 million in grants to over 2,400 projects across the state. Anyone – citizens, organizations, communities, farmers, and businesses – can apply for funding to protect habitat, improve water quality, and establish recycling programs in Nebraska. The Nebraska Environmental Trust works to preserve, protect, and restore our natural resources for future generations.