Area II Range Judging Contest
Last week, there were 263 High School and Junior High students from 14 different schools here in Valentine competing in the Area 2 Range Judging contest. It was good to see so many young people striving to learn more about rangelands and rangeland management. The top individual, Kent Frickel, from West Holt High School, even beat the scores of the teachers who participated in the contest. Cherry County’s own Chelsea Fullerton, from Cody, was the third high scoring individual.
Range Monitoring Workshop
There will be a range monitoring workshop in Valentine on October 19. We will be out in the field learning how to monitor rangelands. Rangeland monitoring is one of the activities that’s eligible for compensation under the NRCS’s Conservation Stewardship Program. The Conservation Stewardship Program, otherwise known as CSP, provides compensation to eligible producers to conserve and enhance soil, water, air, and related natural resources on their land. The monitoring tools that we’ll teach you will comply with the CSP guidelines.
Replacement Heifer Adaptation
Last week I talked about UNL research into lower cost heifer development systems. I want to follow up on that today. In the process of researching more extensive development systems, they’ve noticed some interesting findings related to animal behavior, learning and adaptation. Heifers developed on dormant range perform better than those on corn stalks, unless, they’re running with animals that have experience grazing stalks. When the heifer calves were run with coming two’s who had grazed corn stalks before, they apparently learned how to graze the stalks from their older herd mates. They gained better than their contemporaries grazing without experienced herd mates. Another benefit of running them with some older animals is that it seemed to settle them down.
They also noticed that heifers developed on stalks gained better when they are turned out on grass in the spring that the heifers developed in the feedlot. Even though the contemporaries in the feedlot were only gaining about 1 ½ pounds. It looks like the same is probably true of heifers developed on range. I don’t know that they have a good explanation about why this happens. Personally, I wonder if maybe it takes a while for those feedlot grown heifers to remember how to graze.
Ranchers support important to continued beef systems research
We are extremely fortunate here in Nebraska to have researchers doing this kind of systems research. It is systems research that allows them to make unexpected observations, like the behavioral adaptation observations just mentioned, and the fetal programming findings that have been getting a lot of press lately. I hope that you don’t take this good research for granted. Most institutions don’t have the resources to do this kind of research. It was great support from ranchers that allowed this systems research to happen, and it will be great support from ranchers that will allow the research to continue.
Fall is time to control weeds and test hay
On a completely different note, I want to remind you that now is the perfect time to control those perennial weeds, both in your pasture and in your yard. It is also a good time to get the nutrient content of your hay tested. We have hay sampling tools for check out from our office.
