The 39th Annual Rangeland Days and 18th Annual Soils Days were held in Watertown June 14 & 15 at the Codington Extension Building
SDGC Blog
The SD Association of Conservation Districts recognized
the challenge so invited staff of conservation partners
to “get to know each other” round tables at their spring
area meetings.
Layering enterprises is one way to maximize all the resources of a given operation to benefit both economic and ecological bottom lines.
Winter feeding costs are typically the single greatest line-item cost in most cow-calf budgets. A few years ago, Jim Gerrish, a well known range consultant from Patterson, Idaho, wrote an article* on how to calculate the cost of producing one ton of hay on your ranch or farm. Jim found his clients cost of production ranged from $70 to $140 per ton (2013) if all production costs were calculated.
The telephone poll of 505 randomly selected voters in South Dakota, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. It was sponsored by SDGC to guide the organization’s efforts to educate South Dakota residents about the benefits of, and on-going threats to, healthy grasslands.
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 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.
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.