BENEFITS

• Maximized forage production
• Provides a healthy environment for livestock
• Good for the environment, minimizes the risk of runoff and leaching of pollutants from livestock
• Looks better, it’s visually pleasing to see healthy pastures

Pasture Management should really be called “grass farming”.  Think of your pasture grasses as your crop and the animals as your method of harvest.  Matching the amount of grass with the amount eaten by the animals will reduce waste and prevent the need to make hay, which raises the cost of the feed and can lower quality. Read the rest of this entry »

Rich Sanders, USDA/NRCS
Agriculture is intrinsically linked to the environment: roughly half of all land in the lower 48 States is farmland, including cropland, land in the Conservation Reserve Program, pastureland, and rangeland. Both crop and animal production generate pollutants that enter the air as well as surface and ground waters. The Natural Resources Conservation Service estimates that the annual loss of soil from water erosion is approximately 1.07 billion tons per year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates, based upon areas sampled, that pollutants originating from this runoff contribute to an estimated 60 percent of impaired river areas, 30 percent of impaired lake areas, 15 percent of impaired estuarine areas, and 15 percent of impaired coastal shoreline. Read the rest of this entry »

by Stephanie Smith

Historically, all of our farm was prairie land with little or no trees. Few prairie species remained when we bought the farm in 1995. In keeping with the spirit of renovating the old farmhouse and smokehouse, we decided to restore some of natural history of the farm. This meant reintroducing prairie species on 10 acres. We also are reintroducing wetland species to a marsh that was enlarged from a wet swale that still had wetland plants. Aquatic plants have also been planted in each of our four ponds. Seed sources of the plants have been limited to the northern half of Missouri in most cases. This is an attempt to preserve the local genetics for each type of plant, rather than importing genetics from another region or state. Plants from our region are generally more adapted to local conditions. Each year more remnant prairie and marsh populations are lost, especially along roadsides and along railroad tracks and from the effects of urbanization and intensive agricultural practices.

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Texas Longhorn

Survivor of the Past – Bright Promise for the Future

by Dr. Stewart H. Fowler, PhD

Cattlemen caught in a devastating cost-price squeeze are now taking a serious second look at the old Texas Longhorn. Doubly stunned by the inflation of all cost factors and the recession of cattle prices, cattlemen are actively seeking new “profit genes” for their beef herds. The quest has broadened to an international search for “new” genes that might boost productivity and profits. In this process, many have tended to overlook a promising gene source close to home. I refer to the Texas Longhorn.

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This is a popular recipe for compost. There is no better way to start and maintain a garden.
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