Over 350 people attended the Youth Agriculture and Animal Science Field Day held on February 8, 2020 at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds. The purpose was to provide agricultural education to youth (and their adult leaders, teachers, and mentors) who raise, care, breed, show, and market animals; raise, grow, or farm plants or fibers; and/or care about agriculture.

The event was co-hosted by UC Cooperative Extension and the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds and Event Center. A keynote was provided by Dr. Temple Grandin, Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Workshops covered a variety of topics including science of wildland fire (Hannah Bird); building and enhancing the client-veterinarian relationship (Randi Black); communicating the value of agriculture and animal science at public exhibitions (Dayna Ghirardelli and Amy Houseman); embracing working landscapes: impacts of agriculture on climate change (Stephanie Larson); basic husbandry and disease prevention in backyard poultry (Maurice Pitesky); enhancing awareness of agricultural career opportunities (Sonoma-Marin Farm Bureau's young farmers and ranchers); There's a horse in the melon patch! The joys and pains of integrating livestock into vegetable cropping systems (Stuart Schroeder, Alda Pires, & Vince Trotter); and supporting positive animal welfare practices (Martin Smith).

Post-event evaluation results were positive!

• 96% agreed they would attend the field day again.
• 96% will recommend the field day to a friend or colleague.
• 97% agreed the field day was an effective learning experience.
• 98% agreed they improved their knowledge of an agricultural-related topic.
• 95% agreed that their educational workshop was valuable in helping them learn about agriculture.

 Highlight video:

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is soliciting for applications for two programs: Healthy Soils Program (HSP) and Alternative Manure Management Program (AMMP). These programs, funded through the state's Cap and Trade Program, aim to support agricultural production through incentivizing practices resulting in a net benefit for the environment through innovation, efficient management, and science.

The University of California Cooperative Extension in Sonoma County received funding to assist farmers and ranchers in applying for these funds.

The AMMP program provides financial assistance for the implementation of non-digester manure management practices in California, which will result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. These practices include solid separation, conversion from flush to scrape manure collection, increased pasture access, and construction of a compost bedded pack barn.

The program offers a maximum project award of $750,000 without the requirement of a cost share. Applications are currently being accepted and the deadline to apply is March 27^th, 2020 at 5:00 pm PT. If you are interested in this program and would like more information, visit the CDFA AMMP page.

For assistance in project development and submitting an application, contact:

Randi Black, Dairy Advisor, UCCE Sonoma County, rablack@ucanr.edu, 707-565-2648

The HSP has two components:

• HSP Incentives Program
• HSP Demonstration Projects

The HSP Incentives Program provides financial assistance for implementation of conservation management that improve soil health, sequester carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Incentives projects are eligible for a maximum award of $100,000 with no cost share required.

The HSP Demonstration Projects showcase California farmers and rancher's implementation of HSP practices. Demonstration projects can be either data collection focused with outreach and education components ($250,000 maximum award) or just focus on outreach ($100,000 maximum award).

Applications are not yet being accepted, but are expected to open in February with the deadline for submission in April. If you are interested in this program and would like more information, visit the CDFA Healthy Soils Program webpage. 

For assistance in project development and submitting an application, contact:

Stephanie Larson, Livestock & Range Management Advisor, UCCE Sonoma County, slarson@ucanr.edu,707-565-2621

Working landscape ecosystems provide benefits to the landowner and to all life forms living or passing through that land. Neighbors benefit with open viewscapes, to clean water and air, and carbon sequestration from well-maintained working landscapes – rangelands, grassland, and open space. There also a potential health benefits received from working landscape from properly managed vegetation removal to reduce the fire fuel loads. However, there are many challenges for landowners to control excessive vegetation on working landscapes, including vast roadless areas that limit access for weed control and lands of low economic value that make chemical and mechanical control impractical. These challenges favor biological control methods; such as insects and microbes for biocontrol, which can be effective but are difficult, expensive, and time consuming to develop. There is, however a readily available and under-exploited tool that has gained interest to manage vegetation – livestock grazing.

Along with prescribed fire, grazing of domestic livestock may be the earliest vegetation management tool employed by humans. We suggest that the challenges of vegetation management on working landscapes may be addressed with the careful sharpening of this old tool. Prescription grazing is the application of livestock grazing at a specified season, duration and intensity to accomplish specific vegetation management goals. Controlled grazing of this type is being employed throughout California on public and private land and is proving to be a promising tool in reducing the fire fuels and unwanted, excessive vegetation.

Furthermore, livestock grazing has one distinct advantage over other control methods; in the process of controlling an undesirable plant, grazing animals convert it into a saleable product.

Steps in Developing a Grazing Prescription

Formulating an effective grazing prescription requires a solid understanding of plant ecology, animal behavior, and plant-animal interactions. A grazing prescription should include specific information on the season and intensity of defoliation, the species, breed, sex, and age class of animal to use, and the stocking rate that will result in the most harm to the target plant and still maintain healthy rangeland ecosystems. A successful grazing prescription should: 1) cause significant damage to the target plant; 2) limit irreparable damage to the surrounding vegetation; 3) be consistent with livestock production goals; and, 4) be integrated with other control methods as part of an overall weed management strategy.

Selecting the Right Species

The species of livestock best suited for the specific vegetation management goals depends on both the plant species of concern and the production setting. Cattle have large rumens that are well adapted to ferment fibrous material and are classified as grass and roughage eaters. They are therefore generally superior to goats or sheep to manage fibrous herbaceous vegetation such as dormant grasses. Goats have narrow and strong mouths well designed for stripping individual leaves from woody stems and for chewing branches. Goats also have a large liver mass relative to cattle or sheep and may therefore more efficiently process plants that contain secondary compounds such as tannins or terpenes. Sheep are generally considered an excellent species to accomplish control of herbaceous weeds. Sheep possess a narrow muzzle and a relatively large rumen per unit body mass. These characteristics allow them to selectively graze and yet tolerate substantial fiber content, and results in diets generally dominated by forbs. Sheep are also small, sure-footed, and well suited for travel in rough topography which may not be easily accessible for chemical weed control.

Grazing Workshops for Working Landscapes in Sonoma & Marin Counties

Creating resiliency in the rural landscape of Sonoma and Marin Counties is critical in preparing for the next natural disaster, managing biodiversity or achieving ecosystem service goals such as carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat and viewsheds.  This growing recognition of the ecological benefits livestock grazing is important to our County's resiliency. However, grazing can be difficult to landowners that have never grazed their properties before.  UC Cooperative Extension will hold several workshops on prescriptive grazing techniques to address the sustainability of our working landscapes while reducing the vegetation that leads to catastrophic wild fires.  Private land owners manage the majority of the open spaces in Sonoma and Marin Counties and these workshops are aimed at those private citizens and other public land owners that are interested in using grazing as a vegetation management tool. Increasing the number of agriculture land grazed will benefit both public and private open space and the residents that benefit from them.  The goal of the workshops is to increase understanding, interest and acceptance of using grazing as a vegetation management tool. Upcoming workshop held at SRJC Shone Farm: 

DAY 1 – FRIDAY, May 17 (8:30 am - 7pm)

• Setting Achievable Grazing Goals
• Basic Principles of Managed Grazing
• Animal Nutrition, Body Condition Scoring 
• Selecting the right grazer
• Animal Husbandry Basics
• Grazing 101
• Electric Fencing
• Drought & Flood Management

DAY 2 – SATURDAY, May 18 (8: 00 am - 5 pm)

• Graze Planning 
• Infrastructure
• Pasture & Range Ecology
• Livestock Protection Tools
• Health Issues-Parasite Control
• Livestock Economics, Leasing
• Carbon Plan
• Monitoring, meeting grazing goals

Register online for 
Grazing School for Vegetation Management & Wildfire Vegetation Reduction.  

Sonoma and Marin County's working landscapes, properly managed with prescription grazing, could prove to be a winning solution for all parties involved. Grazing not only provides a service to land owners and managers that may not be easily achieved in other ways, but it can also provide an income stream to aspiring livestock grazers just starting their grazing businesses.  These workshops will provide educational opportunities for all parties to learn the “how to” in grazing, landowners who what to graze themselves, landowners who want to hire grazes and grazers who are looking to start or increase their grazing business enterprise. Let's work together to sharpen the “old” tool of “livestock grazing” into the “new vegetation management tool” for working landscapes.

The UC Riverside Veterinary Entomology Extension Laboratory has developed an on-line database of pesticides registered in the State of California for use against arthropod pests of animals.  

Website visitors can search by animal commodity for which pest control is needed (e.g. poultry), by type of pest (e.g. poultry mite or house fly), and by application method and formulation. It is expected that animal producers and extension personnel will find this database to be much easier to navigate than the California Department of Pesticide Regulation product search website.

Animal producers may also be interested in other offerings of the Insect Pests of Animals website. Visitors can find pest management information for some ectoparasite pests of poultry, cattle, and other animals. We are adding information on additional pests every few months so be sure to check back to see what has changed. We also maintain a Blog that producers and extension personnel may be interested to follow. Information shared through the Blog includes recent findings related to pest management in animal facilities or of general relevance to animal producers, extension personnel, and researchers.

Finally, animal producers may be interested in taking a look at the many web links provided in our “other resources” section. In particular, there are links for producers to submit animal management questions to the national eXtension program through their “Ask and Expert” program. Experts from universities, extension offices, private industry, and other relevant organizations are registered with this national eXtension program to answer submitted questions or to provide question writers with guidance to address their questions.

If you have comments about or suggestions for our Insect Pests of Animals website, please send these to me at:

Alec C. Gerry, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Extension Specialist (Veterinary Entomology)
Department of Entomology
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521
alec.gerry@ucr.edu 
(951) 827-7054