Texas class of Beginning Women Farmers Learn Together

A social and educational retreat at her lovely desert oasis was offered by Alice Ball Strunk to her classmates in the 2012-2013 class of HMI’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers: Women in Texas (aka Beginning Women Farmers or just BWF). Alice planned for great food, free time on the river, spring or land, and teaching tours of the ranch with legends Joe David Ross, Steve Nelle and John Karger.

Hudspeth River Ranch is not really new to Alice, she grew up going to the ranch as often as she could get away from her busy life in San Antonio. Her mother, Claudia Ball, well known in ranching circles as a dynamic force and early adopter of Holistic Management, inherited the ranch from her buddy and grandfather Claude Hudspeth. With Claudia’s passing in 2011, Alice now holds the reins with her husband, Billy Bob Strunk.

It was Alice’s idea to invite the younger generation in hopes some of the land loving and ranching lessons learned would inspire them to greater stewardship wherever they landed. About 50 people attended the 4-day event with about half being in the class and the other half being husbands, children and other friends.

Susana Canseco and Memo. You are never too young for learning

Thursday was relaxed and simple with time on the river and a drive around the ranch. It was topped off with a fabulous goat dinner.

Friday featured neighbor and advisor, Joe David Ross DVM, his sister, our mentor, and soil scientist Betsy Ross and the rest of the group discussing fencing, cattle and sheep conformation, how to slow and catch water on the slopes with small rock dams, useful and dangerous plants, and other tips on a variety of topics. We were impressed with Billy Bob’s grassfed hamburgers.

Joe David Ross addresses the group from among the many wildlife mounts from Claudia Ball’s many years at Hudspeth River Ranch. He created posters of land management techniques from photos on his own place and others he has visited.

Pam Mitchell, Jaye Henneke and Lauri Celella check out the map of the ranch

The breeding program at Hudspeth River Ranch is heading for larger percentage hair sheep as they cross their old Rambouillet blood with Dorper and St. Croix. Joe David said to look for wide, square space between the front legs so you know that ewe can carry large healthy twins and triplets. Fencing along the sides of these steep hills was another topic of discussion.

This group of select sheep came to the river to lamb.

Relaxing in the shady flood plain

Driving to the top of some of the rocky hills, the group learned techniques for slowing the rainwater and retaining the soil such as low rock dams across the slope.

Twinleaf Senna is pretty, but poison that affects the muscles of livestock, including the heart. Cows and goats particularly have a hard time with it. A good mineral program for the animals makes it less of a problem.

There is a surprising amount of food for livestock and wildlife in this desert upland.

Joe David used the pet dairy cow who was feeding the doggied baby lambs to teach us what to look for in a beef animal.

Now the challenge is to judge this group of wary heifers and choose the 2 you would cull from your beef herd. There were some tips on low stress stockmanship and on horse handling from Joe David, the veterinarian,

Saturday we enjoyed a day with Steve Nelle, conservationist consultant, riparian specialist and primo reader of the land. We visited a couple of riparian areas where the spring-fed creeks joins the river. Steve taught us how a river works and the plants that help it flood in a constructive way rather than the destruction of losing soils and eroding banks. We also went to an upland area where we learned how to begin learning to read the land – learn about the plants that grow there – and learned a technique for estimating forage.

Water is the most precious or resources. Learning riparian function makes it all the more amazing.

Steve Nelle points out Eastern Gamagrass, one of the best riparian grasses due to the sturdy network of its roots. The young trees and big bunch grasses in the floodplain slow the water during a flood and cause it to drop its load of sediment.

The group enjoys the cool location while Steve explains.

The plants in and around this spring keep the water clean and the banks healthy.

Alice and Billy Bob took us to another area on the river. This time the flood slowing mechanism was sycamore and bushy bluestem. Steve identified many plants that work together to protect the banks.

Alice and Steve take a close look at a sedge under the sycamores.

Now in the upland, the group looks at the diversity of plants and learns to estimate forage.

9.6 square foot plot is the key.
A radius of 21 inches will scribe a circle with a diameter of 42 inchs or an area of 9.6 square feet.
Clip and weigh grass in grams and multiply times 10 to get pounds per acre.
If you choose to clip only half a circle, multiply grams times 20.
If choose to use a square made of pvc pipe or other material, use a square of 37.2 inches per side (inside dimension) to get the 9.6 square feet
If you choose to use a round “hooloa hoop” type of ring, then use 132 inches (11 feet) of flexible pipe to form a ring of 42 inch diameter.
Remember to convert green grass weight to air dry grass weight. There are numerous conversion charts available. The one we use is found in Exhibit 4-2 on page 4ex-2 of the attached Range and Pasture Handbook. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrcs.usda.gov%2Fwps%2Fportal%2Fnrcs%2Fdetailfull%2Fnational%2Flanduse%2Frangepasture%2F%3Fcid%3Dstelprdb1043084&ei=0DKdUdW8CMSvyQHH4oDICw&usg=AFQjCNEXyn9qCnX4-Gw8-99jJPW0sigi-A&sig2=hHWbXbNrQ1Hs782ztltNcA
It would give totally the wrong answer if you used green weight instead of air dry conversion (like I did at HRR)
If enough clipping and weighing is done on different parts of the ranch and if it is representative and not biased, then a manager can get a good feel for what his or her ranch will produce. Obviously it varies from year to year but the more clipping is done the better the decisions can be made. Generally we do not count annuals since they are unreliable.
Also important to note the season of clipping and whether it is early in the growing season or late. If you only clip once a year, best time is late Oct.
If you clip in an area that has been grazed, you will get a different answer so best to try to clip in places that have not been grazed to get a more true picture of production.
The stocking rate calculation is based on the standard 25% harvest efficiency and an AU consumption of about 10,000 pounds per year (air dry basis).
40,000 pounds divided by pounds per acre will give you the stocking rate in acres per AU. This is standard range management thinking and may not jive with HMI or Savory thinking.
So for example if a ranch in western EP produces an average of 800 pounds per acre, the appropriate stocking rate would be 40,000 divided by 800 or 50 acres per AU. This happens to be just about what West Ranch was using before the wildfire.
This clipping exercise is complicated when you add in browse and browsing animals. Much different procedure for that.

After lunch John Karger taught us much about birds of prey and how to mitigate losses we blame on these birds. John is Executive Director of Last Chance Forever, a bird of prey conservancy in San Antonio. His wife and beautiful assistant Dr. Melissa Hill helped him fly for our enjoyment a bay winged hawk, peregrine falcon and a hybred falcon. They even let us experience the birds flying onto our wrist.

John, Leo and Melissa explain the differences in various birds of prey.

The bay wink hawk flew back and forth to the delight of the observers.

Beautiful creature

John encouraged participants to experience the thrill of flying the birds. Lauri Celella gives it a try.

Progress was made on next year’s BWF class as well, through a meeting of the trainer trainees with their instructor, coordinator and mentor (aka the 3 Peggys) and recruiting Claire’s friend Anne to apply for the 2013-2014 class. It was good to be gathering again, renewing the bond as we learned and played together.