From the earliest days of agriculture to the present, those involved in working the earth with their hands have understood one basic truth: The success of any crop is dependent upon the very ground it is planted in.

But success is incredibly difficult to achieve without knowledge. Whether that knowledge is collected as part of a research study, is imparted during an educational session or comes from a producer running tests on their own operation, putting your ground to use in a way that works for the environment, your livestock and your family is the key to survival.

What if a high-input model for maximizing forage production is causing more harm than benefit within your operation? That question is one the Noble Research Institute set out to solve with a more natural approach.

The building blocks

Understanding the direction in which to take your operation is largely dictated by two factors: a solid awareness of where your business is currently standing, as well as what expenses have been incurred in getting you to where you are now — and where you wish to be.

To gain a better understanding, Hugh Aljoe, director of ranches, outreach and partnerships at Noble Research Institute, recommends every producer considering adopting regenerative management conduct an enterprise analysis.

“If you understand the cost-benefit of all the inputs you’re putting into the operation, you may have a different view of how successful [the farm is],” explains Aljoe, citing the difference in purchased input cost between native grass pastures and introduced pastures utilizing products to boost performance. “We can grow more tonnage, no doubt, but can we do so cost effectively?”

From equipment to labor and the inputs themselves, understanding the dollars that go into maintaining pastures in pristine, non-native monocultures is the jumping-off point to adopting more regenerative practices at home.

Aljoe points out that if introduced pasture is present, producers should make use of those forages while managing pastures with a regenerative mindset both for expense management and overall soil health.

“Introduced pasture can still be managed regeneratively. How do you do that? The key thing is they don’t have to look like monocultures, nor should they,” he says. “Encourage multiple species of forages and try to bring back some of that natural biology that only comes by building organic matter.”

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Organic matter is a big deal

Building organic matter is most effectively achieved by adding diversity to the mix of plants growing in a given area and by leaving more residual in the field.

“From the time I was in school, we put fertilizer on introduced pastures and sprayed weeds. We needed to get every bit of [grass], and we got really good at getting every bit of it. But that left nothing to return to the soil,” Aljoe recalls. “We relied totally on what the roots could provide to soil organic matter and very little on what could be acquired above ground.”

It takes both to feed the population of plants and build soil quality. The trick to remember is that not all beneficial plants from an organic-matter standpoint result in pristine pasture imagery. After all, some of the plants providing the most soil-enhancing nutrients are considered weeds in a one-species system.

Whether introduced or native pasture, building organic matter in the soil is the key to healthier soils and plant populations.

“Never take [pastures] below about 4 to 6 inches. If you’ve been managing grass, you’ll think, ‘I’m wasting 3 inches!’ Just try grazing it taller. You get more cycling of your organic matter, and you get fewer of the nuisance weeds like ragweed and croton,” notes Aljoe. “Another method we try to use is managing livestock with well-managed rotation.”

At Noble, managing pastures begins with adjusting stocking rates as carrying capacities change due to season and drought. Managing pastures this way involves a certain amount of flexibility from the person making decisions.

“We’ve got to flex our stocking to some degree so that we can maintain the residual and [ground] cover. The second thing? We never take [forages] to the ground. You always want to maintain plenty of residual,” Aljoe recommends. “Always come back to pastures that are fully regrown instead of trying to just hit them at top quality. You want to get to the point where they begin to look like it may be just past optimum. We’re only grazing the top part of it. The lower-quality portion you don’t want them to eat anyway. You’re just using that to cover the ground so that nutrients feed back to the organisms that are below the surface.”

The learning curve

When it comes to proving results, soil testing is imperative for producers looking to continue to build their soil biome and overall soil health. There are two reasons to soil test according to Aljoe: to get an understanding of where you’re at currently and to monitor long-term progress.

“When it comes to whether we’re going to get any type of results or not, the organic matter element is critically important. You’ve got to know what your nutrients are, because if your nutrients or pH are out of balance or really low, you may need phosphorus, potassium or lime. Those nutrients do not rebuild themselves very rapidly, so, if you need them, it’s best to go ahead and apply them,” stresses Aljoe. “You have got to build the organic matter up to buffer the pH no matter what, and the only way you’re going to be able to really monitor it is to regularly take a soil test.”

Even before implementing a completely regenerative focus, staff at the Noble Institute were monitoring introduced pasture via routine soil-testing. One common question since transitioning to regenerative: “Since you’re not applying fertilizer, why soil-test?”

Aljoe contends that not soil-testing is probably the far larger mistake.

“We would know a whole lot more about the changes even of our rangelands if every rancher soil-tested all grazing lands. Tracking soil tests over time — especially on your organic matter — is important because that’s where a lot of natural fertility exists within the soil,” notes Aljoe. Noble tests all pastures twice a year to determine how rapidly to push improvements.

“We also educate on how to use grazing management as your primary tool for improving soil and then, of course, profitability,” he says. “Because without profit, we may not be around long enough to see a whole lot of improvement on land. It takes time. We didn’t get here overnight. We won’t recover overnight either.”

When it comes to regenerative management, learning never stops. Whether those lessons take place on your own operation or in a group setting, continually working to educate ourselves and learn new practices and management strategies to implement back at home is critical to continued growth.

For those of us who would rather learn in the moment than process from written word, the Noble Institute has implemented a suite of educational events focused on helping producers put regenerative management practices in place that are designed specifically to their own operations.

“Our education sessions are designed to do something different than what most are trying to do. You know, we could go to a lecture somewhere to talk for 45 minutes and that’s kind of the model we have learned to work within,” Aljoe recalls. “Our sessions are really centered around building upon connected learning objectives. We want to provide you with applied education so that when you leave, you’re taking something home that you can make use of immediately.”

Noble’s in-person sessions cover everything from land essentials to grazing and profitability, while also exploring how to align grazing strategy with individual business goals. For more information on the makeup of each in-person session, visit www.noble.org/find-a-course/#inperson.

The ‘why’ of the matter

Whether we’re developing heifers on pasture, running cow-calf pairs, housing bulls or putting gain on calves, the forages unique to our operations play a critical role in making our dreams as cattlemen reality.

Founded in 1945 by Lloyd Noble, the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation was named in honor of the most selfless person its founder had ever known: his own father. Lloyd Noble wanted to rebuild soils, rebuild the health of the land, and he wanted to keep people on the land earning a living at the same time.

“He really had a strong desire to rebuild the soil and the land because he had firsthand experience with the Dust Bowl and was a student of history. He knew that in past civilizations, when the soils played out, so did those civilizations,” says Aljoe. “Here at Noble, we’ve converted all our ranches — six ranches totaling around 13,500 acres — to regenerative management completely.”

The first few years of data collection show that the transition to regenerative practices on Noble-managed ranches was worth the effort.

To show the benefits of regenerative management, Aljoe shares a slide with Coffey Ranch data since 1988 (see Table 1), when they started improvements. The ranch went from supporting 10,000 grazing days to 35,000 grazing days in about 10 years — just matching stocking rate to forage production, adaptive rotation grazing and maintaining rest and recovery.