Yeah, that's a question I've gotten a lot over the years and everyone wants his magic grass that
they can graze as hard as they want, manage however they want, and that grass is going to
live forever and be productive and not to disappoint anyone, but that grass doesn't exist.
Welcome to the 346th installment of Ear to the Ground, the Land Stewardship Projects podcast on
family farming, regenerative agriculture, community food systems, and local democracy.
I'm Brian DeVore, editor of the Land Stewardship Letter. Jeff Duchenne estimates he's helped set
up rotational grazing plans in well over half of Minnesota's 87 counties over the past 17 years.
That means, as a state grazing land specialist for the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service,
he's walked a lot of pastures and potential pastures ranging from the driftless region
of southeastern Minnesota to the flat former prairies in the western part of the state.
And he's yet to stumble upon that legendary forage that produces well no matter what the
weather conditions, the quality of the soil, or how hard livestock hit it. But what's become clear to
Jeff is that having the best grasses in the world doesn't matter without good management. In other
words, there may not be magic grass, but there is magic management. And good management starts with
developing a plan that takes into account a farmer's overall goals, the resources on hand,
and even the market that's available for the livestock one hopes to raise on pasture.
Fortunately for farmers and ranchers interested in jumping into or expanding a rotational
grazing enterprise, there are more resources available than ever to help get them going.
Besides NRCS grazing specialists and soil and water conservation district service technicians,
who can provide first-hand advice, there are now rotational grazing funds available through
climate mitigation and watershed improvement initiatives. Such NRCS programs like the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program can use this funding to help livestock producers set up
fencing and watering systems, as well as to seed down former crop ground and convert it to managed
pasture. During a recent driftless grazing school LSP held at the Jordan and Rochelle Meyer farm in
southeastern Minnesota, Jeff led a pasture walk during which he provided a tutorial on plant
identification and ways to monitor pasture health. By the way, I'm sorry to report that no magic grass
popped up during that session. Jeff also shared with grazing school participants information on
some of the resources available for folks who want to either improve their usage of current pastures
utilizing adaptive rotational grazing or want to convert row cropped acres to perennial forage
systems that they can graze. At the end of the first day of the two-day school, I talked to Jeff
about the increased interest he's seen in rotational grazing over the years, how it can serve as a
gateway into farming for beginners, and key questions one needs to ask when considering
setting up a grazing plan. The trend seems to be increasing, increasing interest in grazing
management and it really started back probably even as early as you know 2010, 11, in that era
when crop prices were high. What really started was there's a lot of pasture that got plowed up.
Well the people that had livestock and still had pasture really needed to do a better job on the
land they still had in pasture so that was really the jumping off point for increased interest in
grazing management and it's just ever since then it just seems to have gotten more and more and more
especially now with you know soil health has gained a popularity in regenerative agriculture.
There's a lot of producers that are I mean it's just opened up a lot of management options
you know and there's a lot more you know discussion on intensive rotations and cover crops and
integrating livestock onto crop land and it's really gotten a lot of producers I think just
more interested in management with just all these the different options and different information
coming out now about these management tools. That's a really good point about the soil health thing
because I don't think that would have been when you first started maybe was the focus so much. I
mean people knew that it had these positive impacts on soil but the soil health movement
per se maybe wasn't the big thing that people were talking about. No that's right you know 15
to 20 years ago there was very little talk about that and you and you look at a lot of the farm
magazines there wasn't hardly any articles about grazing in general now you look at them and they're
just about every issue has at least something about grazing management in there. Yeah it really
wasn't until kind of the late 2000s where you started to hear a little bit more about that and
now you know you hear a lot about it. Some of the farmers I talked to who were early grazers they
were like well the incentive for me is it's a lower cost production system if I'm a beginning
farmer the inputs aren't as the infrastructure costs aren't as much healthier cows that kind of
thing but I didn't yeah I didn't really hear about soil health being talked about so much
and like you said that opens up a lot of opportunities in that there's seems like
there's just more funding available because you can say oh if you put in this grazing particular
grazing system it's going to build soil health and people are interested in building carbon
sequestering carbon keeping runoff you know reducing water quality problems that kind of thing so it
sounds like it does open up a lot of more opportunities that way. Yeah I think so and
you know with the inflation reduction act for for NRCS anyway we we had a you know an influx of
funding for our programs like environmental quality incentives program and you know and of course one
of the core practices there's many but one of the core practices is grazing management with that
prescribed grazing yeah so I think that's really helped producers implement uh improve management.
It's kind of helped the environmental community kind of maybe uh take a different view of livestock
on the land too it sounds like. You hear a lot of the negative side of livestock you know of course
there's a lot of buzz around methane and that but there's also a lot of positives too that don't
really get talked about a lot you know you think about you know there's a lot of producers I've
worked with have converted cropland into pasture so that would have been row crop or would still be
row crop if there weren't livestock on the farm but not only the pasture side the winter feed needs
they're they're growing a lot of perennial forage for hay and without livestock that would be gone
and so how are they going to manage that crop land I mean is it going to be conventional tillage and
and all that or yeah so I think just getting from a uh you know environmental water quality
standpoint there really isn't anything better than having perennial vegetation on the landscape so
anything we can do to promote perennial vegetation I think is a good thing. Yeah it's I've always
seen grazing as if you can make money at it it's an incentive to have perennial plants on the
landscape and that should be I mean that's such a key piece of the ecology in the upper Midwest
since we've wiped out the tall grass prairie we need some kind of a perennial system and if you
just tell farmers to plant perennials and there's no economic incentive you know why should they do
that but this gives them that incentive to kind of go the perennial route. Yeah and with you know with
a really well managed pasture there is economic opportunity there I think you know just with you
know if you do a good job managing your pasture you can really grow a lot of forage and I've
always thought of grazing management as one of those kind of win-win situations it can be really
good for the environment and also be really good economically just with on the production side just
being able to grow more forage and be able to graze more days or or carry a few more head those
those types of things. The other thing that strikes me and this is a good example here with
Jordan and Rochelle Meyer it can help give beginning farmers or farmers who don't have a
lot of resources access to land that's not considered top crop ground like it's a way to
add value to marginal farmland and maybe get it at a lower cost or it's something nobody else wants
to farm or it's not farmable it's too highly erosive but value can be added to it through
a good rotational grazing system. Yeah I agree with that and you know livestock are have a good
gateway into farming I think because you can keep your input costs lower you know if you're
going to start in row crop farming now you have a lot of expense and equipment where in livestock
you can minimize those expenses and like you said just keep that land costs down you know and there's
some some creative ways there too you know like now with obviously we're getting a lot of solar
farms in in Minnesota and I think I think they can provide a good opportunity for a beginning
farmer to start out in small ruminants like sheep and be able to graze under solar panels so I'm
excited to see that to see grazing on on some of these solar fields now and I hope that continues
to expand in the future. I talked to three farmers today at the Green School who are doing that
grazing sheep under solar panels so it's when I see three things happen at the same at the same
event I think it's a trend so that is that's a really interesting one. Do you have a rough idea
of what percentage of the grazing plans you helped set up are these this was already in some kind of
a perennial system either it was pasture or maybe it's even wooded country or whatever and how much
of it is this is crop land there was corn soybean ground that was converted to grass completely
they completely changed the system. Land currently in perennial vegetation I would say the vast majority
of those operations have existing pasture now a lot of that was farmed at one time and
generally was really marginal poor crop land so it's been seeded back you know and that might
have been decades ago it's been seeded back or it could have been relatively recently but a lot of
a lot of farms in addition to their existing perennial base they're interested in maybe taking
a few acres of crop land and adding into you know it might be a marginal edge of a field or
you know something that's kind of wet or or highly erodible you know really steep and they might need
a few more acres of pasture anyways so that's one thing we really work with them on is bringing up
some of those ideas and a lot of times they're thinking about that already but we have had uh
over the years I've worked on a number of projects where they're just maybe they're new to farming
altogether or or they have a a grain farm and they're looking to add livestock so they're
totally bringing on some perennial forage from scratch. I would think that innovations in
lightweight fencing we saw some of those today watering systems uh now people are talking about
gee I know one guy that was here today he's experimenting with GPS collars the the fence
list system that must just I mean I mean that this adds a whole another area of excitement around
this and it makes it so you're able to graze areas you weren't able to graze before and makes it much
more economically viable. Yeah the technology we have in fencing and water today is I mean it just
gets better all the time better materials with with permanent materials or even temporary materials
with like fencing and things like that and even temporary water sources that really makes it a
lot easier to manage when you have good equipment and and now with the GPS collar is on fence and
I'm excited to see where that that goes in the next five years seems like every year that
technology is getting better and better and better and yeah so it'll be exciting to see
the improvements that keep happening with that. So if somebody approaches you about a grazing plan
what are some of the first questions you kind of guide them through about what they should be
thinking about if they're setting something up? Probably the number one item to think about is
what your goals and objectives are I mean that that's a big one what are you trying to accomplish
because that helps from a planning standpoint helps you know kind of determine what your plan
is going to be if you know what you want to do like just overall management goals that's a big
one to big one to think about and the other side of that is also be realistic with expectations on
you know where your farm's currently at productivity wise and where it could get
get to with good management and and try to balance that stocking rate really you know because if you're
if you're really over stocked it's going to be hard to manage well so kind of be thinking about
those things too. The big one though is really thinking about the goals and objectives and where
you want to go with it what your context is. Maybe rather than saying I want to be a grazer think
think about why do I want to be a grazer what is it that that what am I going to get out of grazing
that I wouldn't get out of a different system? Yeah I mean what are your what are your land
management goals what are your your livestock production goals those are big factors that come
into how you lay things out and how you how you're going to manage the pasture and then just even
beyond the land and the livestock just your you know what's the right word maybe worldview of things
or what your overall concept is are you are you wanting to manage organically are you wanting to
be low input manage regeneratively I mean you know all those things come into play with how you're
going to implement management. I suppose also quality of life like how much do you have a full
time town job do you how much time do you have? Yeah that's a big one and that's one thing I
you know when we do staff training and things I spend a spend some time on as an example I've
worked with some producers that you know they work on the road five to six days a week and they may
only be home one or two days well moving every day or every few days isn't going to work for that
operation you know okay so we might set up a you know a weekly move in that situation that may be
the best they can do within their their situation where you know the next person might be around
you know their their farming's their full-time job and they're depending on the livestock for
a significant amount of income so they may have the ability to manage much more intensively and
you know labor resources are a big one too I mean if you have to balance that out a little bit with
how much time they have and how much they can devote compared to other other things they have
going on on the farm or or even if they just work local in town yeah I mean that's a some big
considerations there. So can you take us through what the natural resources conservation service
what resources they have available they have grazing specialists like you but they also have
financial resources like through the environmental quality incentives program I know you talk a
little bit about some of what's kind of available and maybe what's available too through some other
other agencies or other groups. So of course we we help provide planning assistance and we have
a we have several grazing specialists with NRCS and we also have partnerships with a number of
other organizations for grazing specialists and so we have kind of grazing specialists that cover
the entire state so kind of start there and once we get some plans put together we have
you know some funding sources so equip environmental quality incentives program that's our main
one for you know setting up a grazing system installing fence installing water maybe you know
pasture seeding those those types of things you know if that's something you're interested in
you know you can sign up at any time for that or receive assistance at any time you know just
stop into your local office for that so that's kind of our main our main program and typically
we have a sign up deadline and in the fall usually and then we also have conservation stewardship
program which I kind of think of as maybe in an overly simplistic view it's more of like a
management program you're already doing some things management wise but maybe you want to do
a little bit more so that program kind of takes into account what you're already doing and maybe
identify some areas where you could make some improvement from the conservation side and then
there's a whole list of of activities you could choose from to try and address some of those that
would fit your your management so that's another option we have and other agencies there's getting
to be a lot more funding available just in general from a lot of other conservation agencies so
local soil and water conservation districts have been working on a kind of watershed based
planning through one watershed one plan and so once they have those plans developed they typically
get implementation dollars to help fund conservation practices and that may vary how that looks from
watershed to watershed based on what the resource concerns are there but that could be another good
source to look at and they also have state cost share that can help out with some things and they
may also do some other grants so you know your local soil and water conservation districts have
some good funding opportunities now now through uh you know some of the climate smart commodities
and opportunities through usda there's several organizations now that have funding coming
available for conservation practices well and it seems like you could tie those in say say you got
some um a popular thing is to get cost share to put in cover cropping so you put in a cover crop
even though that's an annual but then if you then could set it get money through a crip to set up
a grazing system you could graze that cover crop yeah exactly yep yep so there there's a number of
organizations providing some money for for the cover crop planting and and equip could come in
and help with fencing and water and things like that so this is an unfair question but what's the
craziest or what's the most challenging grazing plan you've ever set up can you think of anything
that was just like wow i don't know if this is going to work and then it ended up kind of working
or yeah you know we were we were uh talking a little bit about one today that was a challenge
we need to go uphill 135 feet with water and so that was kind of a challenge getting water pushed
uphill that far and make sure we have enough pressure to do that and and that's a you know
kind of a challenge in the southeast part of the state but you know generally we can figure figure
a way out to do those things is it going back a little bit to the if you're converting completely
converting a corn soybean ground into grazing that must be the soil must it must be a shock to the
system almost that must be a real challenge is it compared to if you're just trying to do some
rehab vamping of a existing pasture that kind of thing i mean that must be because there was a
couple people here today who have that's what they're they are seeding down corn and soybean
ground in there taking those first steps to trying to to actually eventually use it make that into a
perennial system yeah and it's very situational site specific you know we've done several of those
projects and sometimes it works really well and sometimes it it's a bit of a struggle and it kind
of comes down to a couple of things you know if it's heavily eroded that creates some challenges
more marginal land you know coarse textured soils that can be a bit of a challenge and then just
you know depending upon what the herbicide program is you know sometimes that comes into
play sometimes that's not not too big of an issue but we've had some seedings that really look good
and the pasture comes on strong and some other ones that leaves you scratching your head and
trying to backtrack like okay what happened here in past management and the soil erosion that's one
where you walk in and there's been evidence of heavy past erosion you typically those you kind of
know are potentially more challenging well you said one question you get asked a lot is what's
that one magic grass that'll do everything i want and you have a good answer to it yeah yeah that's
a question i've gotten a lot over the years and everyone wants is magic grass that they can graze
as hard as they want manage however they want and that grass is going to live forever and be
productive and not to disappoint anyone but that grass doesn't exist yeah yeah the the real silver
bullet is management you know managing if it's an existing pasture trying to manage what you have
to allow those forages to be more productive and if you're seeding converting cropland into pasture
really matching the species to the soils and also matching to your management style and kind of what
kind of animal performance you need out of those livestock and that's really the the big silver
bullet there yeah there's no magic grass but there is magic management in a way yeah exactly right
so if somebody was just getting and i assume there are grazing specialists in other states as well
like that so what's the one place should they just go to the local nrcs office or what's the one
stop shop where they can kind of get started on in this process where would they start yeah i would
stop into your local nrcs office and they'll be able to some of our local staff have good technical
knowledge on grazing and if they don't they'll they'll bring in other staff that do have that
knowledge to help you out
for more on building soil health profitably see the podcast page for ear to the ground episode
346 at landstewardshipproject.org there you'll also see links to nrcs grazing resources as well
as other podcasts in our 2024 driftless grazing school series if you have comments or suggestions
about this podcast contact brian devore at bdevor at landstewardshipproject.org or you can call
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