May 18, 2007

Six farms and ranches will be featured on a two-day field tour of intensive rotational grazing operations in northeast Nebraska July 2-3.

The tour, sponsored by UNL Extension and the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, is geared toward agricultural educators who will be using this information to tell others about intensive rotational grazing, said Chuck Francis, UNL sustainable agriculture specialist and one of the tour coordinators.

"This is ideal for educators, Natural Resources Conservation Service employees, high school vocational agriculture instructors or anyone else in a position to be educating people about intensive rotational grazing," the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources specialist said. "One of our goals with the SARE program is to encourage more study of alternative systems in the classroom, including intensive rotational grazing."

Intensive rotational grazing is when cattle continuously graze fenced areas or paddocks in a pasture for a short period of time and then are moved to another fenced area or paddock. This allows producers to manage forage availability, quality and use, Francis said.

The tours will cover the importance of cattle rotation frequency, costs, fencing, water and other management decisions.

A bus will depart for the tour from UNL's East Campus at 7 a.m. and from the court house in David City at 8:15 a.m.

The first day schedule of farm stops and topics include:

• Walt Bohaty, Belwood, British white cow/calf on forage, direct marketing
• Chuck Henkel, Norfolk, hair sheep and cow/calf all grass, direct marketing
• Kirk and Kelly Bruns, Bloomfield, organic grassfed dairy and beef, k-line irrigation
• Evening and night at Glad Tidings Bible Camp with a grassfed beef steak fry

The second day schedule of farm stops and topics include:

• Kreycek Elk Farm, Niobrara, elk and ranch tour
• Curt Morrel, O'Neill, custom grass finisher, k-line irrigation
• Elis Schrump, Bartles, custom grass feeder of dairy animals, oldest irrigated pasture in Nebraska
• Return to David City at 5:30 p.m.
• Return to Lincoln at 7 p.m.

Overnight lodging, two meals, bus transportation and materials are provided by a SARE grant. For more information about the tour or to make reservations for the tour, contact Karen Spath at (402) 472-8616.

IANR News Release