Observe. Collaborate. Adapt: Enhancing Grass and Rangeland
No two pastures are identical. That's why developing adaptive grazing systems starts by understanding that each pasture and grazing operation is different. The ideal amount of time and grazing intensity is always on the move: both within your acres and across all the acres where we work.
From tallgrass systems thriving in wetter areas of Kansas and Nebraska, to the shortgrass prairies that dominate eastern Colorado, & further up north in Wyoming & Montana, ecological variety means that there is no single approach to grazing, no single formula or magic recipe for grass and range land improvement.
In fact, Kateri encourages each partner we work with to help track and steer their long term vision for improving their land with the following three steps: Observe, collaborate, & adapt. Each of the following fits into this framework with Kateri’s ability to support the practice listed.
Virtual Fencing and Animal Tracking (Covered by Kateri)
Virtual fencing and animal tracking can fundamentally alter the stockman's ability to manage. By monitoring grazing duration and intensity, these systems enhance control. Full virtual fencing systems offer even more precision with, "invisible" cross and perimeter fence lines – that can be updated frequently via computer or smart phones. These may be more cost effective solutions on larger operations or in rough terrain in particular. Ideally, operators can use these technologies to force lighter animal pressure when plants are more vulnerable (avoiding heavy use critical growth periods), or to maintain higher exposure when the grass is ideal for grazing.
Part of why Kateri's grazing program is popular is because it meets ranchers wherever they are. Kateri offers a network of support to help our grazing partners further profit from their regional expertise, featuring co-investment and new payments for storing soil carbon. Though Kateri programs usually require some type of animal tracking, some of our partners still use traditional fencing combined with tracking.
Indeed, more traditional fencing can also achieve great outcomes in terms of restoring grass and range land. Single strand poly, high tensile steel, and other hardware that helps producers deploy fencing more efficiently and manage animal impact are critical. For smaller operators, these low tech methods may present the best option. Most ranches we’re working with still have substantial barbed wire installed, often as perimeter fence - and in some cases keep it intact to reduce risk while adopting virtual fencing systems.
Diagnosing Your Grass System (Covered by Kateri)
Kateri advisors are experts at assessing range quality. One of the reasons that we rely on local expertise before signing up folks for our carbon program, is because these on-site visits often capture what can be hard to ascertain from remote sensing. Quick field indicators such as the following help our advisors classify your carbon opportunity:
Invaded native rangeland
Improved or exotic pastures
Post-cropland conversion sites
Water system readiness
Fence and pasture readiness
Grazing habits and infrastructure
Graze Better Get Paid (Covered by Kateri)
Kateri signs up producers who are already on an adaptive grazing trajectory and want to do more. Together, we use tools like virtual fencing and water development to advance grazing as a tool to curate and improve large swaths of grass and range land. Our process starts with an initial evaluation to check your ranch's eligibility and ascertain the benefits we can achieve together. Check your initial eligibility today by dropping us a line.
After that, it’s pretty much up to you how you want to run day-to-day operations. Let us know if you have any ideas for how we can help and please consider signing up for additional acres in future cohorts with any novel approaches you may want to try.
Water Development (Supported by Kateri)
Imagine 500 acres cross fenced into 4 pastures with water only in one of the pastures. While over simplified, this illustrates the problem that so many of us face. The one pasture where the water is accessible is much more likely to be overgrazed, compacted, and underperforming. The others may be undergrazed.
To address issues like these, we turn to the logic of adaptive grazing. How can we influence cattle behavior so animals have incentives and/or we have new capabilities to move and distribute them across the entire area available to us?
Often, simply developing more water is part of the solution. Though costly, there is really no way to graze large areas without discrete access to quality water. Hopefully, springs, easy to drill wells, or pipelines are available. If there really is no way to get water to a pasture, it may not be a good choice for adaptive grazing efforts. One other option is automating tank flow to help stimulate animal movement, something that Ranchbot can help with. Kateri is in a position to help pay for some water infrastructure improvements, where warranted.
Matching Livestock to the Environment (Fully covered by Kateri)
As detailed in "Feed Less, Earn More," matching animal units, calving dates and beyond to the specific forage availability can significantly increase profitability while reducing operating costs. Kateri provides funds for new forage assessment tools from vendors like Enriched Ag, and animal location systems associated with virtual fencing vendors, Vence, Gallager, and Halter. These, combined with soil sampling feedback from Yardstick and EarthOptics or Flux tower data on select ranches from Quantera, combine to make our ability to match livestock to the environment unparalleled.
Further, our grazing programs are not strictly limited to cattle. Any grazing livestock can be considered. Multi species grazing, in addition to getting the right number of animal units, can convey additional biological and physical improvements to grass and range land. Contact us today to talk about your custom approach to matching animal units to your ground.
Reseeding & Hay (Supported by Kateri)
Sometimes, especially where irrigation is available, many in the Kateri program are also producing hay. Even if you have irrigation, tenuous forage choices are too easy to make when stepping outside forage endemic to an area.
Reseeding, too, as hay producers may know is usually extremely expensive. We view grazing itself as the best facilitator of forage changing, but this can be a long-term effort with incremental (though sometimes worthwhile!) improvement year to year.
With hay production, if you graze it, we can issue carbon credits. If it's not grazed, we can't.
Still, for some, seed vendors like SmartMix offer calculator tools that highlight the capabilities of different mixes in achieving unique goals on site. For some, grazing is as much for the owner's hunting interest as it is for standard cattle operations - evidenced by seed mixes for wildlife plots. One more cost effective option for introducing new seed without breaking the bank is bale grazing with a desirable forage mix.
Whether it's suppressing undesirable species, enhancing crude protein, building drought tolerance, or anything else, choosing and curating the right types of forages can help accomplish grass and range improvements.
Getting the right assortment of weather durable cover is always the goal; constrained by your time, costs, and management goals. Native grasses are almost always best. Some say that having no bare ground is the end all of range health. We tend to agree. However, insisting on a uniform forage type may lead to abrupt strategies that are impermanent, such as burning down existing vegetation at extreme expense and/or time.
We’d also note that sagebrush & juniper isn't going to be easily conquered by human or even machine efforts.
Using Biochar (Supported by Kateri)
When applied concurrent to nutrients like manure or urine, biochar has the capability to lock in their fertility benefits for slower release. In high fertility soils, it can also serve to lock nutrients. Some of the ranches we work on have on-site forestry activities or mechanical removal that lend themselves to biochar production. While we don't have details about pasture applications and carbon outcomes, the US Biochar Association has lots of resources for producers. Early indications suggest that biochar can help build soil carbon in pastures when it is applied cost efficiently.
Prescribed Burns (Supported by Kateri)
Further science points out how controlled burns can play a critical role in long grass and other prairie ecology to stimulate regeneration. Oklahoma state has even developed a tool to help practitioners advance their controlled burns as a grassland management tool.
We understand that burning in dry and cold climates helps drive the recycling of organic material, but also have to consider the carbon release advanced by fires when issuing carbon credits. Since grasses often have substantial portions of carbon stored below the standing biomass surface, fire may not be as destructive in these ecologies as comparable burns in forested areas. Indeed, when it comes to standing up to fire, grasslands vastly outperform forests in this regard. If you use fire, we can still work with you.
Riparian Work (Supported by Kateri)
Riparian infrastructure enhances soil moisture, carbon storage, and biodiversity through check dams, NIDS, and beaver dam analogs that slow and retain water in dry areas. This transforms erosion into carbon-storing silt deposits—a cost-effective carbon storage method, especially in arid regions. Proper grazing management is essential for maintaining vegetation cover that retains soil moisture, as both overgrazing and under grazing can reduce land's water retention capacity, and pairs nicely with these projects to enhance landscapes of all types. Kateri can help pay for some cost efficient projects like these, just let us know your interest. Many riparian programs also focus on tree planting – outside the scope of Kateri's support, but a wonderful way to gain soil moisture and overall water holding and temperature moderating capacity.