Site Background
About the location
Lakeland College is located in the county of Vermilion River within the black chernozemic soil zone with a medium medium/fine soil texture in the Peace River Parkland natural region west of the Saskatchewan border. Lakeland has access to three quarters of land south of town with rolling topography and two natural water sources.
The property is perimeter fenced with four-wire barbwire fencing. Most water bodies have limited access.
Lakeland College Pasture (LCP) 22 is 159 acres in size with 115 acres of 80 per cent mixed grass, 20 per cent legume pasture with a large fenced off waterbody. LCP 23 is approximately 156 acres of mixed grass with some tree cover and has a fenced off dugout with a solar waterer.
What happened
This year, 45 Hereford/Angus cows, 42 calves, 12 heifers and three bulls started grazing on LCP 23 starting June 14. They will tentatively remain on pasture in LCP 22 until the end of September 2024. A Razer Grazer was used to cross fence LCP 23 into seven pastures, allowing for 50 days of grazing with an average of seven days with a once-over grazing. LCP 22 has had 18 days of grazing over four paddocks to date with an expected once-over grazing.
Liquid dairy manure sourced from the College farm was applied at a rate of 5,500 to 6,000 litres per acre and tested for quality prior to spreading. Initial use of the Razer Grazer required about one hour for paddock setup. However, over time, efficiency improved with experience and stepping in the posts from the side by side. The time for installation of this system was dependent on the topography of the landscape.
Unfortunately, three calves were lost over the summer as there was a lack of shelter in the hot summer temperatures in some of the pastures.
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.