The Foothills Forage and Grazing Association held a tour of the Waldron Ranch Grazing Co-op south of Longview  a couple of weeks ago.

The tour was a part of their Forage to Beef Demo Days.

Today the Waldron owns 65,000 acres and is one of the largest co-operative land purchase deals in Alberta's history when it was established in 1962.

Environmental and Communications Coordinator with the Foothills Forage and Grazing Association, Sonja Bloom, says their group of about 72 ranchers started off the day by learning about different grazing practices.

"We explored a paddock that had been ungrazed for over 30 years right next to a rotationally grazed paddock, and we really started to explore the differences in soil health, plant health, to see what everything looked like."

Photo - Sonja Bloom.

Bloom says, they also saw an effective example of using sheep grazing to control leafy spurge.

"Then we went back to the Maycroft Hall where we learned about the application of drone use in grazing, as well as the benefits of hybrid vigor, which is essentially cross breeding."

For day two of the Forage to Beef Demo Days, they went up to Didsbury to tour Whiskey Ridge Cattle Co. and Difficulty Ranch.

"Very similar things that we saw at the Waldron," said Bloom. "A couple things a little bit different was there was a perennial forage trial that has been seeded a couple years ago that we explored, and then we also saw a riparian area that's being grazed and managed through the ALUS program."

Bulls on the tour near Didsbury. Photo - Sonja Bloom.

She says, a highlight was watching ranchers network and share their grazing practices with each other.

To learn more about upcoming events put on by the Foothills Forage and Grazing Association, you can visit their website.

 

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