LGLCI hosts training and Management-Intensive-Grazing workshop for farmers and agricultural professionals Nov 19-20, 2025

On November 19-20, farmers and agricultural professionals gathered at the Lincoln Parish Library and Louisiana Tech Farm to learn how to manage pastures for increased productivity, profitability, and environmental health.

Assessing the Louisiana Tech farm pasture condition score

Louisiana Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (LGLCI), a statewide nonprofit dedicated to promoting grazing practices that help both the environment and farmer profitability, hosted a one day pasture condition training on November 19^th, followed by a grazing school workshop on the 20^th in Ruston, LA.  

Day one began with identification of common Louisiana weeds and characteristics by which to identify them. The instruction then unfolded to reasons why pastures may have lots of weeds, including soil problems and overgrazing. In the classroom, the group learned how to assess pasture health and fill out a pasture condition score sheet, which quantifies the pasture health based on comprehensive factors including erosion, compaction, weeds, water, grasses, and concentrated animal foot activity.

Weed ID lessons, hands on

At the LA Tech South Campus farm, the group of farmers, NRCS staff, LSU AgCenter extension agents, and local Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) employees put the practice into action, assessing one of the farm pastures for hands-on application. Farm manager Colby Bass listened in to learn some suggested tips for improvement of the pasture, which rated a healthy 4 out of 5. 

Louisiana Tech invited the group to asses a pasture at the school's farm.

The second day's agenda held a separate, yet related, course: a condensed one-day Grazing School. This mini-version of a three-day Grazing School taught in Missouri was led by instructors John Turner and Mark Kennedy. Both instructors are experienced Missouri graziers and retired NRCS leaders. Turner and Kennedy are contracted to teach three-day grazing schools around 30 times a year in Missouri, which has been a catalyst to Missouri becoming a leading state in grazing lands management education and application.  

The one-day grazing school in Ruston introduced concepts and how-tos of Management-Intensive Grazing (MIG), a livestock management system that involves animals being moved more often through multiple paddocks rather than kept in large pastures. Farmers using management-intensive grazing divide pastures, usually with electric fence, into multiple paddocks. They graze all animals in one paddock at a time, and animals are moved to a new paddock while the one previously grazed is completely disallowed from grazing, which enables the grass time to recover and grow, much like an under-mowed lawn.  

Benefits to the more intensive grazing include even manure distribution, which results in increased organic matter and decreased fertilizer needs. As a result, farmers implementing these grazing practices experience more grass produced on the same acreage, healthier animals, and the ability to raise more grazing animals on the same farmland. Additionally, with key principles of keeping the ground covered and allowing grass to rest and recover between grazes, management-intensive grazing, also known as Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing has been proven to decrease erosion and increase water infiltration, organic matter, and soil carbon.

In a study in South Dakota, researchers found “AMP grazing results…. indicate improved fine litter cover, improved water infiltration, two to three times the available forage biomass, improved plant composition, and decreased invasive plant levels and bare ground...” (1) AMP grazing has the potential to help farmers increase profitability and sustainability, all while helping the environment.

The one-day school in Ruston on Nov. 20^th taught a condensed version of the details of implementing AMP or MI grazing. This included how to design and install water systems, design fences to best utilize available grass, calculate the number of paddocks needed for desired results, choose the number of paddocks in your system, match forages to livestock, and more.

Grazing affects root growth

Cow weight and the percent of her body weight weaned

Outside of the classroom, the instructors and seasoned graziers showed the group examples of the equipment that they prefer to use daily. Since electric fence is a major component of this grazing method, there were many examples given for chargers, insulators, wire, reels, and fence posts.  

Louisiana GLCI is proud to host events like this to educate farmers and agricultural professionals about the technical details and the how-to behind better grazing, benefitting farmers’ bottom dollar, our environment, and ultimately, our food supply. Learn more and keep up with more events at LouisianaGLCI.org 

Special thanks to the Lincoln Parish Library and Louisiana Tech Farm for the spaces to host our training, and Louisiana Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS).

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(1) Mimi Hillenbrand, Ry Thompson, Fugui Wang, Steve Apfelbaum, Richard Teague,

Impacts of holistic planned grazing with bison compared to continuous grazing with cattle in South Dakota shortgrass prairie,

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment,

Volume 279,

2019,

Pages 156-168,

ISSN 0167-8809,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.02.005.

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880919300301)

(2) Some information on charts is from University of Missouri, from the classroom presentation of the 1-day grazing school.