Building a better solar panel: grazing management for soil health

By understanding—and utilizing—the natural processes that enable life on earth, graziers and ranchers can not only revitalize depleted soils, restore degraded wetlands and riparian areas, increase animal production, reduce inputs and maximize profits, they can also help turn the tide of global climate change. It doesn’t matter where you live, it doesn’t take a lot of equipment, it doesn’t require much fuel.

Implementing the principles, however, will require a quantum change in how graziers view their lands. Rather than seeing them as interconnected segments of divergent landforms, every square acre and every square foot should be understood as a component in a giant solar panel.

“Every day, what we do affects how effectively we capture solar energy,” Jim Gerrish said. “When you start bringing your thought processes down to how much solar energy you’re capturing, it will change the way you do business. How good is your solar panel?”

Gerrish, author of “Management Intensive Grazing, the Grassroots of Grass Farming,” “Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide to Year-around Grazing” and numerous other articles, spoke to a group of graziers and ranchers in Blaine, Kan., during a five-stop tour through the state in September with his workshop, “Grazing Management for Improved Soil Health.” His experience includes over 20 years of beef-forage systems research and outreach while on the faculty of the University of Missouri, as well as 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on the family farm in northern Missouri. He currently ranches in Idaho with his wife, Dawn.

Only four ingredients are necessary to produce meat, milk, fiber and grass—sunlight, water, minerals and carbon dioxide. “These are the components of photosynthesis,” Gerrish said. “Ranching is about managing those components to capture solar energy, maximize photosynthesis, and convert it into a sellable product.”

For photosynthesis to occur, there must be enough plant matter to capture solar energy. Fields that are overgrazed or mowed too short take longer for new growth to sprout and also allow sunlight to hit the surface of the soil.

“Bare soil does not catch solar energy and make cow food,” he said. “It’s a pound of meat you don’t have to sell. It’s a lost opportunity, and we’re not going to get it back.”

Mature plants don’t make good solar panels, either, he said. Only green growing leaves carry out the photosynthesis required for virtually all lifeforms on earth. In short, it takes grass to grow grass.

And animals need grass.

There are three phases of growth and yield with grass, he said. The first phase involves spring growth when there is very limited green leaf area and most of the growth comes from stored carbon in the roots. Ruminative animals love to eat phase one grass because it tastes good, but it’s hard on the plant because there’s not enough leaf surface to capture solar energy. Growth speeds up as leaf surface expands and more solar energy is captured. Phase two grass is the most nutritious and productive of the three phases, and is commonly stocked the most intensively.

Phase three is when grass blooms and reaches its tallest growth. “We call it hay,” he said. “And because hay is cut short, it moves from phase three to phase one.”

Deciding when to allow grazing depends on several factors. If there’s been a hard winter and no supplemental feed is available, allowing animals to graze makes financial sense. If supplemental feed is available, it’s probably best to wait a week or two. “We have to be flexible when deciding when to graze early season,” Gerrish said.

It also depends on the type of animal, he said. Cows shear off the entire plant, leaving only stubble, but sheep nibble leaf by leaf. While sheep can be let out earlier in the season than cows, it’s best to adopt a policy of “take a bite and leave,” preserving enough growth to capture solar energy and maximize growth.

Conventional wisdom considers this a waste of good grass, Gerrish said—something he likens to an addiction.

“Our addiction is the fear of wasting grass,” he said. “That’s not wasting grass, it’s building soil and productivity. The majority of organic matter in the soil is built from underneath. Remember: grass feeds the grass, grass feeds the soil, then grass can feed the livestock.”

Rotational grazing allows pastures to maintain a base level for faster recovery, he said. It also increases plant diversity. More diversity means greater and more uniform seasonal forage production, more balanced nutritional composition and better wildlife habitat.

“You need to steer the composition of the plant community,” Gerrish said. “Nature does not like simplicity. You can see diversity, you can increase diversity, if you manage for it. When we have diversity above ground, we have diversity under ground in the root systems.”

Managing resources for livestock also means managing for the birds and bees and the pollinators and every other creature that makes a contribution to seed regeneration, mineral cycling and insect control. “When that happens,” he said, “we have ecological stability.”

Water is another essential element that will require a different approach, he said. Traditionally, graziers think of water two different ways: as stock water that animals drink, or water that falls from the sky or comes from a sprinkler to make grass grow. Similar to seeing the land as a solar panel, graziers should imagine every acre as a water catchment basin.

“Our daily decisions in grazing management largely determine whether water runs off the land, infiltrates the land, doesn’t evaporate away or is used for plant growth,” he said. “Whenever you’re out walking, driving or riding through your pastures, think about how effective your water cycle is.”

The best time to do that is when it’s raining, he added. Only when it’s raining a can you see where the water is flowing, how the water is moving, and how the soil is reacting to its presence.

Capturing and retaining water is the foundation of a healthy water cycle, he said. When flooding occurs, it diminishes root systems, causes erosion and washes away organic matter. “What’s the solution?” he asked. “Start at the top of the list: get more cover out there. Build a better solar panel.”

Doing so doesn’t require a lot of equipment or fuel, he said. On his farm in Idaho he uses one ATV to manage 450 pivot acres, 100 acres of flood ground and several hundred acres of desert rangeland. Once a year he brings in a backhoe for irrigation projects, but usually only for a day.

“We don’t use much iron and oil to produce beef,” he said. “What you need is animals.”

(continued in Grazing for Better Soil Health: Livestock Management)

This article is a result of soil health and grazing workshops KAWS held in 2018 across the state. Funding for the workshops was provided by the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Project partners include the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, NRCS-Kansas, Kansas Water Office, K-State University, Kansas SARE, No Till on the Plains, Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment, nine Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy groups, Kansas Grazing Land Coalition and Friends of the Kaw.

Grazing for Better Soil Health: Livestock Management

In 1997, a distant relative from Argentina flew to St. Louis, Mo., and spent most of the summer with Jim Gerrish and his father on their farm. The rancher, like all ranchers in Argentina, raised grass-fed beef. The Gerrishes grew crops and hay. What little they knew about livestock production was from their neighbor’s fields, mostly weedy, overgrazed and eroded. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

In Argentina, they did things differently, the rancher told them. Pastures were deep and lush with alfalfa, trefoil, clover and other vegetation, and cattle were moved every day. Grasslands were intensely managed to ensure maximum resilience and growth. Finished beef sold at 16 cents per pound.

Gerrish was astonished. He asked the rancher how he could afford to be that labor intensive at such a low price.

“How can I afford not to be?” the man answered.

“Those people had one resource—grass—and they learned how to use it and use it very effectively,” Gerrish said. “He called it controlled grazing.”

What he didn’t know at the time was that it would become his own driving mantra.

Gerrish, author of “Management Intensive Grazing, the Grassroots of Grass Farming,” “Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide to Year-around Grazing” and numerous other articles, spoke to a group of graziers and ranchers in Blaine, Kan., during a five-stop tour through the state in September with his workshop, “Grazing Management for Improved Soil Health.” His experience includes over 20 years of beef-forage systems research and outreach while on the faculty of the University of Missouri, as well as 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on the family farm in northern Missouri. He currently ranches in Idaho with his wife, Dawn.

Workshops were sponsored by the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams (KAWS) through funding from North Central Extension Risk Management Education and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Project partners included the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, NRCS-Kansas, Kansas Water Office, K-State University, Kansas SARE, No Till on the Plains, Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment, nine Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy groups, Kansas Grazing Land Coalition and Friends of the Kaw. Other locations included Emporia, Eureka, Jewell and Salina.

What’s in a name? The idea of rotating livestock through a sequence of small pastures or paddocks isn’t new, Gerrish said. It’s been called rotational grazing, rational grazing, controlled grazing, holistic planned grazing, adaptive multi-paddock grazing, mob grazing, grazing tall, and short duration, high intensity grazing, but the concept is largely the same. Controlling time spent in one area allows for pasture, water and soil recovery in all other areas.

“These methods all involve a higher level of management rather than turn them out in the spring and round them up in the fall,” he said. “Cows intensively graze. People intensively manage. Management is what’s being intensified, not grazing.”

Ranching, he said, is really about managing ecosystem processes—solar energy flow, the water cycle and the mineral cycle—and then creating biodiversity across the land. “You always get what you manage for,” he said. “Manage for what you do want, not what you don’t want.”

Both the length of time and the timing of grazing are critical management factors, he said. Seasonal timing determines how much impact we have on soil conditions, diet selection and the physiological state of the livestock, all of which are manageable.

Time also plays an important role in the recovery process. For the most part, the longer pastures are spent in recovery, the more productive they become, but if recovery periods are too short or too long, there can be serious ramifications.

Overgrazing, while a concern to many ranchers and graziers, is often confused with overstocking, Gerrish said. Overstocking is having more animals than resources can support. By his estimate, far more ranches are understocked than they are overstocked, and while it often leads to overgrazing, almost all ranches are overgrazed because they’re not managing time.

“You cannot reduce overgrazing by reducing the number of animals,” he said. “It’s a time function, not necessarily an animal function.”

Care needs to be taken before laying out paddocks for rotational grazing, Gerrish stressed.

“One of the worst things you can do is start putting in permanent fence, because things will change,” he said. “Start with portable fences, figure out what works best, then develop a comprehensive plan.”

Working with the terrain rather than against it is important. When Thomas Jefferson adopted the rectangular survey system for the United States, it was one of the worst things that could happen in terms of land resource management, Gerrish said. “In flat country it almost works, but in rolling country there are fences in the stupidest places,” he said. “We need to be willing to put our fences into contours.”

Because water accessibility determines where cattle spend most of their time, locating existing water sources as well as stock water availability are essential for grazing cell planning, and should be completed prior to arranging both permanent and temporary fencing. Cattle tend to overgraze near water sources, leaving more distant areas undergrazed.

Gerrish cited several recent studies on the importance of water and how it influences grazing. One Wyoming by a Wyoming scientist who opposed rotational grazing nevertheless found a beneficial correlation between frequent rotations and shortening the distance to water sources. Another from South Texas found that water tanks were beneficial if cattle had to walk more than three-quarters of a mile to water.

Depending on ponds can be risky, depending on circumstances, Gerrish said. Ponds might not be at the most favorable location, and pond water quality is typically on the low scale. In wet conditions, cattle can get bogged down in muddy areas, and in dry years water supplies might not be reliable. Stock tanks fed by pipeline are more dependable and provide better water, he said. Tanks should be positioned as high in elevation as possible.

His preferred type of stock tank, a tire tank with a float, is relatively easy to install and virtually freeze proof. Instead of placing tanks in the center of pastures, they should be used as a pivot point serving two to four pastures. More than that can lead to compaction and trampling damage, he said.

He also uses moveable water tanks with 180 gallon capacity. Any size tank is beneficial in the heat of summer, he said, as long as you can refill the tank before it runs dry. He’s watered 180 head of cattle on a 20-gallon tub during a hot, humid Missouri summer. Portable tanks should be placed against a fence line so cattle can’t come at it from all sides, plus it makes it more difficult to turn over.

Adding pads beneath the tanks saves cattle from foot rot and other complications, he said. Pads should be at least one foot above the surrounding ground level and extending at least 15 feet from the tank.

While it might seem daunting to convert from a traditional grazing system to a management-intensive grazing system, it’s important to note that a slower, more methodical pace will garner the most benefits, he said. The thing to remember is that it’s all about the grass.

“Grass feeds the grass, grass feeds the soil, and then grass feeds the livestock,” he said. “Make sure the grass is taking care of itself first.”

This article is a part of several soil health and grazing workshops KAWS held in 2018 across the state. Funding for the workshops was provided by the North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Project partners include the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, NRCS-Kansas, Kansas Water Office, K-State University, Kansas SARE, No Till on the Plains, Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment, nine Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy groups, Kansas Grazing Land Coalition and Friends of the Kaw.

Wakarusa River Valley Projects Meeting

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2022 AT 5:00 PM CDT

The Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams (KAWS) and Great Blue Heron Outdoors are hosting a public meeting to discuss future projects including: wetland restoration, river development, water quality, and fishing and recreation opportunities. Join us on Tuesday evening to hear from KAWS, Ducks Unlimited, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.

Great Blue Heron Outdoors will extend its hours for this meeting.

Improving soil health, integral for improving water conditions

Milford Lake State Wildlife Area Tenant Farmer planted cover crops and baled the cover crops for livestock feed. Removing the bales of cover crops off-site is beneficial because it is removing nutrients away from Milford Lake.

In an effort to combat Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), the Kansas Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) program has partnered with the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) to promote innovative farming practices on Milford Wildlife Area. Through this joint effort, Milford Lake WRAPS and KDWPT aim to reduce nutrient runoff from entering Milford Lake and causing HABs.

The Milford Lake WRAPS program is offering financial assistance to tenant farmers of the wildlife area to promote soil health through the use of soil testing and incorporating cover crops into the crop rotations.

“This is a perfect partnership,” said Adam Bauer, Milford Lake WRAPS coordinator. “The farmed areas of Milford Wildlife Area contribute nutrients to the lake just as the rest of the farmed acres in the Milford Lake Watershed.”

Improving soil health has become an integral practice for improving water infiltration and preventing nutrient runoff. Farming practices that support this effort include reducing soil disturbance, covering bare soil, keeping living plant roots in the ground, promoting biodiversity and utilizing technology to most efficiently manage applied nutrients.

Excess nutrients in surface water not only worsen water quality, but also have damaging effects to local economics, recreation and the health of communities. Working with tenant farmers of the wildlife area will allow land adjacent to the reservoir to help reduce nutrients while also setting a positive example to the remaining area on improved land management techniques.

For more information, visit: www.milfordwatershed.org, www.kswraps.org

A simple way to protect wildlife.

Communication towers and power transmission lines kill approximately 6.8 million birds per year worldwide due too collisions and related issues.

The photo shows Evergy, our partner, installing Bird Flight Diverters near Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. Studies show diverters significantly reduce bird collisions and mortalities.

Bird Flight Diverters are mounted on overhead-lines and gridded structures. They reflect light and glow in the dark while rotating with wind pressure which helps birds detect and veer away from power-lines and tower beams. The diverter’s increase visibility of overhead lines and reduce risk of birds colliding into the lines, thereby reducing mortalities.

Bird Flight Diverters are especially important around gathering areas such as the wetland habitat near Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. We expect this will significantly reduce potential collision risk for whooping cranes and other birds in the area.

Ancient wisdom helping Kansas’s now.

The Toronto and Fall River SLT constructed a Zuni Bowl in 2 locations to slow head cutting in gullies caused by concentrated flows of water.  Part of the project also included cutting an old terrace in strategic locations to spread out water across the grassland instead of bringing all of it to the gully that was being restored with the Zuni Bowl.  Bob Culbertson, Toronto/Fall River Watershed coordinated the project.

This is an inexpensive although labor intensive project that can reduce gully erosion in rangeland.  Any landowner or producer can do this if they have access to appropriate size rocks and a few friends to help.

This is a great community builder for a group, such as our SLT.  It also allowed us to work together for a few hours, get to know each other better and produce a product that will help reduce rangeland erosion.

Aligning missions for the greatest good.

Derek Haines, KAWS Watershed Conservation Technician and Wes Fleming, Senior Environmental Consultant, Evergy lived this watershed partnership not only to benefit the overall water quality but also to meet the needs of Evergy’s Wolf Creek Generating Station.

Our John Redmond Watershed Conservation Technician is “boots on the ground” to implement wildlife habitat and erosion reduction practices.  We have the relationships, equipment, and knowledge to get the job done.  To fund this position, KAWS connected several partners with overlapping priorities.  Their priorities  align with the KAWS mission.

John Redmond Reservoir is filling up with sediment.  This reduces space for water storage.  Evergy purchases John Redmond Reservoir water as a back-up source to keep Wolf Creek Generating Station’s cooling lake full.  They invest in KAWS to support efforts aimed at preserving and improving water quality and quantity in John Redmond Reservoir.  This is important to Wolf Creek Generating Station, which is the largest carbon free electric power plant in the state of Kansas.

One limiting factor to wildlife habitat development on private land is actually implementing the practices prescribed by Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologists.  National Wild Turkey Federation and Neosho Valley Quail Forever invest in KAWS to support efforts to accelerate wildlife habitat development in the John Redmond Watershed.

US Fish and Wildlife Service has office and equipment storage space centrally located in the watershed.  They partnered on this project because they too prioritize the area and work to maintain and improve wildlife habitat, water quality and quantity.

Although this position is a KAWS employee Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks private land wildlife biologist has supervisory duties.

KAWS is the connector that brings these partners together.

Protecting waterways for public access.

During high flows on the Kansas River, Bowersock dam becomes less of a barrier to bigheaded carp.  With limited public access to rivers in Kansas, it is critical to protect public waterways from invasive species that may be detrimental to recreation and desirable species.

Juniper Environmental prepared a feasibility study to evaluate the suitability of acoustic deterrent technology usage to prevent bigheaded carp passage at Bowersock Dam in Lawrence, Kansas.  This project was funded by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.  With the help of KAWS, a stakeholder group was formed to improve communication with adjacent projects, listen to local concerns, and bring in outside expertise.

Everyone at Juniper Environmental was so excited to partner with KAWS on this study.  Their passion and expertise for Kansas waterways is ever-present.