Project : USDA ARS

ARS Home » Southeast Area » Booneville, Arkansas » Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center » Research » Research Project #444957

Research Project: Innovations for Small Farms Pasture and Silvopasture

Location: Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center

2025 Annual Report

Objectives
1. Develop harvested conventional and organic forage systems that optimize productivity, resilience to climate change, and environmental benefits. 1A. Improve soil health and provide greater forage resources in organic cropping systems with cover crops. 1B. Evaluate long-term management strategies that conserve soil and protect water quality, while also optimizing production in pasture and hayfields. 2. Develop grazing management strategies that address animal performance and selection for greater resistance and resilience, health, and well-being within increasing climate changes and extremes. 2A. Improve management practices for livestock grazing endophyte infected tall fescue to ameliorate fescue toxicosis and meet growth potential and minimize health inputs through red clover supplementation. 2B. Develop low input strategies and genetic and genomic selection to mitigate gastrointestinal nematodes and disease in grazing sheep, and select for climatic resilience and robustness. 2C. Improve ecosystem health and increase resistance to environmental pressures with novel grassland system utilizing native warm season grasses. 2D. Reduce carbon output and increase animal welfare and production with silvopasture systems. 3. Develop novel technologies that allow precision management of forage-livestock, row crops, and agroforestry systems. 3A. Develop spatially explicit soil property maps for precision management of forage production on small farms. 3B. Use precision management tools on pasture to detect health issues in livestock. 3C. Develop baseline information on soil-water dynamics and relationships to the performance of forages, crops, livestock, and silvopastoral systems at the farm scale.

Approach
Our goal is to increase long-term sustainability of small farms by integrating management of pasture and silvopasture-based livestock systems to augment whole-farm productivity and profitability, encourage crop diversification which spreads biological and financial risk, and enhances ecosystem services. Involving both short- and long-term studies, we will determine practices that provide environmental and economic benefit to small farms. Studies will focus on improving forage and/or livestock production while enhancing soil, landscape and forage attributes at multiple scales. These studies include examining conventional and nonchemical parasite control on sheep production efficiency, grazing management on forage finished beef and lamb, and improving nutrient-use efficiency on forage pastures. Additionally spatial information will be used to understand interactions at multiple scales to develop decision support tools for increasing efficiency for soil-forage system management. We will also continue a long-term study that utilizes controlled watersheds to determine the impacts of various pasture management strategies(rotational grazing, overgrazing, haying, tree buffers) on pasture hydrology and nutrient runoff. To evaluate diversification, we will examine effects of integrating agroforestry management with crop and/or livestock production.

Progress Report
Under Subobjective 1A and 2C. Plot and pasture layouts have been established and infrastructure improvements completed. The project is on target to be completed as planned. In regard to Subobjective 2B. In collaboration with reference flocks from three ARS locations (Booneville, AR, Clay Center, NE, Dubois, ID), understanding genetics x environment x management among Katahdin flocks enrolled in the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) on selection for parasite control is on target to be completed as planned. A manuscript by a graduate student and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is in progress. Progress was made under Subobjective 3A. Soil sample collection from 142 sites has been completed resulting in a total of 710 samples. Collected soil samples have been processed (dried and ground) for further laboratory analysis. Under Subobjective 3B. A study was conducted using young lambs naturally infected with gastrointestinal nematode parasites wearing GPS collars to understand various behaviors that may influence animal health. Several indices to characterize the sheep movement dynamics (for example, mean speed, cumulative distance travelled, cumulative resting time, mean tortuosity, mean persistence velocity, mean residence time foraging, mean residence time at the trough, mean residence time etc.,) have been developed and relationships with biological measurements are being currently studied. In regard to Subobjective 3C. Multispectral ESA Sentinel-2 (S2) and NASA Landsat-8 (L8) satellite images at high spatial (10 to 60-m) and temporal (~ 5-10-day) resolutions are being collected for the research farm.

Accomplishments
1. Linking genetic factors to sheep longevity and increased productivity. The productive life of the female sheep or ewe has a key economic role in sheep production, as longer-lived ewes generally contribute more to lamb outputs over time. The impact of various factors on the length of a ewe’s productive life, which is the time between their very first and last lambing, was evaluated. Too many ewes are removed from the flock before reaching their peak lamb production resulting in economic loss for farmers. Scientists from Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, ARS locations in Booneville, Arkansas, Clay Center, New England, and Dubois, Idaho as well as Purdue University, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln examined genetic factors and trends of ewe longevity in Katahdin (a hair breed of sheep) flocks enrolled in the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) and determined that ewes raised as a twin rather than a single and the birth and weaning weights of her lambs increase her longevity. Heritability estimates for ewe longevity traits are relatively low, and all genetic and phenotypic correlations between longevity traits were high. Thus, if longevity traits were to be added to the NSIP traits for selection, genetic progress by farmers wishing to increase ewe longevity could occur through selection. Genome-wide association studies found the longevity traits to be complex and controlled by many genes and influenced by voluntary (selling productive animals) and involuntary (removal due to illness or death) culling or removal of mature ewes. This is critical information for sheep producers, scientists, geneticists, veterinarians, and extension specialists across the globe aiming to improve genetic parameters and improve profits in sheep.

2. Evaluating stocker cattle performance and economics in annual warm season grazing systems. Low summer and early fall forage availability and poor nutrient composition are issues for cattle producers grazing stocker cattle over summer months in the mid-southern United States. Warm-season perennial grasses, such as bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.), generally support beef cattle production from June to September, but forage crude protein decreases and fiber increases from July through September limiting stocker cattle gain to 1.5 lb per day. Warm-season annuals, such as sorghum-sudangrass (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench.), support moderate cattle gains (=2.2 lb per day) and have forage production potential that can fill gaps in forage availability in late summer and extend the grazing season into early fall. However, warm-season annual systems may be less cost effective than perennial systems because similar animal production per area cannot compensate for increased establishment costs. Scientists from ARS in Booneville and the University of Arkansas evaluated sorghum-sudangrass and bermudagrass grazing systems for animal gain and profitability and determined that stocker cattle average daily gain was greater on sorghum-sudangrass compared to bermudagrass (2.2 lb per day compared to 1.7 lb per day), but that the improved gain did not compensate for annual establishment costs. The success of both grazing systems was partially dependent on environmental factors including wet soils which delayed planting and reduced the total number of grazing days in the warm-season annual system and limited precipitation reducing warm-season perennial growth in mid to late summer, causing cattle to be removed from the pasture. Cattle producers, scientists, and extension specialists in the mid-southneed this information to create productive and profitable cattle grazing systems.

3. Development of methods to improving the accuracy of soil maps in alluvial systems for improved field and farm management. Detailed soil fertility maps are desirable for effective soil management but are challenging to produce due to the high spatial and temporal variability of soil fertility factors, especially in low-relief floodplains. Generally, highly accurate detailed soil fertility maps in low-relief floodplains are developed by combining field observations, satellite imagery and machine learning. A new method to create detailed maps of soil properties and nutrients related to soil fertility was developed utilizing freely available satellite images. The new approach has been verified to generate high resolution and accurate maps in multiple regions and landscapes creating the opportunity for a variety of precision agriculture applications.

4. Towards high resolution soil moisture forecast for field-based precision agriculture. Novel approaches to generating high resolution maps of daily soil moisture for different soil depths were developed utilizing a combination of existing soil information with field data, hydrological models, and machine learning. These maps support within field and farm management decisions related to scheduling irrigation, planting, spraying and harvesting as well as equipment/machinery usage. This novel approach is the first ever 4 dimensional soil moisture model that lendto incorporating soil water with nutrient recommendations which can increase productivity and efficiency of farming operations.

5. The integration of poplar trees and willows to clean up contaminated soils and water. Phytoremediation has been recognized as one of the most cost-effective “green” mitigation technologies. However, phytoremediation projects remain largely fragmented and lack a unified approach to system design, implementation, and assessment. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative assembled a team of scientist from the U.S., including those at the University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry, and Cananda to reduce develop a phytoremediation strategy to reduce landfill runoff in the Lake Michigan watershed. Sixteen agroforestry phytoremediation plots were successfully established around the landfills within the Great Lakes basin and aided in the development of a contaminant prioritization scheme to evaluate the effectiveness of the agroforestry phytoremediation buffer systems in removing the contaminants in the landfill leachate. The developed schemes have been successfully used to guide phytoremediation buffer mitigation strategies and monitoring plans. The findings and developed strategies have been disseminated domestically and internationally (to over 16 countries) through the Phytoremediation Training Academy and Forest Service International Program.

6. Supporting Missouri’s eastern black walnut industry with the release of the new cultivar Hickman. Black walnut kernel production is a regionally important industry in Missouri. Hammons Products Company, the state’s processor, buys nearly 20 million pounds of dried in-shell nuts (6-14% kernel) in masting years, when wild trees yield a heavy crop. Uniquely, the industry is based on these wild trees in native forests, but while these trees offer the industry opportunity, variability in the wild crop’s quality and quantity introduce instability and place a ceiling on the industry’s growth. Conversion of the supply to orchards would alleviate that ceiling; where it’s estimated that 5000 acres of orchards with improved cultivars would replace and double the kernel supply. The University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry breeding program began in 2002 with the goal of domesticating Juglans nigra for orchard production; enhancing early bearing and increasing kernel mass and percentage with selections that have excellent kernel quality. The program led to the creation of the first cultivar release, ‘Hickman’. Hickman was foremost selected for an extensive “spur bearing” pattern, which promotes production on small branches throughout the canopy rather than just at the tips of lateral branches. Spur bearing is also associated with prolific early bearing, including first nut production in as early as the fourth growing season, which can dramatically improve the return on investment of orchards. Hickman displays a high kernel percentage nut (34-36%) with a medium-sized, quality kernel (~5g) and can produce around 3000 pounds of nuts per acre from years 5 to 10, and then about 2500-3500 pounds per acre, thereafter, depending on the timing of orchard thinning and with some tendency to alternate bear. Hickman is currently available to the public for orchard establishment.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center: Booneville, AR