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One in three hectares in the United States is pasture. Two-thirds of them are privately owned, mostly ranchers who graze their cattle in the open countryside of the American West.
American routes produce premium beef, wool and dairy products. And it is the plants that feed these cattle that are the basis of profitable agriculture in the West. But breeders haven’t had a good way to gauge how their weed is doing – until now.
New free app
The Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP), developed in partnership with the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the University of Montana, allows growers to track changes in the quantity and types of plants growing on their property.
RAP is a free online resource that provides data on vegetation trends in the West from the mid-1980s to the present day, and calculates the productivity of these plants. It collects data such as forage productivity, vegetation cover, shoreline condition and sensitivity, climate and drought monitoring, etc. It uses remote sensing technology with massive archive of satellite images. According to the developers, its datasets allow users to monitor trends and changes at the range, landscape or region scale from 1984 to the present day.
This combination of long-term data sets shows landowners, managers and conservationists how their lands have changed over time, which directly translates into the profitability of their operations.
Farmers in the central and eastern United States have used technology to track changes in agricultural production for decades. As soon as they see their factory’s productivity decreasing – and income follows – they can take action to address the limitations and increase productivity again.
Monitor changes quickly
The RAP provides the same power to pastoralists. The RAP can show ranchers the gap between their potential production and the actual production they are making in terms of pounds per acre of grass. It helps landowners understand how much they can potentially gain by changing management practices to increase the available forage and close the gap. And it’s designed to improve local knowledge of the land and pasture management for generations.
Landowners can see how their crop production has changed in a single month or over several years. The technology can be used to visualize the productivity of a factory in an area as small as a baseball field or as large as several states. New technology like RAP is helping ranchers ‘help the land’ to support wildlife, provide food and fiber, and support long-term farm families.
To learn more, visit course.app.
Source: The Kingman County, Kansas Agricultural Service Agency is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all of its subsidiaries are not responsible for the content of this information asset.
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