In 2020, Noble Research Institution pivoted the focus of its operations to regenerative ranching. The goal? Build healthy soils, better landscapes, and improve ranchers’ bottom line.
The Noble Research’s recent docuseries Regenerating the Ranch features the institution’s seven ranches, which total 14,000 acres in Southern Oklahoma. Each of the seven ranches is unique in topography, use, and history. Some of the ranches include introduced forages, while others remain primarily native, but the main goal of the project is to improve soil health with sound grazing practices.
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Noble hasn’t always focused on regenerative practices. “In the past, the ranch was really used to house research projects. They were small plot trails, forage, trials, grazing trials, and the practices of that lead to a more degraded state compared to the regenerative principles we apply now,” says Joe Pokey, Noble Ranch’s manager.
As the proverb goes, “Methods are many, principles are few.” The six soil health principles the ranches apply are:
- Know your context
- Cover the soil
- Minimize soil disturbance
- Increase diversity
- Maintain continuous living plants and roots
- Integrate livestock
Episode 1: Context is Everything
“Rain is pretty important, but how much you keep and how much you lose is just as important,” says Pokey. “Having good soil health, it’s like having a good buffer between the extremes in our weather, so that you can hold onto more moisture longer in a really dry time and you can capture more of the moisture when it does rain because you’ve build that resiliency in your system.”
Episode 2: How We are Adapting Our Cow Herd to Regenerative Ag
“We’re trying to manage our cowherd adaptively. A lot of that is getting our cows to graze the way we want them to graze, perform under our grazing management. Managing this way is really good for a lot of things: it’s good for the soil health, it’s really good for the cow health,” says Pokay. “It’s good for the ranch profitability as well.”
Episode 3: Raising Grass Fed Sheep on our Ranch
“We decided to get some sheep for the Coffey Ranch to help utilize more of the forages we have available. They utilize the broad leaves, the forbs better than cattle. We want diversity in our forages as well as our livestock to more efficiently utilize the forages that we have, and to have something other than cattle to market,” says Clark Roberts, manager for Coffey Ranch.
Episode 4: Water Infrastructure on Our Ranch!
“It’s easier to clean one tank than permanent thanks that are just sitting there,” says Clark Roberts, Coffey Ranch Manager. The ranch pulls up old tanks, replacing floats with a riser and valve that allows them to use portable tanks with hoses and valves that can be moved around. Risers may be spaced anywhere from 200-500 feet apart, allowing the ranch to be more adaptive with grazing.
Episode 5: Adding 500 Goats to Our Ranch
Brush management is a primary concern on native rangeland. The follow up treatment to mechanical and chemical is goats — 500 of them. “The goats absolutely help our soil health. It’s diversity in our livestock species,” says Joe Pokay, general ranch manager. “We’ve already seen positive benefits of that.” After training 150 goats, Noble Ranches realized they needed closer to 500 to get around the entire ranch. “It was a challenge at first, because we were learning, the goats were learning, and right now we’re weaning calves too,” said Jeremy Westfall, Oswalt Ranch foreman.
Episode 6: Our Worst Drought in 10 Years
The ranch didn’t get much by way of moisture in June and July. Assessing the amount of forage and the carrying capacity during a drought is integral for determining what levels of destocking need to happen. After analyzing the range condition, the ranch decided to challenge the cows by pulling bulls at 45 days to decrease the calving window. Open cows left a decrease in the herd by about 30 days, allowing for appropriate destocking.
Ag consultants Steve Swaffar and Josh Gaskamp provided the following recommendations for management during drought:
- Drought planning has to be a part of every rancher’s thought process.
- Think about culling during times of drought. Select the type of animals that can do well in your environment.
- Avoid stocking at carrying capacity, consider 80 percent to account for wildlife, insects, and other unforeseen events.
- Keep below ground livestock fed with below-ground roots and soil coverage. Grass shades the soil, keeping temperature down and soil moisture up.
- Pay attention to trigger points, the times to act, set that benchmark ahead of time before the emotions of drought come in.
