Project Overview
Commodities
- Agronomic: millet, oats
- Vegetables: radishes (culinary), turnips
- Animals: sheep
Practices
- Animal Production: feed/forage, grazing - continuous, free-range, grazing management, livestock breeding, grazing - rotational
- Crop Production: cover crops, crop rotation
- Education and Training: farmer to farmer, mentoring, youth education
- Production Systems: integrated crop and livestock systems
Proposal abstract:
The objective is to secure funds to host a youth field day workshop on cover crops to use to improve soil health and produce high quality sheep feed. We intend to plant cover crops in mid-summer after a cash crop has been harvested. Then we plan to graze the cover crop with sheep after the crop is established. The field day will be hosted shortly after sheep are introduced to the cover crop in the fall.
We intend to accept 40 youth applications to attend this workshop. Established youth audiences would include the Oliver County Club Lamb Program, which consists of about 12 youth annually, and the North Dakota Starter Flock Program, which starts 10 youth per year with sheep projects. Additional youth applicants would be invited through NDSU Extension, North Dakota Lamb and Wool Producers Association and Bismarck State College Agriculture programs.
Cover crops have been utilized for the past 4 years on the property. This project would start a grazing demonstration with the sheep and provide fall grazing alternative. Youth would attend educational seminars from Reid Redden (NDSU Sheep Specialist), Dave Pfliger (Oliver County Soil Conservation District Conservationist), and Kevin Sedivec (NDSU Range Specialist).