In today’s beef buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Justin Hossfeld, National Sales Manager for Range and Pasture with Envu, about how new technology is changing the way ranchers manage grass, cattle, and time. Hossfeld emphasized that Envu is uniquely focused on range, pasture, and environmental science. As he explained, “We are solely focused on range and pasture and environmental science, which makes us pretty unique compared to other companies that may have some distractions being in too many other businesses.”
Hossfeld said Envu’s approach starts with targeted herbicide solutions and extends into digital management tools designed specifically for grazing operations. “We don’t handle just real common-use herbicides,” he noted. “We look for actives that are very specific and have a very specific site of action.” That product line is supported by Envu’s digital platform, RangeView, which helps ranchers evaluate forage quantity and quality, identify invasive species, and make more informed grazing decisions.
A key part of the conversation centered on how RangeView supports day-to-day pasture management. “What RangeView can do is help you look at the forage you have, the quality of forage you have, maybe some invasive species you would like to remove,” Hossfeld said. From there, the platform allows producers to set up grazing rotations and alerts so they can manage utilization more precisely. “A lot of times we don’t get to graze at all before we have to move,” he added, noting how technology helps fine-tune those decisions.
That precision increases even more through Envu’s partnership with Ceres Tag, which integrates animal performance data with pasture information. “Within a three-meter pixel, at any time, we can see how much is grazed, the health of that, and you really start to get that in-depth knowledge of that pasture,” Hossfeld explained. He said this kind of insight is especially valuable in today’s labor-tight environment. “Technology should work for you. You shouldn’t work for it,” he told Hays, pointing to features like GPS cattle locations and water tank monitors that save hours of checking pastures in person.
For producers wondering how practical the system is, Hossfeld said it scales well for typical ranch operations. Ranchers purchase the tags, enable them through the RangeView platform, and pay a monthly per-tag fee to integrate all the data. The payoff, he said, comes through proactive, real-time management. “We’re collecting this data every six hours and every day,” Hossfeld said. “So it’s not reacting to something—you’re proactive, you’re getting that data real time and making the right decision when you need to.” He added that the return on investment from combining pasture and livestock technologies “is as high as any other investment you could make.”
Coverage of CattleCon26 is powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater, Oklahoma.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
