Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

1. Private-sector Consortium members requested Congress to restore $500,000 in the FY2007 federal budget for "sustainable forage livestock systems research and research on nutrient management to protect water quality carried out at the ARS Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Station, University Park, PA," that originated as a Congressional add-on in FY2001. This stakeholder advocacy effort was successful and nearly $500,000 was restored by the Congress, effective October 1, 2006. 2. Private-sector Consortium members requested Congress to restore nearly $1.9 million in the FY2007 federal budget to continue the pasture-based beef systems project at the USDA-ARS Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center, Beaver, WV, in cooperation with West Virginia University, Virginia Tech, and Clemson University. This stakeholder advocacy effort was successful and nearly $1.9 million was restored by the Congress, effective October 1, 2006. 3. Continued support and advocacy for private and public grant proposals that align with the six Consortium stakeholder pasture priority needs. 4. Informed Consortium participants of public hearing opportunities on grazing and conservation policies, e.g., Farm Bill, organic standards, grass-fed definition. 5. Approved action agenda items for CY2007. These are listed in the Consortium annual meeting minutes. 6. Placed the proceedings of the 2007 annual meeting including power point slides and handouts on the Consortium website for post-meeting access. 7. A number of publications that support the goals of the Consortium have been published and are listed below.

Book published Carroll, John E. 2005. The Wisdom of Small Farms and Local Food: Aldo Leopolds Land Ethic and Sustainable Agriculture. New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station Durham, NH 03824. 142p. Peer reviewed papers published Adler, P.R., S.J. Del Grosso, and W.J. Parton. 2007. Life cycle assessment of net greenhouse gas flux for bioenergy cropping systems. Ecol. Appl. 17:675-691. Boateng, A.A., H.G. Jung, R.D. Cook, and P.R. Adler. 2006. Pyrolysis of energy crops including alfalfa stems, reed canarygrass, and eastern gamagrass. Fuel 85: 2450-2457. Corson, M.S., R.H. Skinner, and C.A. Rotz. 2006. Modification of the SPUR rangeland model to simulate species composition and pasture productivity in humid temperate regions. Agricultural Systems 87:169-191. Corson, M.S., C.A. Rotz, and R.H. Skinner. 2007. Evaluating warm-season grass production in temperate-region pastures: a simulation approach. Agricultural Systems 93 (1-3): 252-268. Crosson, P., C.A. Rotz and M.A. Sanderson. 2007. Conversion from corn to grassland provides economic and environmental benefits to a Maryland beef farm. Online. Forage and Grazinglands doi:10.1094/FG-2007-0119-01-RS. http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/fg/ Deak, A., M.H. Hall, M.A. Sanderson, and D.A. Archibald. 2007. Production and nutritive value of grazed simple and complex forage mixtures. Agron. J. 99:814-821. Goslee, S.C. 2006. Behavior of vegetation sampling methods in the presence of spatial autocorrelation. Plant Ecol. 187: 203-212. Hall, M.H., J.H. Cherney, and C.A. Rotz. 2007. Saving forage as hay or silage. p. 121-134. In E. Rayburn (ed.), Forage Utilization for Pasture Based Livestock Production. Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service, P.O. Box 4557, Ithaca, NY. Keeney, D.R., and M.A. Sanderson. 2007. Forages and the environment. P. 167-176. In R.F Barnes et al. (ed) Forages: The science of grassland agriculture. Iowa State University Press. Labreveux, M., M.A. Sanderson, and M.H. Hall. 2006. Forage chicory and plantain: nutritive value of herbage at variable grazing frequencies and intensities. Agronomy Journal 98:231-237. Rotz, C.A. and J. Oenema. 2006. Predicting management effects on ammonia emissions from dairy and beef farms. Trans. ASAE 49(4):1139-1149. Rotz, C.A., J. Oenema, and H. van Keulen. 2006. Whole farm management to reduce nitrogen losses from dairy farms: a simulation study. Applied Eng. Agric. 22(5):773-784. Rotz, C.A. and T.L. Veith. 2006. Managing the farm for economic and environmental sustainability. In Proc. The John M. Airy Symposium: Visions for Animal Agriculture and the Environment. January 5-6, Kansas City, MO, Dept. Animal Sci., Iowa State Univ., Ames. Rotz, C.A. 2006. Implications of forage management on farm profitability and the environment. p. 8-17. In Silage for Dairy Farms: Growing, Harvesting, Storing and Feeding. Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service. PO Box 4557, Ithaca, NY. Rotz, C.A. and K.J. Shinners. 2007. Hay harvest and Storage. pp 601-616. In R.F. Barnes, K.J. Moore, C.J. Nelson, and M. Collins (ed). Forages, Volume II: The Science of Grassland Agriculture, Sixth Edition. Blackwell Publishing Professional, Ames, Iowa. Sanderson, M.A., M.S. Corson, C.A. Rotz, and K. J. Soder. 2006. Economic analysis of forage mixture productivity in pastures grazed by dairy cattle. Forage and Grazinglands doi:10.1094/FG-2006-0929-01-RS. http://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/fg/ Sanderson, M.A., K.J. Soder, N. Brzezinski, F. Taube, K. Klement, L.D. Muller, and M. Wachendorf. 2006. Sward structure of simple and complex mixtures of temperate forages. Agronomy Journal 98:238-244. Sanderson, M.A. 2006. Management of mixed swards: implications for temperate pasture production. p. 95-102. In: M. Wachendorf, A. Helgadottir and G. Parente (ed.). Sward dynamics, N-flows, and forage utilization in legume-based systems. Proceedings COST Symposium, 10-12 November 2005, Grado, Italy. Published by ERSA-Azienda Regionale Per Lo Sviluppo Rurale, Gorizia, Italy. Sanderson, M.A. 2006. Plant species diversity: management implications for temperate pasture production. p. 149-162. Invited book chapter for Climate change and managed ecosystems. CRC Press. Sanderson, M.A., P.R. Adler, A.A. Boateng, M.D. Casler, and G. Sarath. 2006. Switchgrass as a biofuels feedstock in the USA. Can. J. Plant Sci. 86:1315-1325. Sanderson, M.A., L. Holden, E. Rayburn, K. Soder, and B. Bryan. 2007 Assessing forage mass and forage budgeting. P. 20-42. In E. B. Rayburn (ed). Forage Utilization for Pasture-Based Livestock Production. Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service Publ. NRAES-173. Ithaca, NY. Sanderson, M.A., N.P. Martin, and P.R. Adler. 2007. Biomass energy and industrial uses of forages. p. 635-647. In R.F Barnes et al. (ed). Forages: The science of grassland agriculture. Iowa State Univ. Press. Sanderson, M.A., S.C. Goslee, K.J. Soder, R.H. Skinner, B.F. Tracy, and A. Deak. 2007. Plant species diversity, ecosystem function, and pasture management: A perspective. Can. J. Plant Sci. (In press, July issue). Sedorovich, D.M., C. A. Rotz, and T. L. Richard. 2007. Greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farms. ASABE Paper No. 074096 , St. Joseph, MI: ASABE. Skinner, R.H. 2005. Emergence and survival of pasture species sown in monocultures or mixtures. Agron. J. 97: 799-805. Skinner, R.H. 2005. Cultivar and environmental effects on freezing tolerance of narrow-leaf plantain. Crop Sci. 45:2330-2336. Skinner, R.H., M.A. Sanderson, B.F. Tracy, and C.J. Dell. 2006. Above- and belowground productivity and soil carbon dynamics of pasture mixtures. Agron. J. 98:320-326. Skinner, R.H. and K. Moore. 2007. Growth and development of forage plants. p. 53-66. In R.F. Barnes et al. (ed.) Forages: The Science of Grassland Agriculture Vol. II. Blackwell Publishing Professional, Ames, IA. Skinner, R.H. 2007. Winter carbon dioxide fluxes in humid-temperate pastures. Agric. Forest Meteorol. 144:32-43. Soder, K.J., M.A. Sanderson, J.L. Stack, and L.D. Muller. 2006. Intake and performance of lactating dairy cows grazing diverse forage mixtures. Journal of Dairy Science 89:2158-2167. Soder, K.J., and L.D. Muller. 2007. Case study: A survey of total mixed ration use on grazing dairy farms in Pennsylvania and New York. Professional Animal Scientist. 23:300-307. Soder, K.J., A.J. Rook, M.A. Sanderson, and S.C. Gosleee. 2007. Interaction of plant species diversity on grazing behavior and performance of livestock grazing temperate region pastures. Crop Science 47:416-425.