The Art of Range
Episodes
AoR 82: A Synthesis of Ranch-Level Sustainability Indicators for Land Managers, Part 1
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This episode has the authors of a recent article in the journal Rangeland Ecology & Management tell the story behind their work: Clare Kazanski & Mari...
AoR 81: Welcome to the 2026 Int'l Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists!
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jim O'Rourke and Barbara Hutchinson have been part of the effort to have a United Nations International Year acknowledging the importance of rangeland...
New grant, new topics, and April 14 release introduction
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We're taking a break this week from the normal release schedule. Come back on April 14 for the first episode in a two-part series on ranch sustainabil...
AoR 80: Should Ranching Be Profitable? with Dallas Mount
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ranching for Profit is an organization started by Stan Parsons and recently run by Dave Pratt that has been helping ranchers work on the business inst...
AoR 79: The Forest Overstory Podcast, with Sean Alexander
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Forestry and range sciences are tied to each other in a long and complex social history, and many areas of the Western U.S. and semi-arid parts of the...
AoR 78: One Study to Rule Them All -- 3M Soil Health Research with Jeff Goodwin & Derek Scasta
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do we build soil health? What is soil health? Is careful grazing helpful or hurtful? Can anything be done to meaningfully influence soil health? A...
AoR 77: Local Seed Genetics & Range Seeding Methods, Mel Asher & Jerry Benson
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Seeding in extreme environments such as arid and semi-arid rangelands requires extra care in site preparation, species selection, seed selection, seed...
AoR 76: To Seed or Not to Seed? Post-Fire Rehabilitation with Richard Fleenor
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Deciding whether to seed, what to seed, and how to apply seed after wildfire are weighty questions. Seeding costs money, seedings often fail, and most...
AoR 75: Why Does Soil Organic Matter Matter?, Doug Collins & Andy McGuire, Part 2
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Soil organic matter is considered an indicator of soil health, there are numerous methods promoted for building it, SOM is credited with the potential...
AoR 74: Why Does Soil Organic Matter Matter?, Doug Collins & Andy McGuire, Part 1
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Soil organic matter is considered an indicator of soil health, there are numerous methods promoted for building it, SOM is credited with the potential...
AoR 73: James Rickert on Closed Herds, Open Abattoirs, and Creative Grazing (Part 2)
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ranch sustainability requires land care that works for the long haul and management that makes a profit more years than not. Jim Rickert, owner of the...
AoR 72: James Rickert on Closed Herds, Open Abattoirs, and Creative Grazing (Part 1)
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ranch sustainability requires land care that works for the long haul and management that makes a profit more years than not. Jim Rickert, owner of the...
AoR 71: Huntsinger & Gennet, How to Conserve Ranches and Support Environmental Stewardship
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ranching and livestock production on rangelands provide food and fiber concurrently with other ecosystem services such as wildlife habitat, clean air ...
AoR 70: Soil Carbon and Social Networks with Peter Donovan
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How to measure soil carbon, influence soil carbon, and influence others to care about soil carbon has motivated Peter Donovan for nearly three decades...
AoR 69: Wildland Stream Bacteria Forensics Science in Idaho, Part 2
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Microbial source tracking has gained accuracy in the last decade, and a multidisciplinary team at University of Idaho recently used MST methods to hel...
AoR 68: Wildland Stream Bacteria Forensics Science in Idaho, Part 1
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Microbial source tracking has gained accuracy in the last decade, and a multidisciplinary team at University of Idaho recently used MST methods to hel...
AoR 67: Land Potential Knowledge System Revisited with Jeff Herrick
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Grazing managers of any kind and in any place must answer the questions of what is and what is not possible and how to manage toward meaningful landsc...
AoR 66: Livestock Price Risk Management with Jack Field & Shannon Neibergs
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The future ain't what it used to be (Yogi Berra): there are more price risks and stressors on cattle markets than ever, and the predictability of catt...
AoR 65: Vanessa Prileson, Conservation Ranching in Pima County, Arizona
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Pima County owns and leases large tracts of land for working landscapes and biological conservation. Vanessa Prileson manages the range program which ...
AoR 64: Mark Kossler & Carter Kruse, Conservation Ranching at Landscape Scales
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ted Turner started buying ranch land in the early 1990s as both an investment and to conserve habitat for imperiled species at a spatial scale that wo...
AoR 63: Early Drought Response 2021 with Matt Reeves & Shannon Neibergs
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Spring 2021 arrived with a large percentage of the Western U.S. exhibiting below-average precipitation, in some places a lot below the 15-year mean. M...
AoR 62: Ashley Hibbard, Artistry on the Range
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ashley Hibbard may seem an unlikely rancher, but she may do more to change minds about ranching than most who seem more likely advocates. Ashley, who ...
AoR 61: Cooper & Chase Hibbard, Part 2 -- Grazing Principles
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gus Hormay worked with the Sieben Live Stock Company in the 1970s and 80s to help him understand rotation grazing principles. Chase and Cooper have ad...
AoR 60: Ranch Succession and True Grit at Sieben Live Stock Co. with Cooper & Chase Hibbard
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Big ranches mean big risks", says Chase Hibbard. Large lands and lots of cattle doesn't equal guaranteed success in the economically unforgiving worl...
AoR 59: Don McMoran and Kristen Vanvalkenburg, Total Farmer Health
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Farmer and rancher mental health has been in the news the past few years, with farmer suicide rates alarmingly high. Farmers and ranchers are often se...
AoR 58: Thomas Maxwell, New Zealand Grazing Geography in Brief
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans often refer to electric fence as "New Zealand" fence, and many other grazing innovations seem to have origins in this relative small island ...
AoR 57: Fiona Flintan, Pastoralism and People of African Rangelands
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Americans are vaguely aware of pastoralism as a term connoting a lifestyle that revolves around animal raising, but most of us don't have much more un...
AoR 56: Beth & Maurice Robinette, Practicing and Promoting Holistic Management
18 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Maurice and Beth are a father-daughter team who raise and sell farm-finished beef in Eastern Washington and are perhaps the first two-generation pair ...
AoR 55: Clay Conry, Regenerative Agriculture and the Working Cows podcast
04 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some people are called to work at the intersection of theory and practice and to challenge unchallenged ideas about what we do and why we do what we d...
AoR 54: Conservation Ranching, Wildland Fire, & Climate Change--The Wicked Problem SRM Plenaries
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Society for Range Management's annual meeting will be held virtually Feb 15-18, and the keynote speakers for the plenary sessions will address thr...
AoR 53: Matt Germino, Rangeland Fire Ecological Risks & Benefits
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Decisions about how and whether to suppress fire on semi-arid rangelands are full of "if, then" statements. Altered plant communities, the absence of ...
AoR 52: Fire Risk Reduction Through Grazing -- UC-Davis Research Roundtable
03 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between grazing and fire is complex. And the national conversation about using livestock grazing as a control measure is sometimes c...
AoR 51: Matt Germino, Nitrogen and Carbon Cycling on Rangelands
19 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
To fertilize or not to fertilize? That is NOT the question. Nitrogen is a driver of plant growth but its complex relationship with soil carbon and soi...
AoR 50: Cliff Mass, 2050 Climate in the Northwest
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Climate influences vegetation, and a variable climate challenges land management. Cliff Mass, University of Washington atmospheric scientist, discusse...
AoR 49: Steve Fransen, How Grass Grows is More Exciting Than You Think
22 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Did you think of dormant-season grazing as grazing standing hay--not much to worry about? There's more going on in the plant than you think. Dr. Steve...
AoR 48: Andres Cibils on Heritage Breeds, Animal Sensors, and Optimizing Livestock Production
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The last few decades have brought significant technological transitions in rangeland science and animals, specifically with advances in wireless and s...
AoR 47: Derek Bailey, The Holy Grail of Grazing--Livestock Distribution Principles and Practices
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It is cliche but true that most range grazing problems are animal distribution problems. And no one's name is more closely tied to distribution than D...
AoR 46: Matt Reeves, Fuelcasting: A West-Wide Rangeland Fuel Assessment
10 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Western U.S. has experienced catastrophic fire frequency and extent in 2020. Matt Reeves, USFS, shares some wildfire prediction tools that may hel...
AoR 45: James Rogers, Leadership in Managing Rangelands for People
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"We've overdone management and undervalued leadership." James Rogers is the manager of the Winecup Gamble Ranch in northeastern Nevada, one of the lar...
AoR 44: SRM Symposium, Adaptive Management of Burned Rangeland
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Restoring desirable native species and ecosystem function after wildfire is challenging and frequently unsuccessful. Land managers increasingly recogn...
AoR 43: Dr. Lauren Porensky, Embracing Complexity and Humility in Rangeland Science
30 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lauren Porensky is an ecologist interested in plant communities, herbivores, and spatial complexity. Her research focuses on balancing livestock p...
AoR 42: Dr. Leslie Roche, socio-ecological systems--emphasizing the human dimensions
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Leslie Roche is a UC Cooperative Extension Specialist in Rangeland Science and Management with the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. She earn...
AoR 41: Stewart Breck & Matt Barnes, Livestock-Predator Interactions
02 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Stewart Breck is a research carnivore ecologist with the USDA-APHIS-WS National Wildlife Research Center and a member of the new Colorado State Univer...
AoR 40: Sara Place, Connections Between Rural Producers and Urban Consumers
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ranching and rangelands are undergoing rapid and intertwined changes. Changes include ecological transitions due to climate and invasive species; land...
AoR 39: Katie Wollstein, Outcome-Based Grazing to Address Wildfire Risk on Idaho Rangelands
04 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is a presentation from the Society for Range Management's annual meeting in February 2020 in a symposium titled "Stakeholder Engagement to Improv...
AoR 38: Neal Wilkins, Science to Action--Communication Needs of the 21st-C Range Manager
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When rangeland scientists question why those who manage ecosystems do not implement the information developed into action, the manager's concern is no...
AoR 37: Karim-Aly S. Kassam, Transdisciplinary Research, Indigenous Knowledge, & Wicked Problems
07 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Karim-Aly Kassam is International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Natural Resources and the American Indian and...
AoR 36: Women In Ranching, SRM Forum
23 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This forum highlighting leading women in ranching operations was recorded Feb 20, 2020 at the National Western Complex in Denver, Colorado as part of ...
AoR 35: Frank Price, Has Scientific Communication Failed the Art of Range Management?
09 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When does science become art? We often refer to the “Art and Science of Range Management’ but how often do we acknowledge the “art” or the “...
AoR 34: Lynn Huntsinger, Forests, Rangelands, Fires, and Grazing . . . For the Trees?
26 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This talk was recorded at the Society for Range Management annnual meeting and training February 2020. The talk is from a symposium titled "Strategies...
AoR 33: Karen Launchbaugh, What Does the Society for Range Management Need to Be?
12 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Karen Launchbaugh's plenary address at the SRM's 2020 annual meeting was titled "Bridging the Gap: What Does SRM Want/Need to be and How to Get Th...
AoR 32: David Bohnert on Range Cattle Nutrition, Body Condition Score, & Calf Performance
27 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What's good for cattle nutrition is sometimes different than what's good for plants. Dr. Bohnert talks about the timing of nutrient supply on rangelan...
AoR 31: Cheatgrass Research Meets NPR, a panel discussion
13 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Join Barry Perryman, Matt Williamson, and Karen Launchbaugh as they discuss recent research on cheatgrass causation and association and strategies to ...
AoR 30: Transformation & Translation, SRM’s 2020 annual meeting and training
30 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Join Julie Elliott, Chuck Butterfield, Hailey Wilmer and Matt Barnes as they discuss their new approach to the Society’s 2020 annual meetings. Inter...
AoR 29: Sam Fuhlendorf Part 2, Conserving Pattern & Process Through Creative Grazing
16 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Six patches make you six times less likely to be entirely wrong". Diversity and variability drive rangeland health. Healthy rangelands provide an arr...
AoR 28: Sam Fuhlendorf Part 1, Managing Rangelands for Heterogeneity
02 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
"Six patches make you six times less likely to be entirely wrong". Diversity and variability drive rangeland health. Healthy rangelands provide an arr...
AoR 27: Nicole Masters, For the Love of Soil
19 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Regenerative agriculture has gained popularity in response to concerns about the long-term effects of various agrochemical inputs we use on a variety ...
AoR 26: Paul Starrs, Far Beyond Maps--Rangeland Geography
05 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Lands are tied to people, and any changes in land use necessarily involve people. Understanding people and land together is the work of cultural and l...
AoR 25: Brady Allred & Matt Jones, the Rangeland Analysis Platform (RAP)
31 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Rangeland vegetation monitoring has always been hampered by landscape variability, site selection bias, and available time to get to remote areas. Wit...
AoR 24: Matt Germino, Bunchgrass Roots Fight Cheatgrass
17 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Perennial bunchgrass roots are the prize fighter in the wildland boxing ring with cheatgrass, and bacteria may be sitting this one out. Matt Germino, ...
AoR 23: Rick Knight Returns, Rise of the Radical Center
26 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Following "Cattle Free by '93" sentiment of the 80s and 90s has come growth in the middle ground, supported by both increasing recognition of the ecos...
AoR 22: Rick Knight, Conservation Value of Private Ranchlands
19 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The value of large public lands is largely dependent on adjacent private lands. Charismatic megafauna that characterize the American West will, perhap...
AoR 21: Don Llewellyn, Fetal Programming and its Implications for Range Cattle Nutrition
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Epigenetics studies in beef cattle have revealed surprising long-term effects of cow nutrition on performance of offspring in muscle and fat developme...
AoR 20: Don Llewellyn, This is Your Rumen on 3% Crude Protein -- Supplementation Science Today
22 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A common misconception about late summer and fall range grass is that low-quality forages serve only as fillers and have little value as feed. If this...
AoR 19: The Philosophy of Art of Range: How Does Conversation Promote Deep Thinking?
08 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why a podcast to teach on range ecology and livestock production? Tip discusses some of the thInking behind using podcasting to counter the ”Age of ...
AoR 18: Iric Burden and Matt Reeves, Drought Response in Arizona Using Climate Tools
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
WE NEED YOUR FEEDBACK! Please take 2 minutes to complete this short survey to help us continue funding the podcast: https://wsu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/...
AoR 17: Jason Karl, Big Data for Big Landscapes — Detecting Change with Remote Sensing
11 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Can satellite data and drones answer questions we’re not even asking yet? Jason Karl, Univ. of Idaho researcher, believes that’s a good possibilit...
AoR 16: Shannon Neibergs, Livestock Risk Management Tools
23 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“If a grain farmer doesn’t have crop insurance, any lender will show him/her the door.” But ranchers have not historically used many financial r...
AoR 15: Ethan Lane, Monitoring to Tell an Environmental Story
09 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ethan Lane, director of the national Public Lands Council, makes a compelling case for ranchers to build a record of stewardship in order to tell a po...
AoR 14: Jeff Herrick, Rangeland Monitoring for the 21st Century
25 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The scientists at the Jornada Experimental Range have been at the forefront of research monitoring rangeland health for decades. Jeff Herrick, a lead ...
AoR 13: Sherman Swanson, Rangeland Monitoring for Adaptive Management
11 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How many times have you thought: “You should have seen what this looked like 10 years ago?!” We usually mean that a range site or riparian zone lo...
AoR 12: Nathan Sayre, Politics of Scale—A History of Rangeland Science
28 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Nathan Sayre has written the definitive work on the origins and history of rangelands science, public ownership, agency management, and grazing ph...
AoR 11: Barry Perryman, Back to the Future with Applied Research to Control Cheatgrass
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A half-century of war on cheatgrass hasn’t reduced its dominance on the high sagebrush seas. Barry Perryman of Univ. of Nevada-Reno says old-fashion...
AoR 10: Matt Reeves, Rangeland Forage Prediction Tools
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Range forage production can vary widely from year to year. What if you could get a production prediction 3 months ahead of the growing season and make...
AoR 9: Lynn Huntsinger, Ranching as a Conservation Strategy
14 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Lynn Huntsinger has written persuasively about the importance of private land ranching and public lands grazing as a means of conserving, even pro...
AoR 8: Karen Launchbaugh, Targeted Grazing to Control Weeds
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ralph Waldo Emerson said that a weed is "a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered". Tip's guest, Karen Launchbaugh, says that some "plants o...
AoR 7: Ken Tate, Challenges in Public Lands Grazing
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Ken Tate is the Russell L. Rustici Endowed Rangeland Watershed Science Specialist in Cooperative Extension at University of California-Davis. Tate...
AoR 6: Jack Southworth, Adaptive Stocking for Ranch Resiliency
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Southworth, a rancher in Eastern Oregon, discusses with Tip how he manages for ecological and economic resiliency through flexible stocking rates...
AoR 5: Kirk Davies, Invasive Annual Grass Management
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Kirk Davies, lead range scientist at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center (EOARC) in Burns discusses with Tip invasive annual grass (IA...
AoR 4: Fred Provenza, Matching Animal to Environment
29 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Guest Fred Provenza and Tip talk about how animals and environment affect each other in what Dr. Provenza calls a dance—a dance he’s written about...
AoR 3: Floyd Reed, Landscape Change Over Time
15 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Floyd Reed, retired US Forest Service range conservationist, discusses with Tip a book he co-authored several years ago with Dave Bradford and Robbie ...
AoR 1: Karen Launchbaugh, Grazing Philosophy
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Guest Dr. Karen Launchbaugh and host Tip Hudson discuss grazing management philosophies, changes in scientific understanding of plant community dynami...
AoR 2: Karen Launchbaugh, Grazing Management Fundamentals
21 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Guest Karen Launchbaugh and host Tip Hudson discuss grazing management principles that apply everywhere, coordinating grazing management across multip...