Grazing Class

Sign Up For Our Fall & Winter Grazing Class 2018-2019!

Rutland, VT March 5,12,19,26, 2019

REGISTER NOW FOR THE RUTLAND CLASS!

[Past- Middlebury, VT October 18, 25, November 1, 8, 2018]

10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m

The fee is $40 which includes The Art and Science of Grazing book by Sarah Flack. This class is for farmers who currently own livestock and want to create, improve or expand their pasture management system.

Do you:

  • Want to change from confinement or set rotation to management intensive grazing?
  • Have a grazing plan, but want to better understand how to implement it?
  • Need grazing infrastructure (e.g. fence, water, animal trails) and would like to design a system that may qualify for NRCS financial assistance?

 Topics Covered

  • Pasture plant identification of common species, looking at favorable growth conditions, and how plants respond to grazing impact.
  • Pasture nutrition and how it can affect grazing behavior and overall intake and animal performance.
  • Grazing management concepts such as measuring dry matter availability, determining paddock sizes, stocking rate versus stocking density and overall acreage requirements.
  • Soil health in pasture systems and the benefits of soil, forage and manure testing to understand nutrient cycling and nutrient management within pasture systems.
  • Pasture system design to determine infrastructure needs and management techniques to avoid overgrazing damage, decreased carrying capacity and other negative impacts.
  • Grazing record keeping systems and the benefits of monitoring and documenting activities

In addition to 4 class dates, there will also be opportunity for one-on-one consultation.

2018 Grazing Class Flyer- PDF

For information or questions, contact Cheryl Cesario- 802-388-4969 ext. 346 or 1-800-956-1125

Directions – Google Map Link to Middlebury Office

Directions – Google Map Link to Rutland Office

REGISTER NOW FOR THE RUTLAND CLASS!

This program is supported with a grant from:

 

 

2018 Summer Newsletter is Here!

Read the entire PDF here!

In this Issue:
Blog links:

Join Us for a Workshop on Transition to Management Intensive Grazing

Grazing Field Day at Islandacres

Thursday, June 14th – 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
353 Route 2 , South Hero, Vt 05486

Join us for a grazing field day at Islandacres Farm in South Hero. Grazing consultant Sarah Flack and Cheryl Cesario of UVM Extension will lead a pasture walk with farmer Steve Robinson of Islandacres. Steve and his family are transitioning their 70-cow dairy to management-intensive grazing. They have seeded down 60 acres to perennial pasture as a way to mitigate the risk of annual cropping systems. We will look in-depth at this newly designed system and hear about the benefits and challenges of a transition to grazing. Discussion on grazing topics will be from both the plant’s and the animal’s perspective. With help from NRCS funding, this farm is investing in fence, animal trails, and a water system for efficient grazing to maximize the land base. Islandacres has been a top quality milk producer for 30 years with a focus on animal health and production. Come see how they are adopting these new management practices!

Robinson Grazing Field Day – FLYER

$20, including lunch provided by NOFA-VT Mobile Pizza Oven

Registration Required. Register Here.

Funding provided by:

  • Northeast SARE
  • Ben & Jerry’s Caring Dairy
  • South Hero Land Trust

Special thanks to The Robinson Family

Contact Cheryl Cesario with questions.

 

Spring 2018 Newsletter

Our Spring 2018 Newsletter is Out!


In this Issue:


READ OUR ENTIRE NEWSLETTER HERE


Got Questions? Contact Us! 802-388-4969

Winter 2018 Newsletter

In this Issue:
 
Focusing on Agriculture in the Champlain Valley and Beyond 
By Jeff Carter. Changes for a new year. 
 
News, Events & Info You Should Know 
Vermont Farm Show; Nutrient Management Planning; 5th Annual No-Till and Cover Crop Symposium; Organic Dairy Producers Conference; Farm Business Clinics. News and Event Info also on our blog page here. 
 
Should I Have Crop Insurance?  
By Jake Jacobs. Deciding if and what coverage makes sense for your business; upcoming deadline. 
 
UVM Extension Provides Financial Analysis for Producers Doing Water Quality Projects  
By Tony Kitsos. Opportunities still exist for farmers to receive assistance from Farm Business Planning on water quality projects. 
 
Fall Pasture Walks Highlight Extended Grazing Season 
By Cheryl Cesario. Two different farm pasture walks this fall addressed how local farmers approach management for extended fall grazing. 
 
Why Do We Care About Water Quality? 
Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition. Why we care and how we engage other farmers and the community at-large in the conversation. Join to add your voice!  
Winter is the Time to Focus on Record Keeping 
By Kristin Williams. Good record keeping is key to effective decision making, both in the financial word and for nutrient management.
 
Ongoing Field Research and a Look Forward
By Nate Severy. A look at work we’ve been doing this past fall that continues into the new year, and planning for spring planting success.
 

Fall 2017 Newsletter

Our Fall 2017 Newsletter is out! View it HERE.

In this Issue:

Focusing on Agriculture in the Champlain Valley and Beyond By Jeff Carter.  This season’s challenges and ways to move forward.

News, Events & Info You Should Know  Agricultural Conservation Highlights Tour; NMP Updates; Mock Inspections; Business and Ag Support for You; New Grazing Class; No-Till and Cover Crop Symposium. 

What Do I Do Now? RMA Update  By Jake Jacobs. Coping with weather unpredictability by planning ahead.

Demonstrating Success: Corn Hybrid Trials  By Kirsten Workman. Corn hybrid trials were a successful way to see what shorter season hybrids might be paired with cover crop adoption. 

Newsletter Feature – Grazing as a New Management Practice  By Cheryl Cesario. The process of adopting grazing management seen through one farmer’s experience. Also – new grazing class to teach you how to develop a grazing plan!

Managing Slugs Begins in the Fall  By Rico Balzano. Making decisions now to manage slugs next year.

Helping Farmers Adapt to a Changing Landscape By Nate Severy. UVM Extension and the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition are working together to provide farmers with valuable insights for adaptive management.

 

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UPCOMING OPPORTUNITY FOR FARMERS TO DEVELOP GRAZING PLANS

By Cheryl Cesario, Grazing Outreach Professional

When farmers are considering grazing as a new management practice, or want to change or improve an existing system, there are many questions from both the animal perspective and the land perspective: Is this going to work? Will my animals like it? What will this look like? How will I do it?

These are all reasonable questions, which are not easily answered in a one or two-hour farm visit. I find the most successful grazing systems develop when there is farmer involvement in the planning process, and the farmer has a good relationship with a service provider and other farmers who can answer questions and share ideas.

This fall we will start offering a new grazing management course for farmers who want to learn about the benefits and challenges of grazing – from both economic and environmental perspectives. Each farmer will develop a plan specific to their operation which takes into account their
farm goals. The class will meet once per week over the course of a month, and each farmer will receive a copy of Sarah Flack’s book The Art and
Science of Grazing as the course textbook and helpful future reference. Outside of class, one-on-one farm visits will provide additional support
as new practices and strategies are implemented on the ground.

Here is a sampling of what the class will cover:
• Pasture plant identification of common species, looking at favorable growth conditions and how plants respond to grazing impact.

• Pasture nutrition – how it can affect grazing behavior, overall intake, and animal performance.

• Grazing management concepts such as measuring dry matter availability, determining paddock sizes, stocking rate versus stock
density and overall acreage requirements.

• Soil health in pasture systems and the benefits of soil, forage and manure testing to understand nutrient cycling and nutrient management within pasture systems.

• Pasture system design to determine infrastructure needs, and management techniques to avoid overgrazing damage, decreased
carrying capacity and other negative impacts.

• Grazing record keeping systems and the benefits of monitoring and documenting activities.

Eligible farmers will be able to use the grazing plan they develop in class to apply for USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) funding opportunities to help cost-share a variety of grazing practices. However, new infrastructure alone will not create improvements. Achieving healthy pasture ecosystems requires an understanding of the relationship between the soil, the plants and livestock grazing behavior. A clear goal and a plan based on plant and animal needs are essential for success. We anticipate the course will run from mid-October to mid-November, with up to 12 hours of classroom and planning time. If you are interested in participating, or want to know more, please contact me:
cheryl.cesario@uvm.edu; (802) 388-4969 x346

 

 

 

 

 

 

Successful grazing plans can include laneways to reduce mud and erosion, as seen in photos before installation (above left) and after (above right). Stream crossings and water tubs eliminate animal impact on surface waters (below).

 

Upcoming Events: May 2017

Events hosted or with programing support by us:
  • Spring Pasture Walk. This Friday, May 5, Addison, VT. For more information and rsvp contact Cheryl Cesario (802-388-4969 ext. 346).
  • Cover Crops as Forage Crops. Next Monday, May 8, Cornwall, VT, 11:00-12:00 pm. Meet at the Champlain Valley Motorsports parking lot. Coordinated with the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition, this informal “crop patrol” for farmers will explore growing and harvesting a winter rye cover crop for forage. We will explore how would you manage a cover crop to maximize forage yield, fit into an annual crop system, and utilize for grazing before a summer crop.  For more information contact Nate (802-388-4969 ext. 348).
  • Spring Bus Tour – Celebrating Local Farm Conservation Efforts. May 17, 9:30 am-3:45 pm. Coordinated with the Champlain Valley Farmer Coalition, this is a day long bus tour of Chittenden and Addison County Farmers participating in conservation work and supporting the joint mission of agricultural economy and improving water quality. This bus tour is for farmers, representatives, state and federal professionals. For more information and rsvp, contact Nate (802-388-4969 ext. 348)

More information or questions about any of these events can be obtained by contacting our office.

802-388-4969 ~ 23 Pond Lane, Suite 300 Middlebury, VT 05753

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Events hosted by other affiliates:
  • Dairy Science and Sanitation. May 10-11, 8:30 am-5 pm, UVM, Burlington, VT. Hosted by the UVM Extension and Cornell University. More information can be found here.
  • The Youth Agricultural Individual Development Account (IDA) Program, a collaboration of University of Vermont (UVM) Extension 4-H and the UVM Center for Sustainable Agriculture, has extended its deadline to May 15 for applications for its next program cycle. The free one-year program helps young farmers, ages 14 to 21, acquire the necessary financial skills and business assets to operate their own agricultural business. More info/applications here.
Other News:
  • The New RAP rules are now in effect, including vegetative buffer requirements. If you are plowing and/or planting annual crops, you should be informed of buffer rules. To see the entire list of RAP rule effective dates, see this link. Questions should be directed to VAAFM. You can also contact us if you’d like help on your farm determining how to make compliance work for your operation.
  • The Agricultural Business / Farm Viability Program, through UVM Extension has ongoing funding for water quality business analysis, to help farmers analyze options for meeting conservation and regulatory compliance goals. Analysis will include financial planning, strategic planning and coordination with related agencies. For more information or to sign up, contact Mark Canella (1-866-860-1383, toll free in VT).
 

GRAZING CHARTS: AN ADAPTABLE RECORDKEEPING TOOL

By Cheryl Cesario, Grazing Outreach Specialist

Rotations are tracked with the grazing chart at Elysian Fields in Shoreham, Vermont.

There is a saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” and this holds true for pasture as well as crops. There are many ways to monitor and keep records of pasture yields and grazing activity. Personally, I am a fan of whatever recordkeeping system works for the individual farmer, as it has to be efficient, straightforward and provide useful information to be worthwhile.

One tool I have seen used with success is the Holistic Management Grazing Planning Chart. This tool was initially developed by Holistic Management International as a part of their overall decision making framework for farm planning. Troy Bishopp, of the Madison
County Soil and Water Conservation District in central N.Y., was able to bring the chart to the masses through a Northeast SARE grant, with the help of a network of service providers who then reached out to individual farmers. In 2013, I began distributing these charts so farmers who
were interested could try them out and evaluate their usefulness.

On the surface, the chart is just a large sheet of paper with a lot of rows and columns that form a grid. This grid is really a “year-at-a-glance” calendar that can be a powerful planning and recordkeeping tool. With a simple daily activity of filling in a box that corresponds to the day and
the field or paddock where the animals have moved, a pattern forms providing a visual record of the entire season laid out at once. With this chart, there is no flipping pages back and forth in a calendar to figure out what animals were where and when. I personally like being able to look at a chart and see how many days since I last grazed a given area, and it helps me readjust my plan. At the end of the season, I find it informative (or in the case of last summer, depressing) to see how many times I was able to graze a given field. For experienced grazers, try planning a month ahead by filling in the chart in pencil and then have fun seeing how close you were.

This will be the fifth year distributing grazing charts and I am seeing farmers track all kinds of interesting data including daily temperature and rainfall, periods of hay feeding and/or confinement, applications of chicken manure, bull introduction and frost dates. Organic farmers find these records keep their annual organic inspector happy, and they
are acceptable records for NRCS “prescribed grazing” payments. One farmer is comparing his grazing chart to his milk production records to understand milk per acre. Another farmer charts crops, color-coding the daily entries for planting, spraying, harvesting and manure spreading. When he comes in each fall to update his nutrient management plan,
all the information is at his fingertips.

I would love to hear from farmers who are utilizing some of the newer “apps” such as PastureMap™ or GrazingCalculator ™. Also on the horizon is goGraze™ currently in development as a companion to UVM Extension’s goCrop™ nutrient management software. Ultimately, there are tools available for everyone, whether you want to enter data on the go with your phone or like the comfort of having a tangible paper record.

A limited number of printed planning charts are available at our Middlebury office, or download a variety of templates at:
www.madcoswcd.com/grazing-charts

Regenerative Agriculture and the Carbon Conversation

CherylBy Cheryl Cesario

UVM Extension Agronomy Outreach Professional (Grazing Specialist)

 

In March 2016 a concerning milestone was reached:  global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide passed 400 parts per million (ppm). For reference, 350 ppm is recognized as the level which is needed for a healthy functioning planet.

Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping gas, which is released through human activities such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels, along with natural processes such as respiration and volcanic eruptions. Its increasing levels is one major driver of global climate change.

In November, Architect William McDonough, who specializes in sustainable development, published an article titled, “Carbon is Not the Enemy” in the journal Nature. In it he suggests we can work with carbon in all its forms, to keep it in the right place. Climate change, he says, is “the result of breakdowns in the carbon cycle caused by us, it is a design failure. Anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere make airborne carbon a material in the wrong place, at the wrong dose and for the wrong duration.”diverse-perennial-pasture

A healthy carbon cycle supports life, rather than endangering it. McDonough writes that the way to work with the carbon cycle to preserve and enhance the benefits it provides starts with the soil. A healthy soil can sequester carbon, converting it to a stable form which improves its fertility and ability to hold water.

Dr. Christine Jones, an Australian soil ecologist who was highlighted in the book Cows Save the Planet, describes this process. Plants convert carbon dioxide into sugars or “liquid carbon” which is used for plant growth and is exuded by the roots to feed soil microbes. The plants obtain minerals and trace elements otherwise unavailable to them and in turn, the microbes use the sugars to create stable carbon, including humus. Dr. Jones states that much of the world’s grazing land is losing carbon due to overgrazing practices. However, she writes about the potential to sequester carbon and reduce atmospheric CO2 levels through management changes to improve soil health and activate the “liquid carbon” pathways. There is an enormous potential for the world’s grasslands to capture and sequester carbon and perhaps lower atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

In a 2014 paper titled “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change”, The Rodale Institute states that farming practices that maximize carbon fixation and minimize carbon loss have the potential to sequester more than 100% of current annual carbon dioxide emissions. However, to achieve this, a holistic systems approach to agriculture is needed worldwide that builds soil health by adopting cover crops, crop rotations, and conservation tillage practices.

Currently, The Savory Institute, co-founded by Holistic Management author and educator Allan Savory, is working to promote the importance of livestock in carbon sequestration and bring that message to the consumers. Well-managed pasture, acting as a giant solar panel, captures solar energy, grows dense stands of grasses, keeps soil protected, sequesters carbon and turns this solar energy into animal products. The institute will unveil a “Land to Market” program early in 2017 with a third party seal on qualifying products to indicate that sourcing is regenerative on the land on which it is produced.

Rodale describes regenerative agriculture as “beyond sustainable” – a system built on improving resources, through continual on-farm innovation for environmental, economic and social wellbeing. It is a model we will no doubt be hearing a lot more of as it may prove integral to climate stabilization solutions.

Sources and Additional Reading:

‘Carbon is Not The Enemy’. William McDonough. Nature. November 14, 2016. http://www.nature.com/news/carbon-is-not-the-enemy-1.20976?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews

Cows Save the Planet. Judith D. Schwartz. Chelsea Green Publishing. 2013.

‘Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change’. Rodale Institute. 2014. http://rodaleinstitute.org/assets/WhitePaper.pdf

‘Meat, the unlikely climate hero?’. Bill Giebler. New Hope Network. November 3, 2016. http://www.newhope.com/news/meat-unlikely-climate-hero

Have a grazing question? Contact Cheryl [cheryl.cesario@uvm.edu, 802-388-4969 ext. 346]