Reading Time: 2 minutes One of Alberta’s oldest ranches will remain a working operation thanks to a conservation agreement with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. When it was founded in 1882, Oxley Ranch covered 200,000 acres, making it one of the four largest ranches in the foothills. The remaining 2,266 acres will now be preserved from cultivation, drainage of […] Read more
Historic Alberta ranch to be preserved as cattle operation
Palmer amaranth threatening U.S. corn fields
Winterset, Iowa | Reuters — A U.S. government program designed to convert farmland to wildlife habitat has triggered the spread of a fast-growing weed that threatens to strangle crops in America’s rural heartland. The weed is hard to kill and, if left unchecked, destroys as much as 91 per cent of corn on infested land, […] Read more
Fifteen years later, conservation program is an overnight sensation
Almost no one wanted to sign up for the wildlife habitat restoration project when it started, but now there’s a waiting list
Reading Time: 4 minutes John Ross was the first rancher to sign on to the MULTISAR (Multiple Species At Risk) program 15 years ago, when no one else wanted to sign up to the conservation initiative. Now, there’s a waiting list of ranchers signed up to make their grazing land more suitable for wildlife and native species. “We worked […] Read more
Historic research ranches won’t be riding off into the sunset
The future of Onefour and Stavely ranches has been secured by the province and the University of Alberta
Reading Time: 2 minutes Decades of grassland research in southern Alberta will be preserved thanks to a deal between the province and the University of Alberta. The agreement will ensure rangeland studies continue at the historic research ranches of Stavely and Onefour. In 2013, the future of both sites was thrown up in the air when the federal government […] Read more
Couple protects picturesque Porcupine Hills ranch
Reading Time: < 1 minute Reno and Corine Welsch have ensured their 3,034-acre ranch in the Porcupine Hills won’t be turned into a subdivision or see its native cropland put to the plow. The couple recently finalized a conservation agreement with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. “This conservation agreement gives me the freedom to run the ranch the way I […] Read more
Program that rewards stewards of the land is taking off in Alberta
More than 100 Alberta farmers have signed up for ALUS, and that number is expected to grow rapidly
Reading Time: 3 minutes The movement to pay farmers for being good stewards of the land is gathering steam, with 10 counties in Alberta now having a local ALUS program. ALUS — short for Alternative Land Use Services and pronounced ‘Alice’ — is expanding across Canada and recently became a national, registered not-for-profit. “This kind of growth and recognition […] Read more
Capturing value from riparian areas
The first step is to have a plan before you start fencing, says riparian management expert
Reading Time: 5 minutes Ask just about any Alberta farmer about the worst drought in recent memory and there’s a good chance they will say 2002 — a year that saw water supplies devastated throughout the province. For Sean McGrath, some foresight around land management that year prevented what could have been a disaster. Fencing off a dugout and […] Read more
California rules led to near 25 per cent cut in water use
Sacramento | Reuters –– Residents and businesses in drought-stricken California cut back water use by nearly 25 per cent from June 2015 through the end of February 2016 — enough to supply nearly six million people for a year, officials said Monday. The state’s first ever mandatory cutbacks in water use were imposed by Democratic […] Read more
What to do when the bats come home to roost
Reading Time: 2 minutes Bats in your belfry? Or rather, your barn or attic? “If you know that you have bats in your house, chances are it’s because there is not a good habitat for them somewhere else,” says conservation technician Lisa Card. “Most species would rather not be there, but their habitat has been altered and for whatever […] Read more
Making it better when it is wetter — and when it’s dry, too
Ducks Unlimited has two wetlands restoration programs drawing on $31 million in provincial funding
Reading Time: 3 minutes Whether floods in 2013 or drought this year, extreme weather has taken its toll on producers throughout Alberta in recent years. The good news is Mother Nature can help with that. And the provincial government is also chipping in, with $31 million in funding over three years to encourage farmers and other rural landowners to […] Read more
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