Oct 06 2009

Grazing for the Greater Good

Posted by: Kory Raftery

The Blanchard family runs an organic, sustainable ranch that few will ever view directly but many will try to imitate.  The ranch sits on the rugged Central California coast on the north end of the PG&E property that is home to Diablo Canyon Power Plant. It can only be seen from PG&E's Point Buchon Trail and select hiking spots within Montana de Oro State Park in San Luis Obispo County. 

But it is not just the location of the ranch that is out of the ordinary.  For the last two decades, Bob and son Bowman Blanchard have been implementing an alternative ranching practice known as managed or rotational grazing with their cows, sheep and goats. 

It's a practice overseen by the PG&E land stewardship program. The objectives of the program include proper care in the management of agricultural crops and livestock production and conservation of biological diversity. The Blanchards argue managed grazing not only sustains the environmental condition of the ranch but actually improves it by allowing land to rest and vegetation to recover. Many of their peers have contacted the Blanchards asking for advice on managing their lands and livestock.

This type of intricate managed grazing requires a rancher to divide the pasture into smaller spaces, or paddocks. Next, he or she grazes the animals on different paddocks during different periods and manages when they move from one to the next. 

"This method of managed grazing is all about disturbance, rest and the big picture," Bob Blanchard told me. "The disturbance of one species provides opportunity for another."

By disturbance, he means anything that changes or alters the landscape where he ranches or farms and provides an opportunity for reproduction of some sort. He sees disturbance when an animal ingests, masticates, ruminates, urinates and defecates.

"The manure is fertilizer and inoculates microbial activity in the soil. A cow pie is messy if you step in it but a reproductive opportunity to a fly," he said with a smile. "Fly larvae is a major source of protein to a Blackbird or Meadow Lark. Mature flies are food to the tree swallow and many other fly catching birds. Tromping and mashing turns excess plant litter into mulch that protects soil from erosion. Disturbance of the soil surface by hoof action plants the seeds of the next generation of grasses and forbs. Trails created by moving herds offer easier travel by all manner of critters from quail to coyotes --and predatory critters find great hunting opportunities along (those) trails." 

Managed grazing allows Blanchard to be concerned not just with his livestock but with  maintaining and improving the land on which they graze - adding to the successes of the award-winning PG&E land stewardship program on the acreage surrounding Diablo Canyon, and setting a worthy example to other ranchers.

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