Any type of water source except rural water can run high in salts. Stock dams are more susceptible than other sources but even wells and spring fed sources can be toxic.
In March 2023, the South Dakota Grassland Coalition put on Grazing Management Workshops where participants presented their grazing concerns.Those concerns were then addressed by local ranchers and agency personnel.
Recognizing the importance of public awareness about the benefits of South Dakota’s native plants to the state’s agricultural economy, Governor Kristi Noem has proclaimed April as Native Plant Month.
The Grazing School is designed for producers and anyone with an interest in learning how to best manage grasslands to benefit livestock.
The Grazing School Follow-Up Range Consulting Program was designed to help you implement the tools and techniques you learned at the grazing school. It’s one thing to learn the principles, but putting them into practice can be overwhelming. We’re here to help.
Our focus for these workshops is to help you work through any questions or challenges you might face with managed grazing. During these workshops, we will also cover how improved grazing management changed the lives of other ranchers along with discussion on how to have healthier pastures.
Assessing pasture forage is a key step in planning grazing strategies. The grazing stick utilizes simple plant leaf height measurements in inches. For every inch of growth, the grazing stick estimates how many pounds of dry plant material are available. This number is then represented as pounds per-acre, per-inch of growth.
The Young Adult Ranching for Profit Workshop is a hands-on intensive training to develop management skills in agriculture, featuring Dallas Mount, owner of Ranching For Profit Schools.
…increasing the health of the soil, which in turn, increases the health and vigor of your plants while hopefully reintegrating warm season, native grass improved plant diversity or increasing plant density. The increased plant diversity helps our insect and bird populations.
That first summer we rotated fifty yearlings through six winter pastures. Two years later we were moving 250 yearling steers every two to three weeks through 800 acre pastures. This rotation took us into August when we normally sold the yearlings. We were able to keep the yearling open heifers all summer instead of selling them in the spring.