How to create quality pasture from the soil up

This 2^nd edition, revised and completely updated by Jim Gerrish, offers down-to-earth, low cost tactics to create high-energy pasture that will reduce or eliminate expensive inputs or purchased feeds for year-round grazing. Includes: wet weather tips, how to create a drought management plan, matching livestock to climate, and how to extend the grazing season during winter and summer slumps.

Gerrish, Jim

Jim Gerrish grew up on a grain and alfalfa hay farm in south-central Illinois. He spent over 22 years conducting beef-forage systems research and outreach while on the faculty of the University of Missouri. With over 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on his family farm in northern Missouri, he also has one foot solidly planted in commercial livestock production.

His research at the University of Missouri-Forage Systems Research Center encompassed many aspects of plant-soil-animal interactions and provided the foundation for many of the basic principles of Management-intensive Grazing.

Today, with his wife, Dawn, he contract grazes a commercial cow-calf operation on 260 irrigated acres in Idaho. He has received awards from the American Forage and Grassland Council, Missouri Forage and Grassland Council, National Center for Appropriate Technology, USDA-NRCS, the Soil and Water Conservation Society and others. He is also an independent grazing lands consultant providing service to farmers and ranchers on both private and public lands across the USA and internationally.

Nation, Allan

Allan Nation served as the editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer magazine from 1977 until his death in November, 2016.

Begun in 1947, it was Mississippi's oldest farm publication. Based in Ridgeland, Mississippi, The Stockman Grass Farmer is an international publication that covers management-intensive grassland enterprises for producers of pasture-raised livestock. This includes stocker cattle, grass finished beef and lamb, and pasture-based dairying. It is the only monthly publication in North America devoted solely to management-intensive grassland farming in all its aspects.

The son of a commercial cattle rancher, Nation grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. He traveled to some 30 countries around the world studying and photographing grassland farming systems. In 1987, he authored a section on Management-intensive Grazing in the USDA Yearbook of Agriculture and served as a consultant and resource for Audubon Society Television Specials, National Geographic, WTBS, PBS, and National Public Radio. He received the 1993 Agricultural Conservation Award from the American Farmland Trust for spearheading the drive behind the grass farming revolution in the United States.

Nation was a featured speaker at ranching and grasslands conference and authored 11 books on pasture-based livestock and artisan meats and milk products.