Much has been said and written about ranch sustainability. When you boil it down, however, it’s largely a matter of working with nature. Bryan Weech | May 25, 2017 By 2050, the planet’s population is estimated to grow from the current 7 billion to more than 9 billion, while the amount of agricultural land is expected to shrink. Simply put, this means we’ll need to produce more food with less resources in order to feed the world. For the beef industry to continue to be part of the solution, it must develop production systems that are more in line to nature. Beef can play an important role in providing the world a nutrient-dense food that is also sustainable. However, to accomplish this, a bee
If you cut your nitrogen by 80% tomorrow, would you expect your production to drop? Of course it would… if you did nothing else. Optimizing nitrogen use is one of the holy grails in a drive to produce food for a booming world population, all whilst looking after the environment. Across the world a growing number of farmers are successfully dropping their N to astoundingly low levels in an approach that provides a wide range of benefits. How is it that some farmers can dramatically reduce nitrogen without reducing production? The journey starts with an appreciation of soil health’s role in driving the nitrogen cycle. Photo Source: Integrity Soils Soil Structure If you ask most fertilizer reps
No story about ranching would be complete without mention of two elements, generically unrelated yet closely coupled to ranching’s origin beginning in the late 1800s and its dominating role into the 21st century. Old texts and oral history serve as background. One component is an ancient grass that provided year-round nutrition for millions of bison through the centuries; the other, a weather phenomenon unique to the eastern slopes of the Rockies — the chinook. Picture Source: http://range.altervista.org/ The richness of rough fescue, a nutritious perennial bunchgrass, remains the source of extended grazing into late fall and early winter for many ranches. Fescue’s existence became the lifeb
