Allan & Teague

Bare Ground

Group on Rocky Land

Prickly Pear and Silver Leaves

Shade...

Grass Under Brush

Allan Savory

Alluvial Soil

Allen Joe

The Group

From the ground up:
Planning begins at Savory Center's David West Ranch

Late in 2001, the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management was bequeathed an 11,000-acre ranch located 39 miles south of Ozona Texas. The Center selected long time Texas holistic management practitioners Joe and Peggy Maddox to manage the ranch. David West stipulated in his will that the ranch be used as an education and training site forHolistic Management™. The will may take some time to completely settle, but the Center, with Joe and Peggy, have already created an active, dynamic learning site. They have accomplished this in part by hosting two land planning meetings (March 13-14 and June 11-12, 2002) with invited ranchers, practitioners of holistic management and personnel from government agencies, environmental organizations, extension and academic institutions. Both meetings have been designed to present the concepts and decision-making process of Holistic ManagementTM and to benefit from the expertise of all attending.

Chute and Mesquite

The first land planning session in March ended with Joe Maddox and Allan Savory encouraging all participants to commit to staying involved and to bring in other interested parties. Forrest Armke of Melvin TX summed it up: "It was an eye opening experience for many of the participants. Those who had never attended such a planning session got to experience the teamwork of holistic management decision-making first hand. The land is ripe for planned grazing and to be a member of such a well-balanced group is a blessing. As the process begins to work, everyone involved will get to learn how the decision-making framework is used in everyday life on a ranch. There is not a better way to learn than to be actively participating and to be a witness as the land heals."

Allan Savory

Three months later, June 11 began cool and breezy on the David West Ranch. Allan Savory was sipping tea while the Texans slugged down coffee and the Maddox family served breakfast tacos and tamales. By ones and twos the guests arrived to help create a plan for the ranch. Savory (founder of the Center and developer of this highly effective management process) and Craig Leggett (Project Manager for the Center) had worked with participants from the first land planning session to expand and further diversify the planning group. By the time breakfast was over and the coffee pot drained, 28 people were assembled and ready to assess the land.

Savory began the session with an update of the first planning session where the holistic goal for the ranch had been introduced and discussed. "The holistic goal is like magnetic north," explained Savory, "you never quite reach it but you always navigate by it." The Session I planners had been given topo maps of the ranch on which to suggest creative paddock divisions for the hooves the land so badly needs (the ranch has been rested for the past 15 years and is showing the strain, with 50% of the plants dead and dying and 65% of the soil bare and capped). The planners had been asked to divide the land for fencing using the natural movement of livestock around contours, etc. Savory took the best of these ideas and penciled in imaginary fences on the master plan. Joe Maddox will now ride the imaginary fence lines to get a feel for whether or not it really works, as well as pay close attention to many factors the first group thought important-prevailing wind, fire threat areas, turkey roosting sites, wildlife needs, aesthetic requirements and more-to see if the proposed fencing plan would conflict.

Through the Pens...

Savory explained about gathering HM baseline monitoring data. Eleven transects had been chosen to represent the different types of terrain on the ranch. Digital video panoramas, as well as shots straight out and straight down were made at each transect, in addition to the 100 random points measurements (a 6 inch radius off each dart point and an analysis of everything within that circle, such as insect and animal life, nature of soil surface, litter cover and finally distance to the nearest perennial grass plant and a description of its state of health). When managing holistically, all decisions and actions affecting the environment are assumed wrong no matter how much research has been done or how much testing of the decision. Consequently this monitoring is vital to note the earliest possible changes and direction they are taking. If not in line with the desired intent then actions are modified. Essentially this monitoring of Holistic Management is done to "produce the desired result" rather than the conventional monitoring to "see what changes occur".

This data will be used to control changes in the desired direction to return to healthy grassland in balance with woody and herbaceous vegetation. Savory was sure to point out that, "We will compare current land health with past land health on THIS ranch, not compare with the area ranches. This is a learning site, not a demonstration, which is offensive to some (we are all here to learn together, not demonstrate what is good here or bad there)." Savory encouraged all the scientists present to run their own tests and monitoring so nothing of interest to them would be left out. "We need volunteers to do more baseline monitoring-deer census, plus bird, small mammal, reptile and amphibian population data."

A brainstorming session took place concerning methods of containing the herds of cattle, sheep, goats, and/or pigs being considered to break up the soil capping and restore biological decay; which has given way to chemical oxidation and weathering that has already killed fifty percent of grass plants. Most feel traditional fencing is detrimental to the natural movement of wildlife. We want to allow wildlife to move as freely as possible to prevent un-natural over-browsing. Other suggestions are o put permanent posts in the ground and use electric tape only in the area actually containing livestock (to be moved around the ranch with the herd), o invisible dog fencing with transmitter collars on each head or possibly only on a percentage of the herd, o GPS technology with shock collars on the livestock, moving them via satellite from a home computer, o old fashioned herding with people and dogs, o strip grazing-herding combined with constantly moving the electric tape to a new strip while leaving a continuous channel open to the water source.

Work in bay

Using the goal as a guide, the group felt a combination of herding with the simplest possible moveable fence may be the most cost effective and most in keeping with the quality of ranch life desired, as well as being the most effective way to combine the grazing with the high animal impact needed to break up the soil capping. An ultra-high-density herd moved 8 to 12 times a day in Africa is doing wonders for grassland health. Although perhaps not possible here, we will strive for something similar that is cost effective and practical. Joel Ham pointed out that a high percentage of ranches have the labor to herd; they are just doing something else. Fences will not change the behavior of the animals. People are needed for predator herd effect. Cattle can be trained to stay together and bed down at night. Herded sheep are very tightly flocked, while pastured sheep spread out. The old herding skills, once so much a part of ranch culture, have been lost. Pierce Miller suggested hiring a Peruvian herder to run livestock and teach others to do it. Discussion drifted to species. In Mexico, Dr Manuel Casas (Holistic Management Certified Educator) is running a single herd consisting of sheep, goats, pigs, cattle and horses without conflict other than at time of lambing or kidding, when the pigs have to be pulled out. Grazing plans for the West Ranch will be complex as Joe & Peggy take into consideration the needs of wildlife, vegetation and each species of livestock for maximum performance of each.

"Why not burn all that brush that is using up all your moisture?" was a question that came up dozens of times during the two days of the session. Savory's answer, "If there is a reason to burn, we will put it through the testing guidelines and if it passes, we will burn." We must look at the benefits of animal maintained vegetation vs. fire maintained vegetation, see which one passes the guidelines at this time, make a decision and assume we are wrong. We must address the root cause of the problem, not the symptoms. The present condition of much brush, little grass and lots of bare soil is not caused by the brush, but by the excessive resting of the land. We must first break up the capping with animal impact, then the rainfall will be more effective and grasses will grow to cover the soil. And at the same time we must use large animals with the micro-organisms contained in their digestive systems to restore biological decay without which grasslands are invaded by woody and herbaceous plants. Then we may look at selectively thinning the brush when the grass health will make it less likely for the brush to come back."

How far back in time do you go to say, "This is the best it ever was. This is what we should aim for?" "Maybe" said Savory, "the answer is to manage for the best it can ever be and not dwell so much on the past" Terry Maxwell, an educator from Angelo State, informed the group the US Army has very detailed records about this area from 1849. He agreed to help obtain copies for the group to use to increase their understanding of this land.

Savory talked again about the need to monitor to bring about the result you want. "We would like healthier, more open grassland, so what can we do to improve the grass component?" Savory asked. "Remove the brush," said some. Savory replied, "The average rainfall here is about 17" per year. We are operating on 6" or less effective rainfall. Even if we experienced 100% infiltration of the rain, the 60% bare soil loses most of its moisture through the hot dry winds acting just like a hair dryer on the soil surface. (Research at Khorixas in Namibia shows even with 100% of rain soaking into the soil, 83% is lost to soil surface evaporation when most of the soil is bare and exposed). If the soil is covered, we don't lose the moisture so quickly. Perhaps the brush is our ally right now, as it shades and covers the soil and what grass there is. We want to work toward open savannah with brushy areas for wildlife cover and more biodiversity."

"How do we replace the soil removed through the years by wind and water?" someone asked. Savory replied, "The soil is still here, it has just moved to the hollows and flats. The land does not need rest. Plants need recovery time after being grazed. Soil builds from the top down. As vegetation increases, soil surface litter will increase, and the process of decay (biological nutrient recycling) will increase. That will begin the building of soil."

Prickly Pear and Web

In a humid environment, rest = recovery. In a seasonal rainfall environment, rest = loss of diversity and more bare ground. Partial rest is animals on the land with plant overgrazing, but no animal impact (herd effect). Bare ground = no water. Causes of bare ground = none in humid environment, but in seasonal rainfall environment the causes are: 1) too few animals wandering around (partial rest) and 2) fire (because it exposes soil).

As we broke up into pickup loads to go out on the land, Savory reminded the planners that the Ranch must sustain itself with surface production. Monies from the gas leases can be used for some of the education on the ranch, but Joe and Peggy must manage for profit using only the land, the tools, human creativity and money generated from them. This is an essential feature of this learning site as it is now a common belief in the area that you cannot succeed in ranching without oil or gas. It is our intention to learn together how to put a ranch back on its feet profitably without any oil or gas money.

Out on the land we saw dry, rocky ground with hard capped soil between the rocks, few healthy grass plants and lots of red berry juniper. One challenge to participants was to understand that humans (and scientists) only "see what they believe" and we need to learn to "believe what we see". Thus, as Savory pointed out, for many years research plots totally rested have been demonstrating deteriorating grassland but we could never see it because it went against our beliefs! It was interesting to hear the same landscape interpreted through different pairs of eyes. Some observers felt that the dead grass and bare crusted soil were due to prolonged catastrophic drought. Other observers attributed much of the condition of the landscape to the lack of fire. Allan Savory suggested that many of the grasses were dying from over rest. He said animal impact would help decrease both bare ground and the spacing between desired plants. But he emphasized again and again that whatever tool is considered, be it planned grazing and animal impact, fire or technology, it will have to pass the testing guidelines with respect to progress toward the holistic goal and will always be assumed wrong and monitored till proven right.

Someone asked if sheep or goats could be used for animal impact rather than always cattle. Their hooves are small enough to fit between the rocks. Savory responded that on land where we are dealing with mature hard capping, you need larger animals (more weight) to break crust. If we are in country where capping is easily broken, then we can use smaller ruminants and benefit from "more hooves".

Savory talked about the cycle of life-birth, growth, death, decay. In brittle environments the biological decay part of the process can be very slow or give way to chemical oxidation in the absence of enough animal life, which then restricts the cycle of life. He said there is no known technology that can restore biological decay. He further stated that fire is not decay - just more rapid oxidation - and that it breaks the cycle of life. Grasslands were "animal maintained" for many millions of years. It is only relatively recently that they became "fire maintained" by the actions of humans who eliminated most large animals.

Throughout the land planning session, there was a discussion of what exclosures and enclosures would be useful for study/monitoring and might function also as good teaching points. It was recommended that a paddock be reserved for "continuous grazing", and that several exclosures for continued "rest" be established. Long narrow exclosures that go from hilltop down to the bottom of the draw were suggested (maybe 10 yards wide and 100 to 300 yards long). Some of the working pens could function as examples of management using very high density of animals for very short duration of time and/or Joe will put in some 'enclosures' to treat with ultra-high animal impact from time to time so we can learn what happens.

Glimpses

Hornsby Bend

La Copita

Mitchell Lake

PlanIt Texas

Reed Ranch

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