ON-FARM THOUGHTS:
The End of the Growing Season
by Larry Wegner, MFGA 2022 Regen Ag Conference co-chair
Most of us are now in full swing in preparing for winter. The school buses are back on the country roads picking up students as a new school year gets rolling again. In many ways, we “old grazers” are just like those students: we never really stop learning new ways of doing things to improve our management.
Over the summer I took part in several pasture tours and classes. After each one, I can say that I do come home a little wiser. I did a pasture tour of Hagan Ranch, owned and operated by Thomas and Felicity and their two young children. The Hagan Ranch is the current Manitoba Beef Producers TESA award winners - an award for environmental stewardship and provincial nominee for Manitoba on the National TESA award, awarded at the Canadian Cattle Association Annual Meeting. The Hagan Ranch is located on the west side of Oak Lake MB and is blessed with a high-water table and, although the soil is sandy, the ground is covered with native grasses that thrive on these conditions. Previous grazers on that land would often state that their animals would not graze the low land forages, preferring to over-graze the higher ridges that had more palatable forage. This led to over grazed and under grazed forges across the whole ranch.
To deal with this, Thomas started to move the herd onto weekly allotments of forage, seeing positive results. He has now gone to three-four day moves for a more even graze on each paddock. This simple management step allowed them to carry their head through the drought of last year, and not having to destock or start winter feeding early. The weekly forage moves was a boost in their management.
Another big takeaway for me was what I learned talked about ranch management in the Hagan’s shop. There were white boards all around the shop full of numbers and calculations on the ranch production. Each set of the calculations represented the last two years with a projection column for this year. These white-board calculations included vital planning statistics around grazing days per acre, heifer breed up, cow breed up, average daily gain on the breeding heifers, pounds of gain on the cow/calf herd and – the big one to me - the pounds of forage produced per acre.
By the first week of July, Thomas knew he had surplus forage and could take 200 acres out of the pasture rotation to put up as hay. What appealed was the way the information was front and center to use for the ranch management. Thomas’s white boards remind him every day of the ranch production numbers. To broadcast these numbers in front of a tour takes a great level of confidence.
I went on several other pasture and farm tours over the summer and at each one I learned a different Idea or concept. Have you challenged yourself to step up your management?
I have spent a lot of time this summer doing the behind-the-scenes connecting with keynotes and planning for our MFGA 2022 Regen Ag Conference on November 14-15, 2022. I have always been involved with our conference, but this is the first time I am leading it alongside MFGA conference co-chair Zack Koscielny. As we head into our fifth annual conference, I have a new respect for all board members and MFGA staff leads who have lead our conferences in the past.
By the time this blog runs across our MFGA network, we will be around seven weeks out until the start of our 2022 conference, with an early bird registrations deadline of October 1. As many of you are dealing with the late harvest, we believe our conference will be well-timed to have you attend with harvest behind you. This year – keeping with our pledge to not compete with the every two year Alberta grazing conference held in early December - we will host a day and a half in-person conference at Brandon’s Victoria Inn and Conference Center.
Our agenda is taking shape fast as we finalize speakers, moderators and panels. We are staying true to our tried and tested format of bringing in speakers of prominence as keynotes, followed by Q&A and then followed by moderated producer panels to showcase the connections here in Manitoba.
Our annual conference kicks off with our MFGA AGM around noon, including our MFGA Wall of Fame 2022 inductees. Following that, we will hand the microphone over to our expert moderators Ryan Boyd and Kimberly Cornish to lead us on a provocative half day talking soil health and carbon markets for all farmers of all stripes. My personal interest is in soil organic matter and my want to learn more really accelerates with discussions around carbon-nitrogen. Our first afternoon concludes with a “tying-it-all-together” presentation from David McInnes on the development of Canada’s first-ever Agri-Food Sustainability Index, an unprecedented private-public coalition that seeks to inform four sustainability blocks for Canada’s agriculture and food sector – the environment, food integrity, economic and societal well-being.
After we all head out for a bite to eat with friends, our MFGA Night continues with a slate of project partners from MFGA Aquanty, DU Canada, University of Manitoba and Manitoba Association of Watersheds profiling their work online and in person. We wrap up our night with Randy Booker, Director of Turf Operations, Otter Creek Golf Club in the Toronto area. Due to financial challenges, Randy had to reduce inputs of fertilizer and chemicals and maintain the use and function of the course. It may be a lesson to all of us who are trying to reduce cost and usage of inputs.
Our Day Two kicks off with official welcomes from dignitaries before we beam in well-known professor and author, Dr. Fred Provenza keynote online with a Q&A after his presentation on how soil, plant, animal and human health all tie together and how animals can select plant for the nutrients they require. Kara Kroeger of Understanding Ag out of Texas will close out the morning complementing Fred’s presentation about human health, taking the matter back to the food we consume and the ties to healthy soil. After lunch and networking, we will have a producer panel of MB Regenerative Producers from across the province, showcasing their farm operations, synergies and situations before Zack and I wrap up the conference with our final thoughts and go-forwards. If you have any questions about our conference, feel free to contact MFGA and or myself for more information.
My final thought for this blog, is that we need to accelerate everything around the free-market exchange that happens between plant and the soil life and with the producers at the forefront of that exchange. I think that will be my next blog topic. This is what happens when I go on long drives to pasture tours by myself and I can see by my schedule that I have a few more before winter. As always, thank you for readingand if you have any comments, send them my way,
Best regards,
