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3.5 Fertilization Plan <br />Fertilization will not occur on Dryland Pasture areas. <br />3.6 Grazing Plan <br />No livestock grazing will be allowed on any Dryland Pasture areas. Wildlife (deer, elk) grazing <br />will be allowed. <br />3.7 Management Plan for the Dryland Pasture Reference Area <br />NHN owns the Dryland Pasture reference area and controls all of the management aspects of this <br />site. The reference area will be protected from domestic livestock grazing. Wildlife (deer, elk) <br />winter grazing will still be allowed, as is on the NHN Dryland Pasture reclamation areas. <br />4.0 Revegetation Success Criteria and Statistical Procedures <br />4.1 Irrigated Pasture <br />The Garvey Property requires a special performance criterion for production to meet its post - <br />mining land use of irrigated pasture because the land owner has requested an alfalfa field. While <br />this revegetation still would be considered an irrigated pasture, using the established Irrigated <br />Pasture Reference Area or baseline data, which are both comprised primarily of grasses, seems <br />inappropriate for the production success comparison. On the other hand, ground cover is still <br />appropriate to compare with the baseline data because ground cover primarily serves to <br />demonstrate erosion protection. <br />Production Success Criterion <br />The production success criterion for the Garvey Property will be derived from U.S. Department <br />of Agriculture - National Agricultural Statistics Service (https://guickstats.nass.usda.gov/), which <br />provides annual yields by county and commodity. For the Garvey Property, the current annual <br />alfalfa yield (measured in air dry tons per acre) for Montrose county will be used as a basis for <br />the success criterion. Should current data become unavailable in the future, long term county <br />averages may be used instead. <br />Once the annual yield is obtained from USDA, the annual value needs to be discounted to only <br />consider the first cut of alfalfa (the success testing will occur immediately prior to the first cut). <br />A Colorado State University Extension study evaluated forage yields of 20 alfalfa varieties at the <br />Southwestern Colorado Research Center at Yellow Jacket, Colorado in 1996-1999 (Colorado <br />Alfalfa Variety Performance Results) and found that the first, second and third cut yielded 2.14, <br />1.87 and 1.00 tons per acre, respectively. Therefore, the first cut accounts for 42.7% (2.14/5.01) <br />Section 2.05.4(2)(e) Page 8 of 14 August 2017 (PR -02) <br />