

You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure: Range Record Keeping
Range record keeping helps detect and demonstrate landscape changes that have a direct impact on your ability to maintain or grow your herd.
Range record keeping helps detect and demonstrate landscape changes that have a direct impact on your ability to maintain or grow your herd.
Virtual fencing (borders without physical barriers) has started making waves in the cattle industry, and it can be used to implement precision grazing management. Our team is researching its use and utility at the SDSU Cottonwood Field Station starting this summer.
With the percentage of women in agriculture expected to grow over the next few years, SDSU Extension will be launching a new program called South Dakota Women on the Range. The program will educate women about the importance of range management, while also empowering them to become leaders in the agriculture industry.
Over the last five years, federal, state, NGO and university partners and producers in Northwest S.D. were involved in a needs assessment that identified riparian health as an area of significant concern across Western S.D.
In a recent research project, our precision livestock team deployed technology to measure individual cattle methane emissions and feed intake by disappearance. Learn how this data can be used to help improve day-to-day management decisions on the ranch.
SDSU Extension researchers started a new precision agriculture range project using remote sensing, machine learning, and ground-collected vegetation samples to develop an application to measure forage quality and quantity throughout the state in near real-time.
Properly maintained pastures require ongoing, cooperative and mutually beneficial processes planned by landowners and renters, especially if the owners are absentee. Learn some key considerations for starting the process.
Two of the main environmental conditions that drive post-wildfire rangeland recovery include health of the rangeland ecosystem prior to the wildfire and climatic variables, such as precipitation or drought after the fire event.
There are several opportunities for youth in South Dakota to get exposed to rangeland ecology and management, with involvement from several partners across the state. Learn about some exciting opportunities offered each year!
It is very tempting to graze new, green cool-season grasses when pastures are dry most of the summer. However, caution should be taken to not overgraze this green-up.