Shortcourse Program

The Integrated Beef-Forage Systems Shortcourse is a three-session, (four-day), hands-on educational program designed to enhance management of beef production and forage resources in southern Nebraska. It integrates management of grassland, crop residues, irrigated pastures, and harvested forages into a year-round beef grazing system. Enrollees benefit from the free exchange of ideas with a small group of participants interacting with instructors. Material provided includes notebooks and a collection of University publications.

By Attending, Participants Will:

Learn to effectively use decision support tools to evaluate numerous management and marketing alternatives dealing with:

Grazing strategies and systems, including winter and summer annuals, irrigated pastures and crop residues
Replacement heifer management
Calving and weaning dates
Winter livestock nutrition
Cull cow management

A Systems Approach

The program stresses the interactions between southern Nebraska forages, beef production practices and economic and marketing principles and trends. Participants can develop and evaluate strategies to accomplish their prioritized objectives. The goal is to provide the tools necessary for participants to formulate the best plan for their individual operations.

Understanding and Utilizing Resources

Southern Nebraska produces a wide variety of forages that can be utilized by beef enterprises. Understanding how different animals use these forages and how their nutrient values fluctuate is key to determining their best use. This program explores various forages common to the area, emphasizing characteristics most important to beef producers, and will consider forage availability and quality in relation to livestock nutritional needs.

Insight into Livestock Production

Animals' nutritional needs vary dramatically throughout their production cycle. This, combined with seasonal variation of forage quality, makes the matching of nutritional needs with available resources the most critical aspect of beef-forage integration. Condition scoring is an important tool for determining adequacy of diets. Learning how this system works and hands-on practice are important components of this training.

Forage quality impacts a beef animal's digestive processes. Understanding how changes in forage quality affect feed requirements permits designing of efficient feeding strategies.

Economic Considerations

This program uses a systems approach, including considerations like production cost and market analysis. Incorporating wide market cycles and trends into individual production plans can have dramatic results. Record-keeping techniques and analysis strategies are included in this course of study.