South Dakota wildlife officials warn that turning hundreds of thousands of acres of Conservation Reserve Program land into crop land won't happen without a price.

"Wildlife managers bust their buns over a career to impact tens of thousands of acres," said George Vandel, state Game, Fish and Parks Department wildlife director. To have the potential of 300,000 CRP acres lost to crop production next year will be costly to wildlife, he told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

About 300,000 South Dakota acres that had been dedicated to growing native vegetation are coming out of the CRP program and likely will be planted to row crops. In a couple years, about 800,000 acres could be removed from the federal program, based on the number of landowners who have not opted to renew their 10- to 15-year contracts.

The precise relationship between CRP and pheasants is hard to quantify, according to Vandel. But waterfowl presents a much clearer picture, he said.

"With ducks, it's fairly simple cause and effect," Vandel said. "We can show the CRP acreage produces 2 million ducks per year in the prairie pothole region. Those 2 million ducks are the difference between a moderate, restricted waterfowl season and the liberal seasons we've had since 1995."

The corresponding gain in crop land won't dramatically affect any of the state's crops, said Rick Vallery, executive director of South Dakota Wheat. "If it all went to one crop, yes. But when it's split between three or four crops, it won't make a big difference."

Vandel said wildlife interests hope to regain grass. A new energy bill passed by Congress says 21 billion gallons of ethanol made from cellulose feedstocks must be part of the nation's fuel supply by 2022.

In South Dakota, most cellulose is grass.

The GF&P is funding South Dakota State University research to develop a grass regimen that works for both ethanol production and wildlife.

"I maintain we need a million acres of undisturbed nesting cover" to sustain current wildlife numbers, Vandel said. "We did have that with CRP."

South Dakota had about 1.5 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program at its peak. In any given year, emergency haying or grazing was allowed on about one-third of it. That left two-thirds, or about 1 million acres, for cover.

"If we can get that cellulosic ethanol to be managed like CRP, we might be able to come up with a way of maintaining that core of a million acres," Vandel said.

Lisa Richardson, South Dakota Corn Growers executive director, said it's likely that more acres will be planted in soybeans. Of South Dakota's major crops, corn is the most expensive to grow, adding that even with corn bringing more than $4.50 a bushel, soybeans and wheat bring in more and are cheaper to produce.

"We will lose acres to soybeans. I keep hearing about the cost of production. I keep hearing about fertilizer prices," Richardson said.

Wheat sold at $9.37 and soybeans at $12.20 on Friday.

"Soybeans have an advantage in that they produce nitrogen" and need less fertilizer, Vallery said. "Wheat is a little more expensive from the input side."

Still, the new energy bill requires that 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol be produced by 2015.