Management-intensive Grazing Workshop Offered at MU Forage Systems Research Center

Producers and conservation and agriculture professionals can learn how management-intensive grazing can improve profitability and have long-term environmental benefits at an upcoming workshop at the Forage Systems Research Center near Linneus, Mo.

The Center is part of a network of 20 research centers around the state at which the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources conducts impactful research benefitting Missouri farmers and agricultural professionals.

The three-day workshop begins Oct. 4 at 8 a.m. Experts in forage systems, nutrient management, beef nutrition, weed science, agricultural economics and grassland conservation will present the ins-and-outs of MIG and how producers can make it work for them.

Researchers at the Center have years of forage studies to share. The Center is the largest outdoor laboratory of its type in the eastern half of the United States. Attendees will explore the concepts they learn in class through field exercises each day.

The field exercises require them to allocate pasture size for a group of cattle with the objective of having them graze it to down to 2 inches. “They get graded every day on their performance, even the first day,” said Craig Roberts, MU forage specialist and one of the coordinators of the workshop. “It’s a real-life scenario and forces them to consider typical intake rates and generate all types of questions.”

The Center has hosted grazing schools since 1990, and many of the regional and national educational seminars are based on the research and workshops FSRC has done, said David Davis, superintendent of the Center.

For more information, contact David Davis at or 660-985-512, or visit.