Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Sixty-three people attended and participated in the Northeast Pasture Consortium (NEPC) Conference held at The Century House in Latham, New York on January 25 and 26.  We had a scare earlier in the week of the Conference as the federal government closed its doors on Monday.  However, by Monday evening another continuing resolution was passed by Congress and signed by the President.  Executive Director, James Cropper, quickly later that evening emailed the Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Administrator of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to request they reinstate travel for their employees who had already registered and made reservations to be at our Conference.  They promptly did reinstate their employees’ travel. 

Our Conference covered many of the research and education priorities that our stakeholders have asked us to work on.  Nine continuing education units were approved for Certified Crop Advisers and Certified Forage and Grassland Professionals by ASA-CSSA-SSSA and the American Forage and Grassland Council, respectively.  Our first technical session on January 25 was on Riparian Area Management in Pastures.  It has been a focus of our Consortium for several years as we prefer to see a more holistic approach to managing pastures in riparian areas, rather than merely fencing off the streams running through them to exclude livestock entry to the water and streambanks.  Most often pasture grazing management outside the exclusion area is still wanting and is grazed much too intensely.  This leads to contaminated runoff leaving the pasture, more than likely entering the stream unfiltered.  ARS and Penn State University have been working on a Riparian Conservation Planning Project for four years.  This session was held to update our stakeholders on their progress on evaluating riparian areas on pasturelands and coming up with conservation options that reduce the impact of grazing on riparian areas and stream water quality. Two co-workers from the Project Team presented their findings.  Erick Hagan, Riparian Conservation Planning Project Coordinator for ARS, presentation was on Shifting Perspectives in Riparian Conservation - Trade-offs, Options and Opportunities in Managed Ecosystems.  He introduced the topic by outlining their objectives: Create an objective justification for flexible riparian management (from farmers to policy makers), work with state and national programs to assess riparian buffers and make recommendations on where grass and forest riparian buffers work best, and avoid “bait and switch” tactics by looking across the ecosystem services of the riparian area and see which services are in play and others that are not.  The second speaker was Michael Nassry, Research Associate, Pennsylvania State University Riparia, who presented the Riparian Ecosystem Services Assessmentand Findings from Runoff Assessment Work.  Then Eric wrapped up the Project Team findings with their Model Results Quantifying the Different Performance of Riparian Buffers.

A summary of their findings is that there is no magic bullet, such as livestock exclusion from surface waters (streams or ponds).  It requires best management practices be applied in the upland areas and floodplains, not just riparian buffers at water’s edge. Grassed and forested riparian buffers both have their good points and their weaknesses.  Grassed riparian zones may be better for erosion control (esp. small areas/small streams), infiltration/diffusion of runoff, and drawing down nutrients (if harvested).  Forested riparian zones may be better for stream bank protection (larger streams), denitrification (in-stream), and wildlife habitat (stream & buffer).  Both can be undone by a site’s stream morphology, riparian soils/geology/hydrology, legacy sediments and nutrients, and upslope/up-watershed conditions (including management).  One big issue with linear riparian buffers along streams is rarely is there diffuse flow across the buffer from upslope areas to the stream. Most often water concentrates before reaching the stream buffer sometimes creating a gully or is a small feeder stream.  There can be several feet of a buffer doing little to filter runoff and small areas that are overwhelmed by runoff flows.  When looking at actively farmed areas try to do the best possible to meet water quality goals. Never compare an agriculture riparian area to a mature riparian forest area, the landuse decision was made long ago as to what it was to be under previous and current ownership.  Most farms cannot give up productive agricultural land for some societal benefit without compensation.  Evidence suggest buffers can become sources of phosphorus pollution especially if they can be remobilized by flood water.  Buffers can denitrify nitrogen when they are on saturated and high organic soils.  Not all riparian buffers are in such a setting, however.  Most water delivered to streams enters along low-order (small feeder) ones.  Larger streams do not receive much direct flow into them from adjacent land.  Since low order streams are far-flung, they are not easy to surround with buffers which take up a lot of productive land and fencing them all off is expensive and impractical.  In this instance, a grazing management plan that is followed for pastures in these areas keeps a healthy sod in place and is a much easier and more cost-effective treatment with no land retirement required.  Therefore, introducing flexibility in riparian management requires a common understanding of production and environmental concerns.

The Project Team is working with state and national programs to assess buffers and make recommen-dations. They are looking at the performance of Conservation Reserve Easement Program (CREP) buffers in Chesapeake Watershed. They toured three states: Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland.  Four USDA agencies are involved the Agricultural Research Service, Farm Service Agency, Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service.  The Project Team did field surveys on 150 CREP (CP-22) sites with state foresters.  They determined runoff flow patterns through (and around) CREP buffers. They then modeled nutrient and sediment removal by CREP buffers.

Field surveys were conducted using the Stream-Wetland-Riparian (SWR) Index to determine aquatic ecosystem conditions at each site.  It is an integrated model that does floodplain-wetland measurements and in-stream measurements of stream habitat assessment scoring, stream incision ratio, and number of stream stressors present.  Sedimentation is an example of a stream stressor.  What they found out in the Chesapeake Bay was:

• Riparian buffers - 88% located at headwaters (out of 8,000).Longer buffers along mainstems.
• Variable buffer width - Narrow buffers in headwaters (adj. width), no variable (wider) width at converging areas where more runoff crosses over, and buffer slope - relates to buffer widths
• Stream Wetland Riparian Index - Averaged as suboptimal (0.63).Typical of natural buffers but can improve.  Northern Appalachian Plateau has most optimalsites, but also less agriculture.
• Physiographic regions - Significant differences were observed. Piedmont and Coastal Plain have most issues as they have more agriculture land.

The second step in the Chesapeake Bay assessment of riparian buffers was watershed modeling to predict water quality impacts of the buffers.  First objective was to evaluate concentrated flow paths and hydrologic (bypass) features affecting riparian buffers (CP22) effectiveness.  Forested riparian buffer flow path analysis was done using high resolution Light Detectionand Ranging (LiDAR)digital elevation model (DEM).  It is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses with a sensor. Differences in laser return times and wavelengths can then be used to make digital 3-D representations of the target. This allows the user to detect concentrated flow paths crossing buffers to gauge their effectiveness.  Larger flow paths may need to be made into grassed waterways upstream of the buffer to maximize the efficiency of a now conservation management system (waterway + buffer).  Watershed modeling is done using the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT).  SWAT allows us to look at the combination of conservation practices in a watershed and determine their effectiveness in keeping nutrients and sediments out of the stream.  This tool allows the quantification of nutrient and sediment reduction benefits of the current Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  It does this by simulating N, P and sediment losses on daily time-step evaluating 3 riparian buffer scenarios:

• Pre-CP cropland (no buffer installed)
• CP-21: established grass
• CP-22: mature forest

Average annual losses are compared across the three scenarios.  It does this locally: differences in transport behavior, and across CRPs: total versus effective contributing areas.  Once this assessment is done a new tool, Ag Buffer Builder, a performance-based buffer locating tool can show the conserva-tion planner which areas along a stream are the most effective places to install a buffer.  The problem up to this point was to put down a blanket buffer along the whole reach of a stream whether any water flowed across it all for varying distances.  In one example using Ag Buffer Builder analysis, as designed, one CP22 buffer achieved 86% of potential trapping efficiency of sediment.  Approximately, 35% of the buffer accounted for 74% of total sediment removal. The use of Ag Buffer Builder can show the conservation planner how to build a better buffer to reduce nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) losses to a stream.  In one example, the current buffer only reduced N loads by 30% and P loads by 25%.  After Ag Builder analysis, the buffer system was improved to treat bypass flows that eluded the original buffer reducing N loads by 50% and P by 39% from the unbuffered condition.  Much improved, but it also shows that riparian buffers are not the total solution in reducing sediment, N, and P loads to streams.  It is the last defense, although some streams can effectively scrub out some additional N along its way downstream.

Once the ecological assessment and watershed modeling is done the final step is to use the Production and Conservation Trade-offs (PACT), an ARS/Penn State assessment tool that came from our grazing in the riparian area project.  Comprehensive but does not include impact/quality gradients (either/or).  Management flexibility focused on outcomes where different strategies can produce desired ecosystem services using a multifunctional approach.  Rating performance of all possible management practices is based upon the literature on their effect on different ecosystem services.  These ecosystem services are broken down into three broad categories: provisioning, regulating, and supporting.  Generally, the regulating and supporting categories are lumped into an overarching natural resource category.  Using pastures as the landuse, three scenarios were evaluated using PACT.  Scenario 1: Over grazed pasture along a stream where cattle had total access to the entire stream reach.  It scored relatively well for Provisioning services (0.93), but very low for Natural Resource (0.56).  Scenario 2: CREP conservation easement so no longer pasture. It had a Provisioning score of (0.00) since it no longer provides any forage or water to livestock, but it does have a relatively high Natural Resource score of (4.89).  Scenario 3: Optimized grazing of the pasture with restricted stream water access.  This had a provision-ing score of (1.86) due to better forage production, access to stream water, and maximized forage utilization by the cattle.  Meanwhile, it scored even higher than CREP in its Natural Resources score (9.53) due to better soil health, reduced soil erosion, better water quality, and improved grassland habitat than when it was continuously grazed in its entirety with unrestricted access to the stream.

This three-step procedure has been well tested now using the Chesapeake Bay CREP study.  It is about ready for use by conservation planners that want to work with farmers to improve riparian pastures by implementing a grazing plan that provides more forage to livestock while enhancing natural resource ecosystem services, such as better fishery habitat and stream water quality.  The take-home message is: Flexibility is key.  Both sides (farmers & policy makers) must recognize the opportunity to enhance both pastures and the environment.  Buffer efficacy is contingent on the Site Explicit Context, Land-scape Context, and Management Context.  Riparian pastures can act as buffers when they are well grassed and rested from livestock activity for up to 6 weeks between grazing events.  These pastures also should be avoided during the winter season and during and shortly after wet weather.

Morgan Hartman, Owner and Operator, Black Queen Angus Farm, LLC, Berlin, NY wrapped up this session with a “Farmer Perspective on Managing Riparian Area Pastures”.  Morgan has over a mile of fenced off trout stream that transect his pastures.  He now advocates the use of a single fence on one side along a stream and using polywire temporary fencing to rotationally graze riparian pastures.  If total exclusion from streams is going to continue to be policy, he also advocates that anyone with a CRP contract involving riparian pastures allow their contract to expire to gain flexibility in how they manage their riparian pastures.  He agreed with Erik and Michael that a flexible approach to riparian area pastures is the best way to protect the environment and provide forage for livestock.  This flexible approach is often stifled by policy and regulations.  He said Maryland has been locked into livestock exclusion fencing now for four years.  He advocates results oriented planning and application of conservation (best management) practices.  Do the practices have a positive impact to solve resource problems?  He mentioned that Dr. Jeff Herrick was working on a tool called Land Potential Knowledge System (Land PKS) that is results oriented. Dynamic soil property data and information is used for conservation planning and natural resource management.  As several farmer speakers have said in the past at our Conferences, Morgan wants and needs more technical help from agencies such as Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and more educational information from agencies such as Extension.

During the question and answer period, Joe Hatton requested that ARS deliver Ag Buffer Builder and the PACT tool to the National Employee Development Center of NRCS so that their conservationists and engineers can be trained to use these tools in conservation planning with farmers.

The rest of the morning was devoted to Session 2 a Private Sector Breakout Session moderated by Angus Johnson that discussed the renewal the Stakeholder Action Committee and a Public Sector Breakout Session led by Jennifer Colby that discussed Riparian Area Grazing Management implementation strategies.  Eighteen people attended the Private Sector session.  The Executive Committee had asked Angus to chair the stakeholders action committee.  He stated that two duties of the committee were:  1) to provide local education on the Consortium’s mission and function, and 2) work with elected officials concerning efforts and focus of the Northeast Pasture Consortium.  It was agreed by those present to find a co-chairman within six months.  It was also agreed to have a secretary for the group.  Two names were suggested to serve on the Executive Committee.  They were Kevin Jablonski and Gary Burley.  Cliff Hawbaker suggested a research and educational need for producer testing of fatty acids and having choices of lab work.  Discussion ensued about promoting the goals and priorities of the NEPC.  There was also discussion about membership and funding.  Possible funding could be by attendance at conference.

At the Public Sector session on how to implement a flexible Riparian Area Grazing Management approach to planning and application, there was a consensus that we can see at the field level that a flexible approach to managing grazing in riparian area pastures is desirable and effective.  However, programs planned at the state and federal level are rigid allowing little deviation from how buffers are planned and installed to calling for total livestock exclusion from streams when there are work-around methods that would protect or enhance wildlife habitat and water quality and allow livestock farmers to utilize their riparian pastures productively for their grazing livestock.   Earlier in the morning we learned how Ag Buffer Builder and SWAT work together to evaluate buffer effectiveness as installed or to aid in the design of more useful buffers that do not squander productive pastureland or cropland as a linear buffer does with areas that do little to nothing to buffer surface waters from sediment and nutrients or are too narrow to be effective elsewhere along their length where runoff does flow across the buffer, it was evident that these tools need to be implemented by NRCS and other technical service providers.  One observation made by Upper Susquehanna Coalition employee was especially perceptive “Buffers are implemented and left alone – landowners don’t know how to bring that buffer to functionality.”  In truth, it is doubtful that that most planners and technicians know how to bring a buffer to functionality as it was clearly demonstrated earlier that many already installed buffers have missed the mark in being truly functional.  Many are bypassed by feeder streams or have areas that have no runoff passing through them or are not wide enough in other places.  Livestock exclusion fences along streams are also left alone once installed.  Who, but the land operator, knows whether they remain functional or not as time goes by and floodwaters rise and fall along streams with out-of-bank flows during major runoff events.  Bottomline: “Any system needs to be adaptive and monitored so producers can easily manage it as circumstances change”, quipped an NRCS employee.

Session 3 – Pastures and Soil Healthwas the first afternoon session.  Soil health a more recent addition to our research and education priorities.  Justin Morris, Regional Soil Health Specialist MN-WI, USDA-NRCS Soil Health Division, Madison, WI kicked off this session with a presentation entitled: Improving Soil Health through Adaptive Grazing Management.   He opened his presentation with a definition for soil health: “The capacity of a soil to function as a vital, living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.”  It focuses on feeding soil biology which feeds the plant, the biological characteristics (living) part of the soil, such as earthworms, dung beetles, and microorganisms, and soil properties, such aggregate stability, organic matter content, and infiltration capacity, that impact soil health for good or bad.  Soil health all starts with the sun’s energy captured by plant life.  This allows the soil food web to begin as microorganisms and herbivore insects consume the organic matter produced by the plants that in turn are preyed upon by predatory insects and animals.  All this living activity in a soil impacts its health in a positive way if not interfered with.  Soil biology has the biggest impact of the three things that impact soil: biological, physical, and chemical properties as it can alter the other two as time goes on.

In pastures, we can improve soil health by following adaptive grazing management principles as shown in the adjacent figure. As grazing management affects all four ecosystem processes: water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow, and biodiversity (community dynamics).  Soil Health Planning Principles: Minimize “chronic” disturbance to soil and plants, maximize soil cover, use diversity of plants to add diversity to soil micro-organisms, and provide continuous living roots.  The goal is to create the most favorable habitat possible for the soil organisms.  Chron-ic disturbance of a pasture most commonly is allowing overgrazing to occur, seasonally or months at a time so that much of the vegetative cover is lost. Trailing by livestock to get to a single source of water, feed, shade, and salt is another chronic disturbance in expansive pastures not rotationally grazed.  Livestock heavy use areas around water, feed, and salt licks and under shade are also chronic disturbance and are bare of vegetation.  To minimize “Chronic” Disturbance:

• Keep livestock in one area only long enough to ideally graze an individual plant once, not twice.
• Rotate livestock only as fast as the rate at which plants are re-growing.
• Monitoring is essential to knowing how quickly to move the livestock. (Observe stubble height and

   move them if grass stubble is down to 3-4 inches on orchardgrass and tall or meadow fescue.)

• The faster plants grow; the faster livestock should be moving from paddock to paddock.
• Provide water and salt at every paddock.

Maximizing soil cover provides these benefits:

• Shades soil surface lowering soil surface temperatures
• Higher humidity at soil surface that enhances residue and mineral recycling
• Enhanced environment (cooler & more humid) for macro-arthropods and earthworms to utilize

  manure and plant residues

• Less soil moisture evaporates
• More soil moisture to grow forage as more precipitation infiltrates the soil in a good sod

  cover.

• Plants become more drought tolerant due to stronger and deeper root growth
• Increased nutrient cycling
• Greater plant growth as there is increased soil moisture & cooler soils and there are no bare spots.
• Days of grazing increases as summer slump lessens and fall growth is prolonged
• Days of supplemental feeding decrease
• Reduced costs, and
• Increased income from improved weight gain and/or milk flow.

Use diversity of plants to add diversity to soil micro-organisms.  We encourage more diversity in our pastures by:

• Not overgrazing them,
• Shortening the graze period so no species is targeted for preferential selection,
• Allow long enough recovery for all plants, and
• Reduce diet selectivity by increasing stock density, not stocking rate (Same as second bullet, grazing

 period must be shortened when stock density is increased.)

Provide continuous living roots by:

• Keep livestock in one area only long enough to graze an individual plant once, not twice.
• Rotate livestock only as fast as the rate at which plants are re-growing.
• Monitoring is essential to knowing how quickly to move the livestock.
• The faster plants grow; the faster livestock should be cycling through the pastures.

Grazing management affects soil biology.  Multi-paddock grazing system was the highest in total fungi count.  The ratio of total fungi to total bacteria was the highest (3:1) in the multi-paddock grazing system versus all other treatments (1:1): Heavy continuous, light continuous, and grazing exclosure.  A high fungus to bacteria ratio in the pasture soil indicates higher potential for plants to extract more water and nutrients from the soil. This is due to that the fungi are predominantly mycorrhizal fungi.  They act as extensions to plant roots.  This type of fungi may also help retain nutrients in the root zone.

What is meant by “overgrazing”?  When a plant that has been grazed severely in the growing season gets grazed severely again while almost solely using energy it has taken from its crown, stem bases, or roots to re-establish leaf.  There are three ways to overgraze:

1. When animals remain too long in a paddock while plants are growing fast.
2. When animals leave the paddock but return too soon while plants are growing slow.
3. When the plant is growing new leaf from stored energy in early spring (breaking dormancy).

Since high density stocking has been mentioned, here are some stock density basics:

• Stock density will vary over time depending on forage conditions and animal production status.
• Make changes gradually in stock density over time.
• Monitor daily to see how contented the animals are.
• Because forage conditions and animal nutrient demands are constantly in flux, monitor daily to

  gauge if forage is being over-or under-allocated for the herd and adjust the paddock size accordingly.

• Always focus on animal performance. Never stress the animals by limiting intake, or gains or milk

  flow and body condition will suffer.

Fast track to soil health on pastures requires getting the soil pH and fertility in the optimum range for the forage species growing in them, managing for 95% soil cover – green leaf and brown(residue), using high density grazing and moving them as soon as stubble height minimums are reached for quick regrowth (Leave half, take half of the forage [not in inches, but in pounds]), and using recovery periods that allow most pasture paddocks to recover to 8-10 inches of forage height before grazing them again and/or before yellowing of older leaves begins. Adaptive grazing management requires monitoring livestock and grass and knowing the type of forage quality needed for the grazing herd.  Rule of thumb dates vary by region and by pasture plant community and herd/flock forage quality and intake needs.

The second speaker for this session was David Llewellyn, Director of Farm Stewardship at Glynwood, Cold Spring, NY.  The presentation title was Soil Health and Climate Resilience for Pasture-Based Livestock Farmers. David reported on a SARE partnership grant that seeks to increase soil health and climate resilience education for pasture-based livestock farmers.  A Soil Health Field Day, August 23rd was held at the Hudson Valley Farm Business Incubator in New Paltz, NY.  Cornell Cooperative Extension, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the University of Massachusetts participated in the Soil Health Field Day with Glynwood. David covered soil quality, soil health, testing, interpretation, and how to mitigate soil health constraints in pastures.  He defined soil quality as how well the soil can sustain plant and animal health.  The capacity of a soil to function.  He reported that there are two soil health testing kits available:  Cornell’s Soil Health Assessment, $50-150

http://soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu/and Woods End, $55 at https://woodsend.org/soil-health-test/.  The physical indicators measured by soil health testing kits are available water capacity, soil surface hardness in top 6 inches, subsurface hardness at the 6-18-inch depth, and aggregate stability.  The biological indicators measured are organic matter (OM), ACE Soil Protein Index (amount of OM present as proteins), respiration by the soil microbes, and active carbon (portion of OM that’s easily used as food by microbes).  The chemical indicators measured are pH (soil acidity - determines what nutrients a plant can take up – most taken up when pH ranges between 6.2-6.8.), phosphorus, potassium, and minor essential elements for plant growth. Identifying your limiting factors of your pasture soils is necessary to grow a good forage crop for your livestock. Once they are identified, you can work to improve them.  For physical constraints:

• Available Water Capacity - build soil to hold more water via rotational grazing, add stable, finished

 compost (manure is ok) and reduce tillage if you are in the re-seeding practice of growing annuals.

• Surface Hardness - stay off wet fields with cattle or machinery; control/minimize vehicle access and

 lighten loads; use an aerator or keyline plow

• Subsurface Hardness - reduce/eliminate use of moldboard plow if reseeding; use chisel or keyline;

 forage (tillage) radish.

(Compaction is a top constraint given the agricultural history of pasture/hayfields.  It stunts root

growth and impairs soil drainage.)

• Aggregate Stability - add fresh organic materials; reduce tillage; increase legume percentage in forage stand.

For biological constraints, the improvement practices are similar:

• Organic Matter - add manure, compost; reduce tillage
• ACE Soil Protein Index - organic N source needs to be low in C; fresh manure is good; reduce

 tillage

• Respiration - reduce compaction with aerator or keyline; increase diverse OM
• Active Carbon - add manure, compost; reduce tillage

With chemical constraints, improvement practices differ considerably from the physical and biological constraints:

• pH - lime, but check Mg levels first by soil testing, get agronomic advice.Apply either dolomitic or

 high calcium lime depending on Mg level in the soil and agronomic advice given.

• Phosphorus - add P per soil test if it is low; adjust pH to 6.2 - 6.8; if it is high, stop adding OM, extra

 manure, and P.  Drawdown P by taking off a first crop hay cutting and feeding it elsewhere.

• Potassium - add K per soil test via manure, compost or fertilizer; if it is high, extract via cover crops

 or hay.  Caution – grazed crops do not remove nutrients; the livestock do when milk or they are sold.

• Minor Elements - add via fertilizer if low per soil test, get agronomic advice; build soil OM, reduce

 or eliminate tillage to build mycorrhizal fungal population.

Their SARE grant supports the development of a pasture improvement demonstration area at Glynwood’s Hudson Valley Farm Business Incubator, located at Mohonk Preserve in New Paltz. The demonstration showcases pasture improvement methods for common soil health constraints in our region, such as soil compaction and poor drainage. The pasture improvement treatments include application of limestone and compost, rotational grazing of ruminant animals, and the use of a keyline plow to mitigate soil compaction issues. (Keyline plow is a tillage implement designed to renovate pasture and redirect groundwater without creating a lot of surface disturbance. It creates a channel or pathway for drainage and penetration of roots.) For the purposes of this demonstration, we will use the keyline for breaking surface and subsurface compaction. So, this will be done in straight lines.
The demonstration area includes sixteen plots with every combination of these treatments, plus a control plot. They sent numerous soil samples to the Cornell Soil Health Lab in the fall of 2016 for baseline data from which Glynwood staff and project collaborators will measure outcomes. Each fall, staff will sample soil for follow up analysis to measure the impact of the various treatments.

Since implementing the project, they have conducted forage species counts in the treatment areas to collect baseline information about the native (existing) pasture plants. Over time, they anticipate an increase in the percentage of desirable species as soil health improves in these pastures.

The team has also conducted worm counts in the sixteen demonstration plots by digging up 1’ x 1’ sample areas. The process takes about 10-15 minutes per sample, if you have a digging machine like Dave Llewellyn on your team. Worm counts more than 10 are considered an indicator of good soil health. Glynwood’s initial worm counts averaged 18.5 worms per square foot. We expect those numbers to climb as we mitigate soil health constraints, such as deeper root systems (more habitat for things in the soil food web, more food sources), improved aeration + drainage (worms dig those things), higher pH (preferable to worms), and increased organic matter (food for worms).

The second demonstration component of the SARE grant is the utilization of warm season annual forage as an effective strategy for improving risk management for graziers in mid-summer. Glynwood staff recently seeded a mix of brown mid-rib (BMR) sorghum, pearl millet and crimson clover to be grazed by cattle during the hottest stretch of the summer. Pastures in our region are composed predominantly of cool season perennial plants, which slowdown in the summer. Too frequently in recent years, intense stretches of heat have forced area farmers to purchase hay when forage has been inadequate in the summer. Production of warm season annual forage is a way to create a backstop in the event of inadequate forage. Glynwood staff and partners will compare the cost of production and value of forage against the market rate for hay in the mid-summer.  Our intent – measure outcomes + economic benefit with CCE + UMass.  How much feed did we produce?  How much labor?  Cost of seed?  Value of feed? Given our variable climate, seeding warm season annuals is a good backstop against a scorching summer.  The forage will be high quality and useful, even in a mid-summer, but in a hot one – this is a good climate resilience strategy.  Feeding standing forage to happily grazing animals while other farmers are scrambling to source hay in the summer.

Session 4 was a Silvopasture Updategiven by Brett Chedzoy, SCNY Ag Team-Forestry Specialist & Senior Resource Educator, Montour Falls, NY. His presentation title was: Silvopasturing Updates on Progress in the Northeast.  Brett defined silvopasturing as the long-term integrated production of quality timber and grazing on the same land. It can be done two ways, adding woods to pasture or adding pasture to woods.  Many popular press and research articles have been written to promote silvopasturing, such as in Farm magazine that serves PA, NY, and New England, On Pasture e-newsletter,Grazemagazine, Journal of Forestry, and a publication, Photo Guide to Northeastern United States Silvopasture, by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative through funding from the USDA Forest Service.  Educational venues include:

• Two dedicated conferences (2011 and 2014),
• Five “day course” trainings in four states,
• Dozen presentations at major conferences, including the  

             Grassfed Exchange and Society of American Foresters,

• Dozen webinars,
• Many dozens of presentations at professional development  

             trainings and other conferences, and

• silvopasture.ning.comforum (currently 320 members).

Looking to the future, these are some priorities for silvopasture research and education:

• Viable methodologies for the reclamation and restoration of invasive brushlands and degraded woodlots,
• The economics of silvopasturing,
• Soil health and ecosystem services benefits,
• Using animal impact to manage vegetation in silvopastures,
• Health and welfare benefits for livestock,
• And lastly, what are the alternatives?

Brett concluded his presentation with a Forest Connect questionnaire that helps farmers make a good decision on whether they have a good site to practice silvopasture on, “Evaluating the Potential of a Site for Silvopasture Development”.  This can be accessed on the Web at: http://blogs.cornell.edu/ccednrpublications/miscellaneous-forestry/.   Near the top of the page, hover on Forestry, a pop-up appears.  Select Agroforestry-Silvopasture.  It sends you to a new publication list.  In that list, select Silvopasture Site Assessment, this will bring up a pdf file with the title shown above.

The Poster Papersession followed.  Six poster papers were displayed in the White Ballroom.  The papers are listed below:

Grazing Guide: What can the Northeast Pasture Consortium website offer?

Goslee, Sarah

Ecologist, USDA-ARS Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research Unit, University Park, PA

Pasture Plants of the Northeastern US

Gonet, Jeff¹and Sarah Goslee²

¹Agricultural Science Research Technician and

²Ecologist, USDA-ARS Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research Unit, University Park, PA.

Upper Susquehanna Coalition Comprehensive Riparian Buffer Program

Brinkley, Lydia¹and Troy Bishopp²

¹Buffer Coordinator for the Upper Susquehanna Coalition/Tioga Co. SWCD, 183 Corporate Drive, Owego, NY.

²Upper Susquehanna Coalition East Regional Grazing Specialist/Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District, Hamilton, NY.

Can Grazing Selectivity Reduce Fatty Acid Intake Decline in Mature Annual Forages?

Goossen, Caleb¹, Sidney Bosworth², and Jana Kraft³

¹Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Plant & Soil Science

²Associate Extension Professor of Agronomy, Department of Plant & Soil Science

³Research Assistant Professor, Department of Animal & Veterinary Sciences, University of Vermont,

 Burlington, VT

Deep-Bed Pack Livestock Facility Planning Tool

Bredeweg, Sally¹, Brian Jerose², Jennifer Colby³, Bob Thompson⁴, and Juan Alvez³

¹P.E., USDA-NRCS, Oregon State Office,

²Managing Partner, Agrilab Technologies LLC, Enosburg, VT

³University of Vermont Extension, Center for Sustainable Agriculture, VT Pasture Network,

 Burlington, VT

⁴Civil Engineer, USDA-NRCS, Vermont State Office, Colchester, VT

Studying the Effect of Bovine Milk Consumption on the Human Gut Microbiota Using TWINSHIME

(Twin-Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecology)

Firrman, J.A., L.S. Liu, and P. Tomasula

Dairy & Functional Foods Research Unit, USDA-ARS, ERRC, Wyndmoor, PA

Session 5 – Beef Viability Case Studiesfollowed the Poster Paper Session with Sam Smith, Farm Business Specialist, Intervale Center, Burlington, VT presenting Beef Viability Case Studiesvia Skype. 

Several grass-fed beef farms have sprung up in Vermont.  Case studies were conducted to see what production models these farms were using. The study group kept good records and were realistic about their goals.  When the study was first initiated, grass-fed beef sold for $3.00 per pound hanging weight.  It is now down to $2.60 per pound.  The beef cattle range in size from small to medium framed feeders to large framed cattle in the study group.  It is essential to understand the herd’s potential to finish to grade as the meat market demands in reasonable time (20 months from birth to slaughter).  Bigger frame cattle not necessarily better, average daily gain genetic potential is more important.  It is important to grass-fed beef farmers pay heed to Jim Gerrish’s cardinal sins of grazing: starting grazing too soon in the spring, grazing pastures too short, and coming back too soon to stock cattle on a previously grazed area.  This is especially true if the aim is to achieve a good average daily gain (ADG) of at least 2 pounds per day.  Otherwise, it would be difficult to get a feeder to meat market size and grade in 20 months.  Sam said that a 200-day grazing season for Vermont is “optimistic”.  A 180-day grazing season is more realistic unless extending the grazing season by growing brassicas or stockpiling fescue for late fall and early winter grazing.  A good feeder program requires:

• Selling grass-fed and -finished meat at a price above costs of production + profit margin.
• Lowering overhead by leasing pasture (cheaper than owning pastureland).
• Improving stock density but moving the cattle more often so as not to restrict intake.
• Shoot for the highest ADG possible with the genetics available and a productive pasture sward - track it to be sure it is being maintained on average throughout feeding period.
• Decrease days on farm by not over finishing the cattle or not securing a spot ahead of time at the meat processing plant.
• Reduce the days of feeding stored feed, it is more expensive than pasture.
• Shoot for a 20-month harvest of cattle window – Not achieved with low quality hay or pasture.

The Northeast Pasture Consortium is heartened by the interest in grass-fed and -finished beef as it was one of our first research and education priorities that we tackled.

Session 6 - Soil Health and its Impact on Human Healthwas the last Thursday afternoon session with

Didi Pershouse, Director, The Center for Sustainable Medicine & Board Member, Soil Carbon Coalition, Thetford Center, VT presenting The Ecology of Care.  Microbes are in the air, water, plant, soil, and the human gut.  Healthy topsoil is a living, carbon-rich sponge that soaks up water. The ground cover on cropland is reduced from sod, as in pasture, with near 100% cover to conventional tillage with near 0% cover.  Rainfall simulator demonstrations show that with a sod from a healthy pasture there is practically no runoff and lots of infiltration into the soil as compared to clean tillage where there is practically no infiltration and a lot of runoff.  The cause of this vast difference is due both to the amount of ground cover and the differences in soil structure resulting from widely different tillage practices from zero to full tillage.  Didi remarked “Perennial foods, wild foods, and pasture-raised animal products are some of the few places we can still get nutrients that have been intelligently sorted, into the right concentrations, ratios, and balances.  We need them to maintain our own intelligence and immunity.” She then went on to explain about The Biotic Pump.  It is how natural landscapes create their own rain, climates, and health with the aid of microbes.  The work of microbes in landscapes can provide:

• Abundant clean water, for everyone.
• Pleasant livable temperatures and weather, around the world
• Protection from floods, drought, wildfire
• Nutrient dense food to grow healthy people, plants, and animals.
• Strong local economies
• Resilient communities inside and outside our bodies, above and below the ground.

Gut Microbes (in humans and animals):

• Compete with pathogens at same receptor sites,
• Teach our immune systems how to behave,
• Influence gastrointestinal, metabolic, neuroendocrine, and circulatory functions,
• Influence drug metabolism and toxicity (side effects),
• Influence calorific availability (blood sugar & weight gain),
• Influence post-surgical recovery times,
• Form barricades against disease-causing bacteria,
• Influence our moods,
• Make our neurotransmitters, and
• Turn on brain development.
  
  

Healthy topsoil is the mucosal membrane of the land.  An intelligent filter that provides a layer of

protection, digestion, respiration, immunity, development, and regeneration of life.  Soil is living tissue, with a microbiome, very much like any other being.  There are principles to keep it healthy.  Microbes are the quiet working class of the world providing our goods and services. We need to stop killing them.

The “Anti-Biotic” Pump: How humans have created their own climates, deserts, and health crises.  How many of the issues of climate change can we address by restoring the “soil carbon sponge”?

She cited: “The issue is that, over vast areas of the world, the biosphere is not doing enough work. With livestock confined, and crop monocultures dependent on fossil energy to maintain them, too many of the animals are in prison, too many of the plants are on welfare, and too many of the microbes are dead.”        --Peter Donovan, Soil Carbon Coalition Founder. 

Why not provide people opportunities to observe and think about whole systems landscape function
while they upload observations to a shared map of data?  www.atlasbiowork.com  Didi showed several pictures of young children learning about soil health.  The first soil health achievement award in 4H was awarded to Atlas Biowork she proudly announced.  They are also providing mutual support and ongoing learning groups for farmers.  Their motto is “Start with a goal, not a problem.”  Figure out what your community wants…. Then hire farmers to create the conditions that will provide it.

Early Thursday evening after the afternoon conference program, Gary and Betty Burley, East Hill Farms, Warsaw, NY, hosted a raw milk cheese tasting party before Conference dinner. They produce several varieties of cheese from their dairy cows' milk.  It is cave aged as done in France.  It is good.

The Thursday evening Producer Showcaseran from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Two New York dairymen were featured, Bruce Rivington and Eric Sheffer.

Bruce Rivington was first up and introduced us to Churning Up Butter Profits: A Grass-Fed Dairy’s Value-Added Adventure.  He and his family moved from Canada to Kriemhild Dairy Farms, Hamilton, NY.  The farm is bisected by NY Route 125 so two cattle passes were built underneath the highway.  They rotationally stock their dairy cows on pasture.  They have a 44-cow milking parlor and a hoop barn for a freestall facility where supplemental feed is fed to the cows.

Bruce quoted Sonny Golden “...You plant corn.  What Grows? Grass.  You plant soybeans.  What Grows? Grass.  You plant barley.  What grows? Grass.  Why aren’t you growing grass?!”

Bruce put in a plug for Sarah Flack’s new book The Art and Science of Grazing.  Sarah has been a long-time member of the Northeast Pasture Consortium and a grazing consultant from Vermont.

His dairy farm calves over 400 head seasonally in early to mid-March.  The herd is pure Ayrshires and Jersey-Ayrshire crosses.  Before deciding to settle down in Hamilton, NY they looked at 18 farms around the eastern US as far south as North Carolina.  They moved to New York in 2000. 

Among his slides he had one video picture that shows a dairy cow grazing grass in slow motion; showing how she grasped the grass with her tongue to pull it into her mouth.  This is possible when the grass is at the proper height for grazing.  He prefers short grasses that he refers to as native grasses.  The pictured grass looked to be 6 to 8 inches tall and nicely vegetative and lush.  He feels his pastures will revert to mostly bluegrass and white clover eventually.

Bruce quoted another person that sums up how he feeds his cows: “The biggest mistake a farmer can make is to feed a cow to her genetic potential” - Michael Murphy.

In 2010 an economic development coordinator contacted him to see if he would want to produce a value-added product.  He decided to build a creamery and produce meadow butter under the brand name Kriemhild Dairy Farms.  The butter is only produced from grass-fed cows.  It was a fortuitous move as in 2014 on the cover of Timemagazine there was a picture of butter with the title “Eat Butter”.

They produce butter by sending their cream to a local milk plant for churning.  They take the churned butter back to finalize it.  They drain it to produce popcorn sized curds and then cream it.  They then pack it into different sized packages.  They work with seven distributors to market the butter.  Their butter is sold by a well-known grocery chain, Trader Joe’s.  The wife of a Trader Joe’s vice president by a chance sampling led to her endorsing it to her husband.  Whole Foods also carries the butter as well.  Many high-end restaurants also buy the butter.  One Manhattan, NY restaurant orders 10 pounds a day.  The butter is sold over a wide part of the Northeast from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  They have been selling it at farmer’s markets but may only go to two this year.  They also have a farm store.  Besides the meadow butter, they also produce cultured butter.  It is 85% butterfat.  It is used to make croissants and other high-end pastries.  It makes a flakier crust.  The cultured butter is sold in one-pound packages.  When they start processing their butter at their own facility completely, they will also sell buttermilk.

Eric Sheffer is a dairyman that just transitioned to organic milk production.  His presentation says it all, Transitioning to Organic Dairying in a Troubled Time.  The troubled time is the very low milk prices received at the farm.  Eric is a partner of Sheffer’s Grassland Dairy, LLC with his Father.  The farm has been in the family for 6 generations from 1774. When Eric returned to the farm after graduating from Cornell, he and his Father raised dairy heifers and the farm was known as Sheffer’s Heifers.  The early years of planning the dairy was to expand their facilities and pasture base. They went back to what Granddad did, use pasture to feed their livestock.  Timing – Dad started to build a new barn while Eric was at Cornell.  Capital – Need family or an investor to get into farming today.  Why not organic?  Eric went to Cornell, but his instructors questioned why he wanted to have his cattle on pastures.  He visited Gary Burley’s dairy farm to see how that family were able to grow into a large dairy operation while pasturing their cattle.  In 2006-7, they had 115 acres of pasture.  At that time, their cattle genetics prohibited them going organic. They started out with 12-cow swing parlor that they expanded to 18 and they left room for 2 more.  They still have their first cow.  She is 12 years old now.  They do intensive rotational grazing.  They supplement that diet with less than 12 pounds of grain per cow per day. Cropping is kept simple.  The equipment is small and minimal to keep expenses down.  They began crossbreeding their cows with New Zealand genetics early on but are now using US genetics.  Heifer calves are bottle barrel fed until they are weaned on grass.  By 2008, they had 100 milk cows.

The economic challenges faced by Sheffer’s Grassland Dairy have been:

• Return on Equity (ROE) swings of -8% to +23%
• Herd growth led to needed investments
  1. Machinery
  2. Barns
  3. Added pasture
  4. Parlor size increases
  5. Added laneway and water

The farm growth has been quick. Growing out of necessity to stay economically viable.  They have gone from 100 cows to 235 in 7 years.  Hitting troubled times, especially in 2009 dairy prices and now.

They were faced with overcrowding as they expanded their herd so they added a 244-foot barn to alleviate that. They also maxed out pasture base so in 2014 they bought additional land that adjoined their farm.  They now have 270 acres of pasture.  Double what they had starting out. 

2014 was a light bulb year as milk prices were high.  They had the land and experience in feed purchasing, cow health, and grazing management. It was time to switch to organic milk production.

Why switch?

            - Timing

            - Market strength and indicators, and

            - Proven success with the bank.

The land transition in the early stages of transitioning to organic milk production:

• No large changes because of our basic management – pastures already in place,
• Missing urea nitrogen fertilizer, especially with some dry seasons,
• Investing in equipment for minimum till management and manure hauling, and
• Expansion of fencing and pasture base to ensure adequate grass for diet cost and certification.  Thirty acres of woodland were cleared to add to pasture acres.

Building the organic business model required these steps:

• Started meeting with industry people early in the process for budgeting and prep,
• Met with major organic milk handlers during the first year of transition,
• Organic versus Grassfed Organic (no grain feeding), and
• Began building forage and grain connections and invested in some grain infrastructure to take advantage of our size.

They decided after careful consideration to work on a first cost plus agreement with Stonyfield Organic. They wanted a change from the typical dairy relationships and wanted a partnership that promoted a mutually beneficial relationship.  A lot of trust was established between both parties and countless hours were spent to make it successful.

The cow transition into organic milk production included:

• Very little diet change because of their intensive grazing management, however
  1. Loss of Rumensin (Feed additive to help cows get more energy from the feed fed to them.),
  2. Loss of corn silage,
• Planning for cow comfort investment,
• Cow health a success (somatic cell-count usually 150,000 or less), and
• Lessons learned with nutrition and grazing management.

What is next for Sheffer’s Grassland Dairy? 

• Better not Bigger (for now)
• Finishing and capitalizing on the barn expansion
• Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (labor source while training someone to become a dairyman)
• Focusing on building working capital
• Investing in grazing-based improvements, as well as minor investments in balage production.

Major challenges in the organic market

• Growing farm size and shrinking farm numbers
• Oversupply and depressed prices
• Certification dishonesty?
• Growing alternative markets

On Friday, January 26, the last technical session was presented at 8:00 AM, Session 7 – The Saturated versus Unsaturated Dietary Fat Controversy as it relates to Pasture-raised Dairy and Meat Products.  Our 2017 Conference concentrated on how pasture fed milk and meat products differed in fatty acid composition from confinement fed milk and meat products and how those fatty acids might be affected by processing and cooking.  We also learned from nutritionists and dieticians that these fatty acids in pasture fed products tended to be the ones considered to be more heart healthy or more favorable to human health generally.  After our Conference in March another conference was held in June that had experts speak out that people have been misled about saturated fats clogging our arteries.  We decided to hear two of those speakers out at this year’s Conference.  What if we feed our livestock to change fatty acid composition in meat and milk and find out that the old nutritional science has it all wrong?

Our first speaker was Dr. Glen Lawrence, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY.  His presentation title was: Good Fat versus Bad Fat: How Did They Get It So Wrong?  He started his talk by asking the question, “Which is healthier? Vegetable oil or butter and coconut oil? Today’s concensus answer is vegetable oil.  But is it?  A Framingham Heart Study

published by Kannel, W. B. et al. in 1961 with early results indicated that as serum cholesterol levels increased from low (<200 mg/dl) to medium (200-240 mg/dl) incidence of death due coronary heart disease (CHD) went from 10% to 12% and if above 240 mg/dl to 18%. However, this is but one cause of coronary heart disease.  The other risk factors are smoking, hypertension, and diabetes.  Data from Ancel Keys’ 7 Countries Studyalso showed a trend of more deaths due to coronary heart disease as serum cholesterol levels rose.  However, Glen asked “Can we conclude that an increase of 6 mg/dl cholesterol in blood means one more heart attack death per 1000 people, or increased risk of 0.1 %?”  Going from 180 mg/dl (low) to 240 mg/dl (border-line high), would increase death risk by only 1%.  (Anything above 240 usually indicates dietary changes to reduce cholesterol levels, or if that fails, going on a statin.)  The next figure showing data from Ancel Keys’ 7 Countries Study on deaths from all causes shows propensity of more deaths from other causes than from cholesterol. In fact, one site chosen, Ushibuka, Japan, skewed the data in the figure due to mercury poisoning causing many deaths and it was only 40 miles from the Nagasaki where radiation from an atomic bomb could have also been a factor.  Overall death rate and CHD deaths for Eastern and Western Finland combined when compared with overall death rate and CHD deaths for Greece and Italy combined gave rise to the Mediterranean Diet (olive oil) being touted as being more heart healthy.  Early Studies showed a relationship between dietary fats and serum cholesterol.  However, genetic factor is primary determinant for blood cholesterol.  Diet is a secondary factor in blood cholesterol levels.  Changes in intake of saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats makes a difference, but the increase or decrease in serum cholesterol levels is much smaller than the genetic factor effects on blood cholesterol levels.  Other early studies:

• Diets prepared with only butter or coconut oil as fat sources increased levels of serum cholesterol in confined people.
• Diets prepared with vegetable oil as the major source of fat lowered levels of serum cholesterol in confined people.
• In one study, a control diet resulted in 250 mg/dL serum cholesterol during one leg of the study but resulted in 225 mg/dL serum cholesterol during another leg of the study.

Later studies in the 90’s compared olive oil and palm oil in a free-living population.  The results were much different.  Choudhry experimental setup:

• Olive oil: Sat, 14%, MUFA, 78%, PUFA, 8%
• Palm oil: Sat, 45%, MUFA, 43%, PUFA, 11%
• Subjects fed palm oil diets for 30 days, with crossover to olive oil for 30 days or vice versa.
• Subjects were young healthy men and women

Results from the Choudhry experiment

Note that total cholesterol was reduced by both palm oil and olive oil over the normal diet to the same extent.  There was little change in bad cholesterol levels (LDL).  Both palm oil and olive oil lowered good cholesterol (HDL) levels, but olive oil was the lowest of the three diets.  The total cholesterol to HDL-cholesterol ratio was better for the normal diet although just above the range limit considered healthy of 2.0-4.0 standard.  Meanwhile, the olive oil diet was the worst.

Data skewed regarding influence of replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils.  Many studies were not published when the data did not agree with the hypothesis (data selection and publishing bias!)

Dietary Guidelines for Americans (1980 to 2015).  Long time with little change due to conformity and with disastrous results:

• Guideline - Reduce total dietary fat intake (consequently, carbohydrates replaced fats, and sugar consumption increased dramatically)
• Guideline - Reduce saturated fats (vegetable oils were recommended to replace saturated fats, such as butter, to lower serum cholesterol)
• Low fat replaced full fat dairy products (there goes your omega-3 fatty acid, the good one)
• Consequently, sweetened juices (or soft drinks) replaced milk for many children.
• Obesity increased by 2.5 times
• Type 2 diabetes increased by 4

Short-term Outcomes:

1. The 2018 Northeast Pasture Consortium (NEPC) Conference was held at The Century House in Latham, NY on January 25 and 26. It was held in conjunction with Winter Green-Up Grassfed Beef Conference that was held on January 27 at The Century House.  Sixty-three people participated in our Conference.  Several grassfed beef producers from New York and nearby states attended since our Conference preceded the grassfed conference. Kevin Jablonski, one of the grassfed beef producers, was nominated and approved to be the Private Sector member-at-large of the NEPC Executive Committee.  The Conference this year covered a wide range of research and education priorities that we have set our sights on to improve pasture-based farming economics and environmental stewardship.  Our first technical session on January 25 was on Riparian Area Management in Pastures.  It has been a focus of our Consortium for several years as we prefer to see a more holistic approach to managing pastures in riparian areas, rather than merely fencing off the streams running through them to exclude livestock entry to the water and streambanks.  The USDA-ARS working with Penn State University has developed and tested some new computer tools to help conservationists and farmers evaluate riparian pastures for their many ecosystem services, choose appropriate best management practices, and evaluate the effectiveness of riparian grassed or forested buffers.  The Stream-Wetland-Riparian (SWR) Index is used to determine aquatic ecosystem conditions at each site.  This tool was developed by the Penn State Riparia Department.  The Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) developed by ARS allows us to look at the combination of conservation practices in a watershed and determine their effectiveness in keeping nutrients and sediments out of the stream. Ag Buffer Builder, a performance-based buffer locating tool, can show the conserva-tion planner which areas along a stream are the most effective places to install a buffer or evaluate the effectiveness of existing riparian buffers.  Many installed riparian buffers are either bypassed or overwhelmed with concentrated runoff flows.  Meanwhile, many of them have areas where no runoff enters them at all, concentrated or sheet flows.  The second technical session.  The final step is to use the Production and Conservation Trade-offs (PACT), an ARS/Penn State assessment tool, that rates performance of all possible management practices based upon the literature on their effect on different ecosystem services.  A suite of management practices or several possible suites of practices can be scored with PACT to determine how they rate for delivering ecosystem services.  The landowner selects the suite of practices that best serve his farm and protect the water associated with the riparian area.  Morgan Hartman, Owner and Operator, Black Queen Angus Farm, LLC, Berlin, NY wrapped up this session with a “Farmer Perspective on Managing Riparian Area Pastures”.  He uses short duration rotational grazing management to graze his riparian pastures, keeps his cattle out them during wet weather, and likes fencing only one side of a stream to control woody vegetation from invading along the streambanks.  He is allowing his Conservation Reserve Program contracts to lapse to give him more flexibility in how he controls grazing in his riparian pastures.  Pastures and Soil Healthwas the first afternoon technical session.  Soil health is a more recent addition to our research and education priorities. We learned that we can improve pasture soil health by following adaptive grazing management principles. It involves three principles: high stock density, a short grazing period, and full plant recovery.  Following these three principles we avoid chronic (prolonged) disturbance of the plant community, maximize plant soil cover, and increase plant diversity that in turn creates diversity of the soil organisms.  Doing all this improves the resiliency of pastures to rebound from drought and other weather-related events or mistakes in management.  Silvopasture Update was the next technical session.  Silvopasture is the long-term integrated production of quality timber and grazing on the same land.  It can be done two ways, adding woods to pasture or adding pasture to woods.  In the Northeast, it is stocking cattle on low-grade woodlots where many of the trees are culled to promote better grass growth among the remaining trees that have some commercial value.  Cornell University has been promoting silvopasture through various means over the past six years.  Some priorities for silvopasture research and education are viable methodologies for the reclamation and restoration of invasive brushlands and degraded woodlots, the economics of silvopasturing, soil health and ecosystem services benefits, using animal impact to manage vegetation in silvopastures, and the health and welfare benefits for livestock.  Our poster paper session followed next.  Six poster papers were displayed: 1. Grazing Guide: What can the Northeast Pasture Consortium website offer?, 2. Pasture Plants of the Northeastern US Guide, 3. Upper Susquehanna Coalition Comprehensive Riparian Buffer Program, 4. Can Grazing Selectivity Reduce Fatty Acid Intake Decline in Mature Annual Forages?5. Deep-Bed Pack Livestock Facility Planning Tool, and 6. Studying the Effect of Bovine Milk Consumption on the Human Gut Microbiota Using TWINSHIME (Twin-Simulator of the Human Intestinal Microbial Ecology).  The next technical session was Beef Viability Case Studies.  This session dealt with grass-fed and -finished beef farms in Vermont.  We learned that to be successful raising beef on grass that these are important things to adhere to: selling grass-fed and -finished meat at a price above costs of production + profit margin, lowering overhead by leasing pasture (cheaper than owning pastureland), improving stock density by moving the cattle more often so as not to restrict forage intake, shoot for the highest average daily gain (ADG) possible with the genetics available and a lush pasture sward - track ADG to be sure it is being maintained on average throughout the feeding period, decrease days on farm by not over-finishing the cattle or not securing a slaughter slot ahead of time at the meat processing plant, reduce the days of feeding stored feed, it is more expensive than pasture, and shoot for a 20-month harvest of cattle window (not achieved with low quality hay or pasture).  Grass-fed beef was our first big research and education project for the NEPC.  There is a lot of interest among beef farmers in the Northeast.  Our foresight has been well rewarded.  Soil Health and its Impact on Human Health was the last Thursday afternoon session.  Here we learned that microbes are in the air, water, plant, soil, and the human gut.  Healthy topsoil is a living, carbon-rich sponge that soaks up water.  Pasture soils, when well-managed with proper grazing management and agronomic practices, create a healthy topsoil. We were introduced to the concept of The Biotic Pump.  It is how natural landscapes create their own rain, climates, and health with the aid of microbes.  The work of microbes in landscapes can provide:

• Abundant clean water, for everyone.
• Pleasant livable temperatures and weather, around the world
• Protection from floods, drought, wildfire
• Nutrient dense food to grow healthy people, plants, and animals.
• Strong local economies
• Resilient communities inside and outside our bodies, above and below the ground.

The Thursday evening Producer Showcasepresented two New York dairymen, Bruce Rivington and Eric Sheffer.  Bruce and his family rotationally stock their dairy cows on pasture.  He also runs a creamery making butter from his cows and from neighbors’ cows cream.  He has a wide-flung market covering much of the central part of the Northeast.  Whole Foods and Trader Joes are retailers who sell his butter.  The butter is also sold to high-end restaurants.  Meanwhile Eric farms in partnership with his Father.  He talked about his transition into organic milk production and the expansion they have done since he graduated from Cornell University.  They currently ship their milk to Stonyfield Organic.  They rotationally graze their milk cows on 270 acres of pasture.  They also have a dairy grazing apprentice working at their farm.  We introduced this nation-wide program to the Northeast at our 2016 Conference in Maine. On Friday morning, January 26, our last technical session was The Saturated versus Unsaturated Dietary Fat Controversy as it relates to Pasture-raised Dairy and Meat Products.  Dr. Glen Lawrence from Long Island University and Dr. Adam Lock from Michigan State were the two speakers.  Both were of the view that saturated fats found in meat and milk are wrongly accused of being harmful to cardiovascular health.  Dr. Lawrence thought that PUFA, polyunsaturated fatty acids (the omega-6 ones), were one of the real culprits as they are oxidized during digestion into some harmful byproducts to cardiovascular health.  Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are metabolized differently in the human gut and are not harmful.  Thus, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 has been recommended to be 4 or lower for good cardiovascular health.  Another culprit is fructose, a sugar.  Most adverse health effects erroneously attributed to saturated fatty acids are known to be exacerbated by high fructose consumption.  Dr. Lock agreed with Dr. Lawrence that the original work that pointed to saturated fat clogging arteries was fatally flawed.  Later research that disputed the earlier findings were often ignored or stifled.  He also explained why it is very difficult to change the fatty acid (FA) composition of milk through adjusting milk cow diets.  His take on the fatty acid controversy was:

• Milk fat synthesis is highly coordinated.
• In large part, presence of numerous FA in milk fat is due to rumen biohydrogenation of PUFA.
• Overall, pattern of milk FA can only be very modestly changed.
• It is important to consider effects on animal production/efficiency and product quality.
• Milk and dairy products are a source of dietary saturated FA

- Earlier efforts that demonized milk fat were inaccurate and inappropriate

- Will take time for this message to work its way through educators, medical

  community, and consumers.

The rest of Friday morning was devoted to looking at our research and education priorities by both the Private Sector and the Public Sector separately.  The two groups were gratified that they were thinking so much alike. 

2018 Research and Education Priorities are:

1)    Explore new methods to transfer knowledge and information to increase adoption of research findings within the agriculture community; incorporate social science research into increased adoption and technology transfer.

• Including Farm Bureau to additionally influence regulations and legislations

2)    Ecosystems Services and Disservices from Pasture Systems and Grazing Management:

• Impacts to riparian areas
• Impacts to water quality
• Wildlife benefits to adaptive grazing management
• Impacts of permanent stream and streambank exclusion from livestock grazing riparian area pastures

3)       Research problems with orchardgrass persistence and breeding in hay fields and pastures; variety and species evaluation (outreach component)

4)       Parasite issues for pastured small ruminants, especially given climate change and possibly a longer, warmer grazing season;

5)        Further fatty acid research in meat and dairy products regarding human nutrition and health; support of human artificial gut model for milk digestion studies

• Including A2 milk casein research

6)        Addressing the Heavy Use Area/Pasture interface (vegetation management)

7)        Incorporating and maintaining more legume-base within pasture systems (quality, N-fixation, and other benefits.)

Flipchart ideas from 2017 farmer research/education priority session:

• Methods for informing consumers with latest research findings; funding to support it and Northeast Pasture Consortium; Cooperative Extension may be a method for information, research, and technology transfer and distribution;
• Monetizing Soil Health - ecological resources, carbon sequestration, relative to nutrient levels in soil; ecosystem services; impact of improved production
• YouTube outreach; website resources and links;
• Knowledge needed to help farmers meet new Ag Practices/Regulations and funding to install practices;
• Genetic influence on livestock product nutrient values, mineral and nutrient uptake; Breed selection recommendations for the Northeast states;
• Consumer education materials from check-off org’s (Beef and sheep); collaborate with them to get resources out;
• Educate regulators and legislators on farm practices (state and federal);
• Addition of social science presentations to NEPC agenda; and
• Improved availability of FA testing for farmers to evaluate their products.

Italicized priorities are ones with a research component.

Bold print items came directly from the private sector session

Our Reports session included the presentation of the above research and education priorities.  We also had USDA agency reports from Agricultural Research Service, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and Natural Resources Conservation Service.  We also had a special report by Dr. Allen Matthews, Director and Instructor of Sustainable Agriculture, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PAon Grass Fed Beef Value Chain Marketing.  This niche market is being taken over by aggregators as most Northeast beef farms have too few cattle to market without excessive overhead and do not have a consistent supply of meat on hand.  A problem of buying locally produced beef is that grass-fed does not mean the animals are finished on grass.  Due to inconsistent meat quality of grass-finished cattle, some of the aggregators take cattle from farmers that are grain finishing their cattle. Native pastures (whatever grows out there) are often not productive enough to finish cattle well.  This defeats the purpose of being grass-fed as the fat composition of their meat, if grain-finished, will be no different than feedlot raised cattle.  Margins for the producers are also not that great.  Meat purchasers are price-sensitive.   Locally produced meat may be desired, but there is a limit to how much more people are willing to pay for locally sourced meat versus the price at the supermarket of unknown origin.  The cattle producers are getting paid for hot, hanging weight at prices no better than sending them to an auction barn where they are paid for the live animal weight when the vast difference in weight between live animal and hot, hanging weight are considered for fed cattle.  Cost of processing a small number of cattle at a small processing plant is hundreds of dollars higher than a large-scale processing plant.  This report is available on the Consortium website.

At the business meeting, Gary Burley was nominated and approved to fill a private sector vacancy on the Executive Committee.  It is a one-year term.  Kevin Jablonski was nominated and approved to a 4-year term as the new private sector member-at-large.  On the public sector side, Daimon Meeh, NRCS resource conservationist from New Hampshire, was nominated and approved to a 4-year term as a member-at-large.  Conference informal proceedings are nearly completed. They will be posted to theConsortium website at: http://grazingguide.net/.

1. We received permission from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to extend the period of using an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) strengthening conference grant to help support our 2018 NEPC Conference.  This was used to get quality speakers from outside the NEPC, fund scholarships for beginning and veteran farmers, and other costs associated with planning and holding the conference.
2. Three work groups, 1) Strengthen Organization Structure, 2) Expand and Strengthen Communication & Public Relations, and 3) Funding Plan for the Future, have been working on drafts of by-laws, business plan, and scoping out different ways to fund the NEPC, an outcome of our Strategic Planning Session held in March of 2017. 

Outputs:

1. Two newsletters were published, one in September 2017 and another in December 2017, and distributed primarily as attachments to emails to all the membership.  These kept the members informed about the annual conference and new developments on what organic milk cows should be fed and when, biosecurity measures for small flocks of pasture roaming chickens, improving soil organic matter in pastures, and drought management of hayfields and pastures. They also announced the 10th Winter Green-Up Grass-Fed Beef Conference, 22nd Annual VT Grazing and Livestock Conference, the Second Southern New England Livestock Conference, and Sarah Flack's book on The Art & Science of Grazing.
2. The proceedings of the 2018 annual conference and meeting are in draft form.
3. The Power Point presentations, poster paper abstracts, and speaker biographical sketches are placed on the Consortium website, NEPC Grazing Guide, for post-meeting access.
4. Twenty-seven publications or website series were published in the past year.  The website series were directed towards pasture-based farmers to give them suggestions on how to improve their pasture systems and give them calendar of pasture events around the Region.  The rest of the publications were research papers or abstracts on pasture-related issues.  See Publications document for the cited publications and educational websites.
5. The University of Kentucky publication Producer’s Guide to Pasture-Based Beef Finishingwas a handout at the registration desk for the beef farmer participants at the 2018 NEPC Conference.
6. Grass Fed Beef Value Chain Marketingby Dr. Allen Matthews, Director and Instructor of Sustainable Agriculture, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA was posted to the Consortium’s website. This is an important report for beef producers thinking about going into grass-fed and/or grass-finished beef production.  Some thought and research are needed to see what it will take in good to excellent pasture, find a local processor or aggregator that is willing to work with you, and a re-education on when to calve and not worry about having a tight calving period.  It is better to avoid having cattle ready for slaughter during deer season and have a few calves drop throughout the year provided you can house calf and cow in inclement weather.
7. Version 6.0 of the Chesapeake Bay Model is being modeled with the new data sets being used to determine sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus loading to Bay waters.  Mr. Cropper contributed advise and literature reviewed input on the pasture landuse contribution to those loads.  There is still too much reliance on fencing off streams in riparian pastures as an easy way to reduce those loads.  However, if the pastures are not managed to keep good soil cover on them, the usual small area of ungrazed buffer on the stream side of the livestock exclusion fence will do little to attenuate N and P loads to the stream.  Eventually that sod will disappear as woody vegetation invades the excluded zone.  Sediment reduction may be reduced initially by keeping heavy livestock traffic off the streambanks, but this is very situational.  Unarmored streams that meander down the valley erode along the outside curves regardless of whether they receive animal traffic or not.
8. As an outcome of our Strategic Planning Workshop in 2017, these draft documents have been produced by two of our subcommittees in late 2017 and early 2018:

• Northeast Pasture Consortium (NEPC) Draft Bylaws 04/19/2918
• NEPC Business Plan Draft 08/21/2017

Activities:

1. The 2018 Annual Conference and Meeting of the Consortium was held on January 25 and 26 at at The Century House in Latham, NY.    Six poster papers were presented. Sessions on research and education needs were held from 10 AM to 12 PM on both days.  The results of those sessions are posted in the item 1 narrative of Short-Term Outcomes.
2. Two of our subcommittees that were formed during the 2017 strategic planning session were active this year and produced the two products listed in number 6 of the Outputs.
3. The Northeast Grazing Guide website for the Consortium is at: http://grazingguide.net/. Dr. Sarah Goslee of the Agricultural Research Service Research Unit at University Park, PA is our web master. It is updated as new material arrives.  Several YouTube videos were posted to the site this year.  We are also posting pasture-related seminars, tours, and conferences that are being held around the Region.
4. We continued the scholarship program this year to encourage beginning and veteran pasture-based farmers to attend the 2018 Northeast Pasture Consortium Conference using AFRI grant money.  A one-page flyer was updated and disseminated to promote the scholarship program.
5. Jim Cropper, Executive Director, participated with the Chesapeake Bay Agricultural Work Group and the Agricultural Modeling Subcommittee (AMS) via teleconferencing and email during 2017-2018.  The AMS work is completed for now while Model 6.0 is being tested.
6. Teleconferences are held monthly by the Executive Committee to plan the next annual conference and meeting and address other issues that come up during the year.
7. Continuing education credit (CEU) requests were sent to the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) and the American Forage & Grassland Council (AFGC) for certified crop advisors and certified forage and grassland professionals, respectively, for the 2018 Annual Northeast Pasture Consortium Conference and Meeting. Nine CEU's were approved prior to the conference for both certified crop advisors and forage & grassland professionals, that attended the conference.  The completed sign-in sheets were sent to ASA and AFGC after the Conference.
8. Revised and updated research and education need priorities at the 2018 Northeast Pasture Consortium Annual Conference and Meeting. 

Milestones:

1. Chesapeake Bay Program Watershed Model 6.0 agricultural model testing is now underway.
2. The ARS - Penn State riparian management project is a 4-year project.  The Stream-Wetland-Riparian (SWR) Index used to determine aquatic ecosystem conditions at each site is ready for use.  This tool was developed by the Penn State Riparia Department.  The Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) developed by ARS that allows farm planners to look at the combination of conservation practices in a watershed and determine their effectiveness in keeping nutrients and sediments out of the stream is ready for use. Ag Buffer Builder, a performance-based buffer locating tool that can show the conservation planner or farmer which areas along a stream are the most effective places to install a buffer or evaluate the effectiveness of existing riparian buffers is ready for use.  The Production and Conservation Trade-offs (PACT), an ARS/Penn State assessment tool, that rates performance of all possible management practices based upon the literature on their effect on different ecosystem services is also ready for use.  One of our members at the Conference recommended that NRCS adopt these tools to do resource conservation planning and grazing management plans on riparian pastures.

Names in boldare Northeast Pasture Consortium members as contributing authors.  Publications listed in alphabetical order by NEPC member author.

Bishopp, Troy.  2017-2018.  The Grass WhispererWebsite.  At: http://www.thegrasswhisperer.com/.  Most recent articles appear on page 1.  At the bottom of the screen (be sure to scroll down to the very bottom), click on page number or next arrow to see other articles on pasture management thoughts Troy has and events Troy has attended.  Always entertaining and educational.  Troy writes a news article about the Northeast Pasture Consortium Conference.

Casler, M.D., Brink, G.E., Cherney, J.H. 2017.  Registration of Azov meadow fescue. Journal of Plant Registrations.  11:9-14.

Colby, J.  2017. Pasture Improvement Tools: Biodrilling by Forage Radishes and Keyline Plowing.  University of Vermont Extension.  http://www.uvm.edu/sustainableagriculture/?Page=whatwedo/index.php  2 pp.

Colby, J., K. Hagen, J.P. Alvez, C. Herrick.  2017-2018. Vermont Pasture Network Calendar. On-line.  Monthly.

Duiker, Sjoerd W.  2018.  Soil Compaction Threat from Grazing Animals on Steep Slopes.  Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/soil-compaction-threat-from-grazing-animals-on-steep-slopes  1 p.

Gilker, R. and K. Voth.  2017-2018. On PastureWebsite.  Published weekly.  At: On Pasture,4435 E San Carlos Place N,

Tucson, AZ 85712.  R. Gilker is a Northeast Pasture Consortium member from NY.

Goslee, S.C., Gonet, J.M., Skinner, R.H. 2017.  Freeze tolerance of perennial ryegrass and implications for future species distribution.  Crop Science.57:2875-2880.

Graziosi,Michelle and Joshua Faulkner.  2016.  Designing Variable-Width Filter Strips on Vermont Fields Using the AgBufferBuilder ArcGIS Tool.  University of Vermont Extension Center for Sustainable Agriculture.  http://www.uvm.edu/sustainableagriculture/?Page=whatwedo/projectsresearch/agbufferbuildervt.php  7 pp.  

Wang, A., Goslee, S.C., Miller, D., Sanderson, M.A., Gonet, J.M. 2017.  Topographic variables improve climate models of forage species abundance in the northeastern United States. Applied Vegetation Science.20:84-93. doi: 10.1111/avsc.12284.

Hartman, David W.  2018.  Cover Crops for Livestock Grazing.  Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/cover-crops-for-livestock-grazing   1 p.

Hartman, David W.  2018.  Silvopasture Could Work on Your Farm.  Pennsylvania State University. https://extension.psu.edu/silvopasture-could-work-on-your-farm  2 pp.

Hautau, Mena.  2018.  Fall Management for Pastures: Renovate or Restore? Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/fall-management-for-pastures-renovate-or-restore  4 pp.

Hoffman, K.  2017-2018. NYGC Grazette Newsletter.  NY Grazinglands Coalition.  Published monthly on-line at:   http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/ny/technical/landuse/pasture/?cid= nrcseprd366641.

Leroux, Matthew. 2018.  Improved Meat Marketing for Small Scale and Direct Marketing Farms in the Northeast.  Cornell Small Farms Program.  Cornell University.  Winter 2018 Quarterly.  http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2018/01/08/improved-meat-marketing/

Matthews, Allen.  2017.  Grass Fed Beef Value Chain Research.  Rosalie J. Wilson Business Development Services, PO Box 575 Norwich, VT.  16 pp.

Rinehart, Lee.  2017.  Building Healthy Pasture Soils.  Cornell Small Farms Program.  Cornell University.  Fall 2017 Quarterly.  http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2017/10/02/building-healthy-pasture-soils/.

Dillard, L., Roca-Fernandez, A., Rubano, M., Elkin, K.R., Soder, K.J. 2018.  Enteric methane production and ruminal fermentation of forage brassica diets fed in continuous culture. Journal of Animal Science. doi: 10.1093/jas/sky030.

Hafla, A., Soder, K.J., Brito, A., Kersbergen, R.,Benson, F., Darby, H., Rubano, M., Dillard, L., Kraft, J., Reis, S.  2018.  Winter supplementation of ground whole flaxseed impacts milk fatty acid composition on organic dairy farms in the northeastern United States.  Abstract.  American Forage and Grassland Conference Proceedings.95(4).

Soder, K.J., Heins, B., Chester-Jones, H., Hafla, A., Rubano, M.  2108.  Evaluation of fodder production systems for dairy farms.  Professional Animal Scientist.34(1).

Dillard, S.L., Soder, K.J. 2017.  Productivity and nutritive quality of three brassica varieties for use in pasture-based systems.  Abstract.  ASA-CSSA-SSSA Proceeding, October 22-25, 2017, Tampa, FL.  P. 1.

Stanton, tatiana L. and Michael L. Thonney.  2017.  Integrated control of internal parasties in pasture-based small ruminants.

http://blogs.cornell.edu/smallruminantparasites/resources-for-farmers-youth/. 8 pp. pdf.

Taber, Rich.  2017.  The Green Lie: Grassland Version.  The Green Lie of Hay and Grazing Lands: Deceivingly Green Pastures Performing at a Fraction of Their Potential.  Cornell Small Farms Program.  Cornell University.  Summer 2017 Quarterly.  http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2017/07/03/the-green-lie-grassland-version/.

Tunick, M.H., Van Hekken, D.L. 2017. Fatty acid profiles of in vitro digested processed milk. Foods. 6:99.

Van Hekken, D.L., Tunick, M.H., Ren, D.X., Tomasula, P.M.  2017.  Comparing the impact of homogenization and heat processing on the properties and in vitro digestion of milk from organic and conventional dairy herds.  Journal of Dairy Science. 100:6042-6052.

Williamson, Jessica A.  2018.  Extending the Grazing Season Using Brassicas. Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/extending-the-grazing-season-using-brassicas/  1 p.

Williamson, Jessica A.  2018.  Grazing Residue Height Matters.  Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/grazing-residue-height-matters  1 p.

Felix, Tara L., Jessica A. Williamson, and David W. Hartman.  2018.  Grass-Fed beef production - Grass-fed Beef

Markets and Terminology.  Pennsylvania State University.  https://extension.psu.edu/grass-fed-beef-production/  4 pp. pdf