Look for areas that are bare or underproducing. Then choose those spots for hay feeding to add nutrients to the soil.
How do you know how many head of grazing livestock your ranch can support while still taking good care of your land? Hugh Aljoe of Noble Research Institute discusses overstocking, overgrazing and a quick way to take stock of carrying capacity.
It may not be literally everything, but the pesky brush species goats do eat make them a powerful land management tool. Here are tips for making their diet work in your favor.
By the end of June in most years, more than half of the forage needed for the year has been produced in the Plains states. Make a contingency plan to enact if you’re coming up short.
Have a plan with options, observe closely, and be ready to adjust as needed.
Devlon Ford, ag consultant for Noble Research Institute, shares how he’s applied regenerative practices at home.
The pitter-patter of raindrops on a roof is music to a rancher’s ears. Unfortunately, those moments have been few and far between in 2022. But all is not lost when it comes to growing forage for the winter.
Brush encroachment is a common problem for land managers, and it’s often a struggle to know how best to respond to the unwanted trees, vines and shrubs invading your land. On the other hand, there are times when a manager may want to increase brush or a particular brush species in certain areas.
For farmers and ranchers considering a transition to regenerative agriculture, there may be no more important consideration than increasing plant diversity.
Vegetation monitoring is of great importance to land managers. But it’s difficult to accomplish. It’s tedious and time-consuming, requiring personnel trained in ecology and range plant identification. Once the data is collected, it has to be entered into a database, processed further to obtain estimates of biomass or quality, then analyzed. Most often, vegetation data is collected for limited seasons or years, so you only gain an understanding into the current conditions, and nothing about what direction things are headed. Knowing something about the past can provide a great deal of insight into what may happen into the future, but that can only be done if the data exists.
