2017 SUMMER PASTURE WALK AND CROP TALKS HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED!!!!!
Join the Lake County Conservation District (LCCD) and the Ronan Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office at one of our three scheduled events!!!!
- Thursday, July 6th, David Sturman and Tracy Mumma, Pasture Walk, 2:30 PM
o David, Tracy and their daughter Lena have been using high stock density grazing systems for over five years. They’ve also participated in numerous field trials including our legume inter-seeding trials. Together we have witnessed some dramatic transformations of their pastures. Many may remember four years ago when Greg Judy from Missouri put on a workshop with us. At that time we toured one of Sturman’s pastures that they were just starting to graze using some improved strategies. The transformation is worth seeing; a dramatic increase in species diversity and a 2-3 fold increase in production. We will also tour the legume interseeding study where we interseeded 6 different legume species into the existing pasture…the results speak for themselves and are cheap and easy to implement on most operations.
Figure 1: Sturman’s Legume Interseeding Trial…notice the abundance of new legumes coming up in the drill rows!
- Tuesday, July 18th, Jan and Chris Neimeyer Pasture Walk, 2:30 PM
o We’ve been to Neimeyer’s before and it is worth seeing again! We actually might need to find Jan because he is literally up to his eyeballs in grass and legumes! Jan has improved his grazing methods and his electric fencing abilities and can now move his fence and cows in 10 minutes! We will build a paddock with Jan and see how easy it really is. Seeing the Neimeyer’s place really puts into perspective how productive our pastures can be under optimal management.
Figure 2: Neimeyer’s pastures are some of the most productive and diverse you’ll ever see (4 different legumes are present in this photo)
- Tuesday August 29th, Foust Farms, Cover Crop Walk and Pollinator Planting Tour, 2:30 pm
o The Fousts were one of the first adopters locally of using cover crops (or as we like to call them, Alternative Forage Crops) in their rotation. For the past three years they have used a diverse mixture of cover crops to improve their soil health and feed their livestock. We’ll talk about cover crops, species selection, management and share stories of successes and challenges. We’ll also visit a new dryland grass seeding with a diverse mixture of grasses, forbs and legumes to see what the bees are buzzing about (see what I did there!).
Figure 3: Arnold Foust with a prized forage collard in one of his 2016 cover crop fields
In addition to these events, mark your calendar for Monday, Sept. 18th as we will be hosting a Low Stress Livestock Handling course with Curt Pate. Curt is world-renowned and come widely recommended. This will be a field-based, hands-on workshop. We’ll discuss how to improved livestock handling can help you graze better and easier and make your life easier, safer and more enjoyable. This workshop will also be held in the Missoula and Deer Lodge areas on the 19th and 20th respectively.
ALSO, CHECK OUT A NEW IDEA IN PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT…THEN LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!!