Agricultural News
Southern Plains Perspective Blog Post: Burnin' and Browsin' for Resiliency and Profit
Tue, 07 Jun 2022 13:11:33 CDT
There is a new blog post out frm the Southern Plains Perspective talking about increasing profits while implementing risk management practices and how addressing climate change and profability can go hand in hand.
Here is a sneak peak:
I'm always on the lookout for great examples of how the same farming and ranching practices that help producers adapt to the extreme weather events that climate change is exacerbating can also help their bottom lines. Too many times folks assume that the actions needed to help address environmental challenges will result in reduced profits for anyone who tries to implement them on their land when the exact opposite is often the case. Today I have a great example of how different management practices on pasture and rangeland can help make a rancher more money while at the same time building drought resiliency and reducing wildfire risk and it comes courtesy of the fine folks at Oklahoma State University (OSU).
On May 13th, 2022 OSU hosted the "Burnin' and Browsin' field day at their Range Research Station in Stillwater Oklahoma. I have to say that it was honestly one of the best field days I've ever attended. The purpose of this event was to highlight the research that the University has been doing using goats and cattle in a multi-species grazing system, in conjunction with patch burning, to help control woody invasive species, adapt to a more extreme climate, reduce wildfire fuel load and increase overall profitability.
Part of an overall collaboration between research, teaching, and extension faculty from Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and the University of Nebraska called the 'prairie project', the OSU research highlighted how a rancher can increase their profitability by using patch burn grazing to improve range conditions while increasing income by incorporating goats in with cows. The goats, as browsers, work in conjunction with the grazers (cows), eating the woody plant species that the cattle find unpalatable. Through this work, OSU has shown that you can run roughly two goats for every cow in most range conditions and not change overall stocking rates. This means more income from the incorporation of goats while maintaining and potentially increasing your revenue stream from cattle since the cattle will preform better as range conditions improve.
To read the full blog post, Click Here.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
