Colin Seis at GSAA
Surrounded by rustling, rolling grasslands, an irrigated pasture, vegetable, grain, and fruit production dotted throughout this agrarian valley, the Summer Practicum Students found themselves at the end of their first week with a visitor at our Friday dinner potluck. Colin Seis hails from Australia, where he manages Winona, a 2,000 acre property producing merino wool, breeding stock, working dogs, native grass seed, and cereal crops. He made for an excellent dinner guest and an inspiring introduction to the vertically stacked possibilities of holistic management and pasture cropping.
Over the course of the weekend, Colin and friend Erin Walkenshaw, explored the 5,000 acre Ridgewood Ranch and Grange School campus. We discovered that inadvertently, we have been practicing a form of “pasturecropping” on a narrow acre strip where last year’s annual grain crop grew up among a perennial crop of forage. After planting a cover crop of triticale, oats, field peas and bell beans, we grazed our flock of Icelandic crosses through intensively to mow down and fertilize our field. Once the dense cover crop was down, we noticed sprouts coming up among the understory of pasture and decided to let it go. Turns out, more triticale and oats grew up and all of a sudden we had a mixture of perennial and annual crops intermingled in a no-till year!
The following day, we were joined by 28 farmers, ranchers, and ecologists to learn the details of a pasturecropping system, including regenerative ranching and a no-till approach to mixing perennial pasture with annual crops. The room was buzzing with experience and information, experiments and idea-swapping. Digging into the details of c3 and c4 plants helped us to frame our regional issue of the dry, warm season, and begin to think of solutions like millet and sorghum interspersed in pastures in the summer. The students of the Grange School program began to see the grasslands that surround our school in a very different light, considering now the root structures that are storing energy for perennial regrowth once the rains finally come, and the soil condition as a solution to carbon and water storage.
Colin Seis’ research into pasturecropping methods are intriguing and complex. Learning about his multifaceted operation with so many stacked businesses encourages creativity and imagination, rooted in science, experimentation, and regionally cooperative information sharing.
Five days after the Practicum Students arrived at the Grange School, and they are already steeping in wisdom and information!
