By Joel McNair

Seldom do I write reviews of books that have to do with grazing. Too many espouse particular points of view that apply only to a certain subset of grass-based farmers. Others are fluffy tomes that aim to affirm readers’ beliefs of what’s right and wrong. More than a few are written mainly with the idea of selling products and services. Too many are full of hype about some purported new revolution in grazing-related management.
Sarah Flack’s The Art and Science of Grazing (Chelsea Green Publishing) avoids all of the above. In this book, Sarah, a grass farmer and well-respected grazing consultant, offers perhaps the best all-around grazing manual since Bill Murphy’s Greener Pastures on Your Side of the Fence, first published about 30 years ago. Probably this is not a coincidence, as Sarah once studied under the University of Vermont grass master. Continue reading “Book review: The Art and Science of Grazing”

This grazing and cover crop system is producing some impressive numbers

By Gabe Brown
Phone calls, emails and even a few old-fashioned letters — all say the same thing. As I travel presenting at conferences and workshops, the statement comes up repeatedly.

If only I had a dollar for the number of times I had people tell me, “Gabe, you just don’t understand that our soils are not like yours.” I have learned to listen patiently (OK, sometimes not so patiently) as these people tell me all the reasons my soils are productive, and theirs are not. Continue reading “Can we really regenerate our soils?”

Soil and yield testing showed shocking shortfalls in the back halves of paddocks

By Daniel Olson

So, I was sitting in my sister’s living room, admiring the newly purchased aerial photograph of their property. Their place is next to ours, so the main farm is also in the picture. You could clearly see the chicken tractors across the road, the junk pile we hide behind the barn, and the new building project.

But what really stood out were the different shades of green within our paddocks. As I looked closer, I could see that the darkest grass was always closest to the paddock gates, and it consistently lightened in direct proportion to the distance from those gates.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, and I guess I always knew that our highest productivity was toward the front of our paddocks. I decided to do some research this

Continue reading “A problem of distribution”

Natural land care gaining popularity

By Janet McNally
One path to making a living with livestock is to be paid to graze other people’s properties. This month I’ll feature two graziers in very different parts of the country who employ goats in custom-grazing businesses.

Why goats? They are known for their ability to eat browse and weeds that cattle will not touch, and they are better browsers than sheep. Goats can be used to suppress noxious weeds and woody plants without competing directly with cattle for pasture.

Continue reading “Getting paid to graze”

Recent trials show it boosts production and aids health

by Allen Williams, Ph.D.

The vast majority of established pastures in the U.S. are dominated by what I would term a “near monoculture”, meaning that most of the forage yield, or biomass production, is obtained through two to three primary forages in the mix.

Natural prairies are a different story, as we see literally scores of plant species in mixes consisting of grasses, legumes and forbs. I have been on “species counts” in native prairie where experts identified more than 150 different plants, sometimes more than 200. Continue reading “Does pasture diversity matter?”