The J Bar L Ranch manager, Stephen Becklund, has transitioned several old alfalfa fields to perennial pastures that provide good cattle forage and opportunities for intensive rotation grazing. The ranch focuses on maintain ranching as a business and as a way of life while positively impacting grazing lands, wildlife habitat, and other resources. Read more in the Madison County Ranch Producing More Grass and More Beef ArcGIS Story Map or in the text only version below.
Find high-resolution photos of the J Bar L ranch.
Getting Started
Dan Durham, former Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) district conservationist in Madison County, looked over a pasture seeded to perennial cover and a new, efficient irrigation system and remembered how he got started working with the J Bar L ranch manager.
“I remember them calling with some questions about projects they were working on here trying to improve the place. Eventually, that developed into us working up a conservation plan and seeking some funding through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP),” said Durham.
That manager, Stephen Becklund, was looking for a way to convert some old alfalfa fields to a different type of perennial pasture that provided good cattle forage and for ideas to transition to intensive rotation grazing.
J Bar L is a cattle ranch in southwestern Montana near Twin Bridges. The ranch focuses on maintaining ranching as a business and as a way of life while positively impacting grazing lands, wildlife habitat, and other resources.
Technical and Financial Assistance
While NRCS offers financial assistance to landowners looking to install conservation practices, local field office personnel can also be a source of technical information based on a land manager’s particular operation.
“We provide financial assistance on some projects and lots of times we just provide technical assistance and answer folks’ questions about all sorts of natural resource problems or issues that they might be dealing with,” said Durham.
After assessing the goals and resources of the J Bar L Ranch, a plan came together that included seeding alfalfa fields to more cow-friendly summer pastures, making irrigation systems more efficient, and implementing a grazing plan on the entire operation. “It has kind of evolved over time and involved both technical assistance and a little bit of financial assistance as well,” said Durham.
Implementing the Plan
First, NRCS helped to develop a pasture seeding to convert the alfalfa field to a mixture of grasses and clover and get it established. Becklund then installed high-tensile fencing to divide the field into pastures and used temporary electric fencing to further separate the pastures into smaller paddocks.
“The grass has been growing up a lot better and comes back quicker. We’re getting a little bit more diversity of forage out there,” said Becklund. “It’s worked out so we have been able to put the cattle in smaller paddocks, so that we can move them every couple of days. They’re not just going around cherry-picking all the best. We can get over it once and let it grow up and go to seed and let it replenish itself.”
“They were interested in going to a system that utilized shorter duration grazing to improve grass production but also improve soil (Grazing Management and Soil Health PDF; 4.7 MB) and improve gains on their animals. From my perspective, the project was really valuable for building soil and for increasing overall productivity on the place,” said Durham.
“When we started trying to get rid of the alfalfa, Dan was coming over quite a bit and helping with ideas on how to get rid of the alfalfa and weeds without using chemical and a commercial fertilizer,” said Becklund. “We just kind of started talking and going out in the field bouncing ideas off each other. Dan helped a lot with the kind of grass to put in that would grow good and you know would be a good cow finisher.”
What's Next?
After seeing how well the converted pasture and fencing worked for grazing, Becklund has plans to do the same work on some other irrigated fields on the ranch. They have seen several changes after just a couple of years using the new system. Becklund has seen more dung beetles at work and less bare soil.
“Being able to leave that little bit after grazing that grows up in the fall, we got a lot of the forage that stuff doesn’t eat or it just gets stomped back into the ground so we start building organic matter,” said Becklund.
J Bar L Ranch also worked with NRCS to replace some older, inefficient irrigation systems. They went from wheel lines, hand lines, and flood irrigation to pivot sprinklers that can be used to control rate and timing of water applications.
“Since then the pivots have worked pretty good and the grass has definitely gotten better. We’ve used way less water over there, I mean I don’t use half as much as I used to now having the pivots in,” said Becklund. “Just being able to control how much water without just saturating one part of it and the other part of the field is just dry. It’s a lot easier to manage the higher spots. I can put more water on that and less on the lowers.”
“This is the Big Hole drainage. The Big Hole River is pretty important as a fishery,” said Durham. “It’s important for the local economy for the recreational aspect of it, but also irrigates a huge number of acres. And so, when there are situations when we can save a little water to leave it in the river, either for the fishery or the other landowners that are trying to use that water, then we go after those. This was one of those situations that a highly inefficient system was in place we were able to improve that to free up some water for other beneficial uses.”
J Bar L Ranch is also expanding on the irrigation system changes that NRCS helped to start by adding some soil moisture sensors. Becklund will be able to monitor how much moisture is in the pasture soils and decide when and how much water needs to be added with the pivot sprinkler.
“We will be able to definitely keep a better idea on how much water is going on the field without just looking out and guessing if we need to turn on the pivot or not. So, I think it will help us conserve water and hopefully grow more pasture,” said Becklund.
Durham wrapped up with, “It’s just really cool to see the transition in relatively a short period of time. Just to see the increase in production and diversity from the grazing system is really cool. When you actually see it on the ground working the way it’s supposed to, it’s pretty rewarding.”
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