2018 Young Farmers Conference

This workshop will focus on the ecological approach taken at Stone Barns Center to managing pastures and woodlands with the goal of working with natural cycles to build resilient pastures and animals. Our land management philosophy revolves around soil health, improving plant biodiversity for forage, and creating habitat for wildlife through the use of ruminants. We will discuss grazing strategies, pasture planning, pasture based lambing, and the benefits of a multi-species ‘flerd’ management system in the context of our cattle and sheep operation. We will also detail our strategy for utilizing goats for trail maintenance and invasive species control in woodland areas. A crucial aspect of our grazing system is genetics. We will also cover the genetics that we have chosen for our system and why those are so important. Lastly, we will discuss our sampling and monitoring strategies to analyze changes in our soils and pastures. As a part of this program, we will also take a pasture walk (weather permitting), which will exhibit our grazing system and we will talk about livestock integration, portable fencing, and portable water systems.