Details:
Using Seasonal Stockers to Build Soil Health, Profit, and Flexibility Join us in Badger, MN for a practical and forward-thinking field day exploring how to raise cattle, build soil —and increase your quality of life— without owning a cow herd. We’ll dig into the economics of seasonal stocker systems, including how sell/buy marketing strategies can align with your forage curve to improve profitability and soil health. We’ll kick off the day in the classroom hearing from the Didriksons and SFA as they introduce key concepts around sell/buy marketing, matching stocking rates to forage availability, generating profit with stockers, and using adaptive grazing to improve soil health. After lunch we’ll head to the Thor and Dana Didrikson farm for a tour of their annual cover crop systems, grazing infrastructure, and a discussion of what it takes to run a flexible, resilient operation without tying up land, labor, or capital with a cow/calf herd. Whether you’re new to grazing or rethinking your current model, this field day will offer insights into a potentially more nimble and profitable way to ranch. Registration: Free. Registration requested, walkups welcome. Lunch is provided. Agenda 8:30 Registration, coffee, rolls 9:00-11:15 Classroom sessions, Q & A 11:15 Lunch 12:00 Head to Didrikson farm for tour 2:00 Wrap up Info: Jonathan Kilpatrick, jonathan@sfa-mn. org SFA staff and volunteers occasionally take photos during our workshops, cafe chats and field days for promotional purposes and to use as documentation of events to share with our funders. If you do not wish to be photographed, please let our event host know — we’ll make every effort to make sure you are not photographed.
