Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

On March 1, 2013 in London, Ontario the NCCC211 committee met and each state presented their cover crop activities for 2012. Dr. Kendall Lamkey Dept of Agronomy Chairperson at Iowa State univ. and our administrative advisor visited with the group about creating outcomes and outputs for reporting. He mentioned that we were doing a good job of reporting and following through with our initatives. The stae reports have been entered unto our website www.mccc.msu.edu. We also discussed the location for next years meeting that will be held in Omaha, NE in partnership with The Howard Buffet Foundation, NCRSARE and MCCC.

Partnerships and Integration The MCCC is a Great Lakes regional project connecting nine states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Wisconsin) and Canada (Ontario). MCCC is also recognized by Green Lands Blue Water as a subgroup which expands the network down the Mississippi River. The MCCC has partnered with Universities in the region, NRCS, OMAFRA (Ontario) and Departments of Agriculture. Other partnering organizations include the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Conservation Technology Information Center, Practical Farmers of Iowa, Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association and Green Lands Blue Waters. The collaboration between Michigan State University Extension, Purdue University, Ohio State University Extension and the Conservation Technology Information Center has successfully competed for grant funding to support MCCC goals, cover crops in the Great Lakes Region and this project. This collaboration was awarded an NRCS CIG grant in 2008 and an EPA Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant in 2010. In 2011 a successful collaboration was begun between the MCCC and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) that continues to work on cover crop policy issues in the Farm Bill and with the USDA Risk Management Agency (Crop Insurance). In 2012, the MCCC has begun a partnership with the North Central Region (NCR) Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program to implement a cover crop survey in the region and to assist NCR SARE in the organization of a National Cover Crop meeting. Changes in Knowledge and Awareness Interest in cover crop and the number of cover crop workshops/meetings/workshops/presentations have been increasing throughout the region. Respondents to a request to the MCCC listserv on events held within the region where cover crops were a topic are summarized as follows: Total number of events reported: 162 Types of events reported: 73 Meeting/Workshops/Conferences, 34 Field Days and 4 Webinars Estimated total participants reached (duplicates removed): 12,871 Reported by: " Iowa: 8 meetings, 11 field days, 1273 participants " Indiana: 8 meetings, 2 field days, 1303 participants " Michigan: 7 meetings, 10 field days, 838 participants " Minnesota: 7 meetings, 4 field days, 2 webinars, 356 participants " Missouri: 4 meetings, 3 field days, 2 webinars, 600 participants " Ohio: 1 meeting, 250 participants " South Dakota: 1 meeting, 100 participants " Wisconsin: 3 events, 74 participants " Ontario: 9 meetings, 2 field days, 2154 participants " Nova Scotia: 1 meeting, 60 participants " Quebec: 1 meeting, participants not reported " Location not reported: 51 events, 4100 participants " National Meetings: 1 conference, 300 participants This is a sample of the cover crop events that were held in the region and reported by MCCC members. We believe that many more were held in the region and not reported. Even so, a reported audience of over 12,000 participants who received cover crop information through someone associated with the MCCC speaks to the reach of this network. The complete list of reported events is given in the attachments. MCCC members who presented at meetings, field days and webinars report using resources from the MCCC, including information from the website, the MCCC cover crop selector tool and the MCCC Field Guide. The MCCC website (www.mccc.msu.edu) continues to grow and includes over 40 pages of content and 330 pdf documents. Since its inception in September, 2008 through March, 2013 the website has had 69,321 unique visits and 193,274,000 page views. 149 countries have accessed the site (top 5 countries: 1- USA, 2- Canada, 3- India, 4-UK and 5- France). All 50 states have visited (top 10 states: 1-IN, 2-IL, 3-MI, 4-MN, 5-OH, 6-IA, 7-WI, 8-MO, 9-ND and 10-CA). In 2012, the MCCC website has nearly 27,000 visits and 80,000 page views. 113 countries have accessed the site (top 5 countries: 1- USA, 2- Canada, 3- India, 4-UK, 5- Ireland). There were 24,000 visits for the USA. All 50 states have visited (top 5 states: 1-IN, 2-IL, 3-MI, 4-MN and 5-OH). The field crop decision tool (February, 2011 through March, 2013), since its launch has had 7,914 unique visitors and 13,532 page views. Top countries are USA (9,853), Canada (1,329), U.K. (29) and France (18) with access from 54 countries total. The top states are Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Minnesota with access from all 50 states. The field crop decision tool is available at http://mcccdev.anr.msu.edu/VertIndex.php. The vegetable decision tool (May, 2012, through March, 2013), since its launch has had 957 unique visitors (1,292 page views total). Mostly people are visiting from the U.S. (974) and Canada (130), although there have been visits from 26 other countries, including the Netherlands, Italy, South Africa, etc. In the U.S. the majority of views came from Michigan, followed by Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, etc. with access from 47 states all together. The field crop selector tool is available at http://mcccdev.anr.msu.edu/testVegIndex.php. Google trends shows a peak in MCCC website use near the fall of the year indicating the website is a source for cover crop information at the point in time when producers are making cover crop decisions. The MCCC listserv has increased from 297 to 344 subscribers in 2012. The listserv has provided access to and information from cover crop experts throughout the MCCC to answer questions about cover crops and their use. The MCCC has 158 likes on Facebook. The MCCC Cover Crop Field guide, released in February, 2012, is on its third 5,000 copy printing and is currently under its first revision. In 2012, over 10,000 copies were purchased for use by farmers and agricultural professionals as a resource for cover crop information in the Midwest. The Field Guide was developed exclusively using MCCC members with layout, editing and publication services provided by Purdue University Crop Diagnostic Training and Research Center. The Field Guide is available through the Purdue Extension Education Store at https://mdc.itap.purdue.edu/default.asp. The Field Guide won the Gold Award (highest level) for technical publications from the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE). ACE is an international professional organization primarily composed of agricultural communicators.

The Midwest Cover Crop Field guide: sold through the Purdue education Store www.the-education-store.com has sold more than 15,000 copies and has been reprinted twice