Thanks,

Logan

Imagine yourself in an unfamiliar setting, wanting to get from one location to another. Perhaps you are in a foreign county, confused by a different language, bombarded by new thoughts and unsettled by everything around you. If you had a choice, what mode of transportation would you choose? 

For myself in that situation, I would prefer the personalized services of someone that could chauffeur me directly to my chosen destination. I may not be very adventuresome, but I would rather travel in comfort, at a relaxed pace and with the assistance of someone who knows where they are going and that has my best interest in mind. Jumping on the subway or grabbing a train may get me in the general vicinity of where I want to go but rarely will it get me to my exact destination or do it comfortably.

For the new ranch owner, the situation they find themselves in is not dissimilar. Ranch ownership brings with it a different language, new thoughts and unfamiliar surroundings. It calls for someone with the expertise to assist the new owner in achieving their goals, i.e. reaching their destination. The purchase of a ranch property is a monumental decision and investment. Rarely is that decision made impulsively or taken lightly. The selection of the individual or company that will guide the fulfillment of the expectations associated with that decision is equally important. Over the years, we at Ranch Resources have come to appreciate that the personalized service and flexible attributes of a chauffeur-like approach to ranch management results in a high level of satisfaction for the ranch owner and avoids the disastrous consequence of unexpected results. Far from stepping on the train and being railroaded to a predetermined destination by an engineer with a singular goal, we prefer that our clients have the opportunity to express just exactly what they expect. Once goals and expectations are established, we work with our clients to determine the best means to arrive there. Give us a call if you are intrigued by our approach or if you are wary or weary of the train ride.

Step one. I first needed to know the exact area that required irrigating. I went onsite with a handheld GPS and mapped an area to be seeded. I then uploaded this feature into ArcView software where I was able to get a digital representation of the project area.

Step two. Now with the area defined I deciphered the best direction to lay out a wheel line from the point of diversion. After a couple trials calculating the pipe needed and the amount of coverage, I made a decision on where to place the mainline.

Step three. With the mainline in place I defined the number of joints necessary to cover the field and the area the wheel line could cover given the constraints of the topographic area and mainline extent. To determine how much area would be irrigated I created a buffer analysis of the wheel line area by 30 feet which is how far 13/64” nozzles with our pump will send water with no wind. The finished product, which is shown, allowed me to collaborate with a local company to order the correct and necessary equipment to implement the project

As you can see, not all of the seeded area will get coverage. The seeded area that is being restored is a very odd (not square) shape. ArcView allowed me to get an aerial perspective and then take the best course of action to get water on the most area possible. I chose to use a wheel line because after this area is established we are going to move the equipment to another site, which I might add is quite square and conducive to this type of equipment!

Reclamation Irrigation Map

Reed canarygrass holds little value.  It acts as cover, but is often dense and entrapping.  It has a fair nutritional value for livestock and wildlife but only when young; the grass coarsens and becomes unpalatable with age.  Again, the native species it replaces have higher nutritional, palatability, and cover values.Harvesting is difficult given its tendency to grow in wet or moist soils.

This aggressive species is the subject of a Ranch Resources trial.  Research papers on removing and eradicating reed canarygrass are filled with failed efforts, given its tenacity and location.  Smoliak et al. (1990) describe it as able to “withstand ponding for up to two months, and tolerant of waterlogged soils.”  This is a species were multiple methods are required.  Ranch Resources has a trial in place, testing a combination of mechanical (mowing) and chemical treatments.  Care must be taken to apply chemicals during sensitive periods for the reed canarygrass but dry soils to prevent contamination.  If successful, these trials will be applied to larger areas along waterways.  Stay tuned!

Smoliak,S., Ditterline,R.L., Scheetz, J.D., Holzworth,L.K., Sims, J.R.,  Wiesner, L.E.,       Baldridge, D.E., and Tibke, G.L.  (1990).  Montana Interagency Plant Materials Handbook.

Noxious weeds aggressively establish themselves.  Since they are not native to the area, they have adaptations the native vegetation lacks, creating a competitive edge.  Some noxious species, e.g. leafy spurge, produce extensive root systems, effectively stealing soil moisture and nutrients from other species.  Other noxious weeds, e.g. spotted knapweed, prolifically produce seeds, ensuring another generation.  Still others, e.g. houndstongue, produce specialized seeds that allow transport to new areas.  How can a landowner fight such skilled opponents?

Constant vigilance will hopefully catch an infestation in an early enough stage to eradicate the noxious weeds.  Unfortunately, weeds spread 24 hours a day and landowners cannot spend every waking hour looking for noxious weeds.  Yet, landowners can level the odds in their favor by keeping their soil covered and their forage healthy.
Soil cover includes vegetation, litter (last year’s broken vegetation), and rocks.  The easiest of these to manage is the vegetation.  Entire degrees are awarded in vegetation management, so this is not an easy task.  However, some simple ideas guide the mission.

Do not remove all of the vegetation.  Removal could be through severe grazing, mechanical means, fire, flood, or any practice that exposes the soil.  This exposed soil is an embossed invitation for noxious weeds.

If the vegetation is completely removed, establish (plant) replacement vegetation and monitor the area for noxious weeds.  One client had such a need.  Given the vulnerability of the area, we chose to plant a mix of introduced and native grasses, in an effort to ‘beat’ the noxious weeds in establishment.  During the first growing season, only a small patch of noxious weeds grew, which were quickly removed by hand.  The area should have full cover this growing season and need only occasional monitoring for noxious weeds.

We have had great success in keeping up the infrastructures on very large ranches (10,000+ acres) using Arc GIS. Because the layers are only as accurate as the data you input, we take great care in collecting and entering this information to ensure accuracy.  To give you an example of why Arc GIS is necessary would be a ranch we manage in Montana that has 91 miles of fence, 33 miles of roads, 90 ditch structures, 98 transportation features, and 56 miles of irrigation conveyances. There simply is not a file cabinet big enough to store that much information and still make it readily available. Thanks to the software, I can confidently tell you the current condition, construction, location, and any other detail of every mile and every point of every feature within the entire ranch, in minutes.

So why have all this information collected in the first place? When it comes down to deciding what needs to be worked on, replaced, or removed, we can query our database and give the owner an organized report based on our initial surveys. Yes, it does require us to initially survey the property and then maintain the database to stay current, but the payoff is an entire ranch’s information available anytime; literally just a few clicks away. For example: a ranch may want to phase out fences that are unfriendly to wildlife, but they also only want to budget so much per year. This is where the software kicks in. We simply search for the most unfriendly fence types, such as hog wire, calculate the total distance, and then multiply by the cost of replacement or removal, which is based on a per foot price. In a short time we can then make confident recommendations on which fences would be appropriate to replace that year.

Other great ranch related services Arc GIS software allows us to do is calculating areas and defining premise maps for leases, delineating soil conditions and trends so that we can plant crops appropriately, we can even create hunting maps for landowners that show wildlife travel routes based on topological and vegetative characteristics, and these are just to name a few. The possibilities truly are endless.

We begin the process of wildlife habitat improvement by visiting with the ranch owner to get a feeling for which wildlife species they are interested in.  Many times the owner is interested in game animals, but increasingly these days, focus and attention is given to nongame species as well.  An assessment is made on the resource to determine what the overall potential of the ranch is in meeting the owner’s wildlife goals.  This assessment is an important step, not only that it sets the parameters of the habitat potential, but it also brings to light other wildlife features that could be enhanced that the owner may not be aware of.

There are many types of enhancement that can occur on a ranch.  These days food plots and cover plots are very common.  Food plots, either annual or perennial, are designed to provide food for wildlife in specific times of year, mostly fall through early spring.  Small grains planted for pheasants or waterfowl, perennial clovers and alfalfa planted for deer, or beets planted for deer are a few examples.  Annual food plots are perhaps the most common enhancement made to benefit wildlife.  Here are a few considerations that should be made:

1. Bigger is Better.  Larger plots tend to be better, not only from a farming/management/cost efficiency standpoint, but also from a predation/death loss standpoint.  If the plot is too small (less than 2 acres) the plot not only serves to feed pheasants, it also feeds the foxes.  Plots should be greater than 3 acres and don’t need to be larger than 15 acres.
2. Weeds, weeds, weeds!  The first couple years of your annual plot you will see great success.  But after this the weeds will come and you will begin an annual cycle of weed control, along with your food production.  This is where larger plots can be advantageous.  You can fallow (farm or spray season long to control weeds) a portion of the plot, and rotation this around from year to year to control the weeds.
3. Simplify your Life.  I have seen gourmet food plot mixes surface around the state.  Mixes including sorghum, sunflower, wild  rice, corn, wheat, barley, winter peas have all been used throughout southwest Montana.  And, with mixed results.  In the end it is more cost effective to simply grow what grows well in your area.  If you get 10 inches of rain a year at 5000 feet in elevation and a 90 day growing season, maybe it’s best to stick with the small grains.  The critters still like it and it will be immensely successful.
4. Deer – the love / hate relationship.  I don’t know of any ranch owner who doesn’t love to see deer in his field – the majestic buck standing off near the cover, the fawns frolicking about.  But come late summer, when their diets turn to high protein sources – like your food plot, your attitude will quickly change.  Deer eat foods based from learned experiences.  It takes them a year or two to learn that the food plot grain is good.  Changing the crop in your plot from year to year (e.g. barley, spring wheat, winter wheat, triticale) will keep the deer off guard.     and most of your plot will mature and survive.
5. Location, Location, Location!  Just like the location of your new restaurant will dictate it’s ultimate success, so the location of your food plot.  It should be adjacent to other good cover (like willows and trees).  Some biologists will correctly argue that trees next to food plots make great perches for raptors hunting pheasants.  But watching a red-tailed hawk take a pheasant from a perch is an amazing sight and one that is appreciated by today’s ranch owner.
6. It’s not just dirt.  Sometimes the best location for your new food plot is in the corner of an existing field (like the corner of a pivot).  The area’s ability to grow crops has already been proven in the past and you can proceed without much concern.  However, if you choose to carve out a new food plot in an area that has never been planted before, it is best to conduct soil tests (for fertility as well as rocks) to ensure that the area can be farmed and that the soil is capable of supporting a crop.
7. Now What?  So you have your waist-high stand of triticale and all is good.  Now what?  Managing your standing crop will become an issue come spring when you want to farm the plot up again to start over.  Some options include (1) leaving it stand through the winter and mowing it in the spring prior to farming, (2) baling the grain to use throughout the ranch as wildlife feeding stations, (3) swath the grain into windrows and leave it through the winter, (4) mow the food plot in the early fall.  Which option you choose depends on what your wildlife goals are.

Planting and nurturing annual food plots and wildlife can be a very rewarding experience for ranch owners and their families.  They are relatively easy plant and with a little planning can be maintained into the future, providing high quality food for wildlife that make your ranch their home.

This is the first of several posts I will make on wildlife enhancements for wildlife on private lands.

If you own cattle and purchase pasture or if you sell pasture to a neighbor, you know where this is going. If the acronym AUM is new to you, let me explain. It stands for animal unit month. Technically it represents what a 1000 pound beef animal will eat in 30 days. It is generally accepted that the ruminant will consume 3% of their body weight per day. Therefore, an AUM is 900 pounds of forage per month (1000×3%x30days). Grazing fees and utilization records have historically been calculated on an AUM basis. A 1000 pound non-lactating beef cow is considered 1 animal unit (AU) ,  a bull because it is larger has been considered 1.5 and a yearling because it is smaller is .75 or .8 of an AU and so on. There are even conversions for horses and sheep. What has been lost or perhaps ignored in many cases is the increased size and appetite of today’s average cow. While we may prorate the AUM calculation and pay .8 of an AUM for an 800 pound yearling, we rarely do the same for the 1200 pound cow. In the animal unit conversions where a 500 pound calf equals .5 AU then it should follow that a 1200 pound cow should equal 1.2 AUs. Back in the day when I was frequenting the “All You Can Eat” buffet, I expected to pay less than full admission for my children (because they ate less) but I never once offered to pay a premium for my 6’2”, 250 pound buddy that joined us in the food line. Perhaps I should have.

There is a lot of talk these days about “Stock Days”. A stock day is simply 1/30^th of an AUM. It is still based on a 1000 pound animal consuming 3% of its body weight daily and equals 30 pounds of forage. The stock day calculation however, can more accurately account for forage harvest because it generally considers total pounds of beef in a pasture on any given day to determine forage consumption. The forage producer is compensated for what is consumed and the grazer pays only for what is harvested.

There are a great number of variables considered when establishing AUM rates and there should be no single standard rate. What I suggest, is an honest look at the value of the forage that is being consumed by livestock. Whether you purchase, sell or raise your own grazing forage, it is just good management to recognize the amount and the value of the commodity and accurately account for it. Most cattle producers have the tools and information readily available to track this data. Average cow weights and actual use grazing records are all that are needed to develop a user friendly method that tracks forage production and utilization. Forage and fecal analysis can supplement this information to define forage quality.

Management decisions must be based on pertinent and accurate information. If we know how much forage is being consumed, based on animal weights, and we know the quality of the forage then we can correctly value it. If you haven’t done the math, $18.00/AUM ($.60/Stock Day) is equal to $40.00 per ton of forage and in our area, $40.00 per ton is a common rate paid for hay on the stump. I find that comparison interesting and validating.

Lately, the Ranch Resources posts have focused on management. Management “is what we do” and this post is no different. This post discusses one of the certainties of property ownership. Not taxes, but noxious weeds. Even if your property is free of noxious weeds (be sure to vigilantly check!), management is needed to spot new infestations.

Noxious weed management occurs year-round. Treatment of noxious weeds and undesirable species impacts the species during active growth. Management, however, is not limited to times of active growth. Management includes planning for the coming field season and controlling established weeds, searching for unknown infestations, and preventing new infestations. Noxious weeds spread readily, so vigilance must be constant.

Preparing for the coming field season involves identifying the type of control(s) used, the amount of funding available, and species and locations to manage. Ranch Resources recommends an integrated approach to weed management. Integration, rather than herbicide alone, disallows resistance and provides the manager multiple tools to control infestations. Considerations include topography, species of noxious weed, timing, level of infestation, cost, and available methods.

Another management tool available for our clients is mapping. Ranch Resources has mapped infestations for many years and now, with the purchase of ArcMap 10, we can easily track the progression and regression of weeds through time. This can be done by species or by area. With this, we can focus the management to predict the extent of the infestation in the coming field season, the best tool to manage the infestation, and evaluate effectiveness of approaches.

Bozeman Chronicle