The Brookings County Conservation District held its annual district tour on Aug. 20. This year BCCD marked 75 years of soil and water conservation.
Above: The tour stopped at Adee Honey Farm processing facility in Bruce. It is the biggest honey farm in the U.S with 3,000 hives in Brookings and 15,000 in Bruce.
Below 1: Dean and Nancy Skoglund, Bruce, bought 10 acres near Bruce in 1999. Since then, they’ve planted over 1,200 trees with the BCCD’s help. They created a value-added ag greenhouse (only fourth in South Dakota), along with a Game, Fish and Parks pollinator plot for wildlife. Dean and Nancy received the BCCD Tree Care Award in 2017.
Below 2: Attending were John Heylens (BCCD supervisor), Stewart Lewis (Bruce mayor), Sara Bertsch and Taylor Reaves (Sen. Rounds' office), John Weber (Rep. Johnson’s office), Darrel DeBoer and Jerry Oines (BCCD supervisors), Joan Crooks (district manager), Jordan Cardenas (Sen. Thune’s office), Mark Stime (BCCD adviser), Jon Finnegan (district conservation specialist), state Rep. Fred Deutsch and state Sen. VJ Smith.
The tour also stopped at Corteva Agri-Science in Volga. The “Corteva Grow Pollinator Habitat” program was launched this spring. The Brookings County site was among the first in the nation to be planted and will help provide critical habitat, especially for Monarch butterflies, honeybees and grassland birds.
