Novice landowners learn more about livestock, wildlife management
Contact(s): Dr. Larry Redmon, 979-845-4826, l-redmon@tamu.edu
COLLEGE STATION – At Ranch Management University, students come from not just Texas, but California, Illinois - even Costa Rica - to learn more about managing agriculture and natural resources.
The four-day program held recently in College Station drew more than 40 participants to hear experts from the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Texas AgriLife Research give presentations on producing high-quality forage, managing fish and wildlife and what type of livestock operations that best fit their land resources.
"Ranch Management University is a new program we've brought to College Station targeting the novice landowner," said Dr. Larry Redmon, AgriLife Extension state forage specialist. "Many are buying land in Texas and don't have a firm understanding of how to manage the resources on their property. We like to think we are sending them back maybe with not all of the answers, but with at least some basic understanding of how to manage those resources. It's all about stewardship and land resource management."
Topics discussed during the workshop were forage species, genetic strategies for profitable beef production, cattle vaccination, deworming, and castration, hay production and forage nutritive value, marketing livestock, weed and brush management strategies, farm pond management, feral hog control and Rio Grande turkey management. Demonstrations were also made on how to obtain good soil and forage samples for laboratory analysis.
"Ranch Management University has been great," said Justin Withers of Austin. "I came here with a pretty specific question in mind: Do I want to run a cow-calf operation or do I want to run a stocker operation on my land? Being able to come here and learn about stocking rates, making sure my pastures are healthy…I'm learning the perfect steps of what I need to do to and make sure I'm maximizing the amount of weight gain my cows can (achieve)."
Dr. Mike Masser, AgriLife Extension fisheries specialist, gave an extensive overview of pond management. He discussed several aspects of fish behavior, especially the largemouth bass.
"The question becomes how do we develop a strong food chain?" Masser explained to the group.
Masser said that starts with plant life and microscopic algae that leads to green water, which is the equivalent of green grass on a pasture for livestock. One of the ways to ensure the fish are getting enough to eat is to fertilize ponds, which fuels the growth of algae and other pond vegatation.
"When it comes to fertilizing ponds, it's phosphorus that is the main critical ingredient," he said. "You can use liquid fertilize or powder fertilizer. That's what we need to grow algae. By fertilizing a pond, fish production can be increased four to six times."
He also emphasized the importance of culling fish. When you see a fish that has an enlarged tail and enlarged eyes, "he's skinny and stunted."
Masser said a good management technique is to keep catch records so you can look back and see what you've got over a period of time.
Ranch Management University in College Station will be held again in Spring 2011 and the enrollment is limited to 50 individuals per class. For more information about the ranch management program, visit http://forages.tamu.edu/workshop.html or email Redmon at l-redmon@tamu.edu .