Site Background
About the Location
The Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch is located immediately north of Kinsella, or 150 kilometres east of Edmonton on Hwy 14. Located within the central parkland natural subregion of Alberta, the Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch is embedded in a rolling landscape dominated by agricultural lands and punctuated by aspen groves, wetlands and patches of native prairie vegetation.
About the Farm
The Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch was established in 1960 as a beef cattle breeding facility and is now home to a herd of approximately 850 head of cattle, each of which has been genetically sequenced. It belongs to the University of Alberta.
This farm has five breeding herds.
- 230 cow-calf pairs and 45 yearling heifers of KC-Efficient cows crossbred with a heavy Angus influence and a moderate frame.
- 210 cow-calf pairs and 45 yearling heifers of KC-Control cows crossbred with a heavy Angus influence and a moderate frame.
- 200 cow-calf pairs and 40 yearling heifers of purebred, typical Angus.
- 120 cow-calf pairs and 30 yearling heifers of purebred, typical Charolais.
- 110 cow-calf pairs and 25 yearling heifers of Purebred Hay Converters with moderate to large frames.
Also, bulls to service all herds.
The Rotational Grazing Objective
This project aims to improve grazing efficiency through the use of virtual grazing collars.
Agronomic Details
The Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch covers approximately 5,000 hectares, more than half of which is dominated by native vegetation characteristic of aspen parkland. Plant communities on the remainder of the property are dominated by tame forage species. Dominant native grasses are plains rough fescue (Festuca hallii), western porcupine grass (Hesperostipa curtiseta) and Junegrass (Koeleria macrantha). Forbs that are common across the site include northern bedstraw (Galium boreale), bastard toadflax (Comandra umbellata) and prairie goldenrod (Solidago missouriensis). Shrubs and trees, such as western snowberry (Symphoricarpos occidentalis), silverberry (Elaeagnus commutata) and trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) are also present.
The ranch is divided into several pastures that are stocked rotationally, including one approximately 150-hectare ‘wagon wheel pasture’ with a central water source from which fences radiate out to divide the pasture into 10 paddocks.
The ranch encompasses many wetlands. At higher elevations, these contain fresh water and are bordered by typical riparian meadows, whereas in low-lying areas, salt-covered lakebeds are bordered by vegetation that is adapted to highly saline conditions.
Several gravel pits that are owned and managed by the Government of Alberta are also located on the ranch.
Other infrastructure on the ranch includes a state-of-the-art livestock handling facility and performance testing barn, a feed mill and hay storage buildings.
Fencing installation will be completed from August to September 2023. Water system installation will also be completed during this time and will contain a pipeline and water throughs.
What Happened
A demonstration day was held at the Roy Berg Kinsella Research Ranch demonstration site farm tour on Aug. 6. Over 70 attendees enjoyed a tour and learned about some of the ranch’s ongoing projects, including virtual fencing, continuous versus rotational grazing projects and its effects, living labs and much more.
Design by Grace Forsythe
Gallery
Funding for this project [in part] has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund.