R&D at Turning Leaf Ranch

Even a small farming operation is a highly complex undertaking, with an extremely wide array of variables that can be manipulated, usually with imperfect information, and based on speculation about the future.  In this environment, there is ample room for experimentation, and farmers are known for continual experimentation and innovation.  With the price of inputs going up in price so dramatically, it is an imperative that we focus on innovation to keep costs down to maintain the operation.

Although innovation can lead to improvements over time, the development cycle in the agricultural sector tends to be significantly slower than in other areas.  Farmers often must wait a whole season to see the effect of their experiments, and only get to modify/update their experimental trials once a year.  A commonly used estimate for the time needed to determine the efficacy, and to further calibrate a new system in agriculture is 7 years!  Despite this, research and development is a must, and there is no shortage of it at Turning Leaf Ranch.  Below are some experiments we're running at TLR for continual improvement.

Feeders

The largest expense we have on the farm is hay, which we feed beginning in June, through the end of February.  This expense category is so important, that we constantly innovate around it, and have a wide array of feeding options to choose from.  The first, and worst option is feeding hay on the ground.  This approach is extremely convenient, and there are times that it is a necessity, but a large portion of they hay is trampled and manured on, leading to excessive inefficiencies in utilization.  Some producers actually welcome this trampling/manuring effect, since it can improve soil over time (with the right hay), but our needs at TLR are high utilization, rather than soil-building.  When feeding hay on the ground, animals are able to "pick out" the choice bits, while leaving the less-flavorful bits to compost on the ground.  These less-flavorful bits still have useful nutrition (albeit less than the choice bits), so feeding on the ground leads to waste of useful feed.

Another option we have tried has been bin and trough feeders.  These are containers placed on the ground that keep the hay in place, and ideally keep the animals out.  This reduces both the trampling and manuring, but they introduce a whole host of new problems.  For example, no bin or trough feeder will keep 100% of the animals out, so trampling and manuring still occur.  If the feeder is not designed well, then the urine and manure will become trapped in the container, which requires constant maintenance to keep clean.  Furthermore, for a large number of animals, a large trough, or a large number of bins are required to keep competition between animals at a minimum.  Animals are still able to be picky with what they eat, versus what they choose to leave for waste.




Another feeder we have experimented with has been an IBC/basket feeder.  Basket feeders are metal "baskets" that keep the hay elevated above the ground, and animals eat from the feeder without trampling or manuring on it.  It also improves hay utilization, since animals cannot be as picky with the bits of hay they eat.  The wire basket containing the hay has openings that allow the animal to access the hay, but not so much room that they may "rummage" through the hay, seeking the choice bits at the expense of the rest.  Although this goes a long way toward improving sanitation and utilization, there is still no small amount of loss, with animals pulling hay from the feeder, and dropping much of it on the ground.  The orientation of the animals does tend to keep their rear ends away from the dropped hay, so it is usually possible to pick up the hay to put back in the feeder, but this requires no small commitment of time and effort, so although it's an improvement, basket feeders still leave much to be desired.  Another problem with basket feeders is the risk of animal strangulation, as animals may easily get their heads stuck in the feeder, and strangle themselves as they struggle to get out.  At TLR, we use a basket feeder made of an IBC (intermediate bulk container), with feeding holes that are small enough to reduce the risk of strangulation, although it is difficult to eliminate this risk entirely.  Another issue with basket feeders is the scale required of these feeders for a commercial operation.  At TLR, we have between 50 and 60 animals at any given time, and we are considered a very small producer.  Basket feeders tend to be both small and expensive, which is an unfortunate combination for an enterprise producing at scale.




Our most recent innovation for feeding hay seems to be the most promising.  We have begun placing hay in between two pieces of "no-climb" animal panel, which has thick, rigid horizontal and vertical wires that are permanently welded together.  These holes are small enough that the animals have almost zero chance of being picky with the hay, and can really only get one bite-full of hay at any one time.  This reduces the amount of hay pulled onto the ground to almost zero, and forces the animals to eat the less-tasty bits of hay right along side the choice bits for a very high efficiency.  The rear ends of the animals are exactly opposite of the feed source, so the hay stays very sanitary.  And because of the very small holes in the animal panel, there is extremely low risk of strangulation.  For the near future, TLR will rely most heavily on these feeders.

Electric Fencing

Portable electric fencing has been a game changer for animal farmers in recent decades.  Although electric fencing has historically been used for many decades, the lightweight, portable, highly flexible electric fencing of today has been shown to be a huge improvement over the fixed/permanent high-tensile electric fencing of years ago.  This fencing may be put up and taken down in as little as a day, and the highly portable infrastructure reduces costs for farmers who no longer need to spend thousands on fixed/permanent fencing options.  We have been experimenting with electric fencing at TLR for a few years now, and the flexibility it has opened up is truly remarkable.  The image below shows some goats grazing a previously inaccessible area of TLR, that we were able to open up with some temporary electric fencing.  We have also been able to remove some of our permanent interior fencing, making pasture management more flexible over time.  One downside of electric fencing is that the work required to manage it never goes down, whereas with permanent fencing, it is a one-time, "set-it-and-forget-it"-style of time investment.  But give the utility of electric fencing, it has been a worthwhile trade off at TLR.



Seeding Pastures

California differs from other parts of the country in the sense that the majority of our green pastures can be found during the winter and spring, whereas other parts of the country are green all summer due to summer rains.  To optimize pasture utilization for our animals, we are always trying to 1. improve the quality of forage available for the animals, and 2. increase the length of time that pastures are productive for the animals.  To achieve these goals, we have historically seeded our pastures in fall with a mix of cool-season grasses like rye, and oats, together with leguminous mixes including high-protein forages like beans, peas, and vetch.  This year, we have also begun a trial of seeding a warm season grass, called piper sudan grass, which is a fast-growing and highly productive grass that can potentially reduce our hay expense.  So far the results are quite promising, but more work needs to be done to determine the true costs of this experiment, and scale up in the coming years.



Water Harvesting

The most precious of commodities, water at TLR is very expensive.  This puts a serious damper on our options for summer forage, which is extremely unfortunate, since the summer is the period of greatest photosynthetic potential.  To attempt to bring some of the water resources of winter and spring into the summer and fall, we have begun implementing various water harvesting strategies on the farm, as discussed in other newsletter articles.  Subsoiling and swales are dirtworks that increase water infiltration and retention, and we will be implementing tank-based storage this winter as well.  We will be storing water in 275 gallon IBCs, which will be used later in the season to grow warm season grasses as described above.  The very act of growing forage during the summer is extremely beneficial to the soil, as it keeps the soil open and friable, increases soil biology, and soil organic matter, and therefore keeps the soil receptive to new rains, reducing water run-off.  This water infiltrates the soil, where some of it will be stored long term, available to be accessed by deep roots of summer-hardy plants and trees.

Tree-Based Forage

Related to the water harvesting described above, we have been hard at work at TLR in tree planting to grow out species that can handle our long, dry summers without excessive water inputs.  By "planting the rain" with the water-harvesting strategies above, we are able to produce high-quality feed for the animals with tree fodder, as the tree roots reach deep into the soil to subsist on the soil moisture stored there.  Although we have to irrigate the new, young trees at this early stage, the amount of excess water we provide will decrease over time as the roots reach deep into the soil.  The electric fencing discussed above has been critical in this development, since the electric fencing is being used to keep the animals from eating down the trees prematurely.  The trees will not truly be ready to feed the animals until several years down the road (likely five or greater).




More than many other innovations discussed here, the tree-based innovations clearly illustrate the slow development cycles that are required for farm-based experimentation.  For these types of long-term commitments, a large amount of planning must occur ahead of time, to ensure that the innovation will truly pay off over time.  But given the extreme drought conditions we are currently experiencing, and may continue to experience going forward, we are confident that this innovation will prove to be the wise one over time.



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