How Our Farm Improves Soil Health Using Livestock

The health of our soil is the foundation for the health of our farm.

We raise and sell grass-fed and pastured meats, but everything comes down to the land. We’ve spent the past five years focused on building soil health, grazing our livestock in rotation to strategically apply animal impact on our pastures.

When you support Fat Apple Farm, you are supporting our work to build a resilient food system and practice regenerative land management.

Want to know more? Read on about how we have been working to improve our land over time.

The Early Years: Limited Soil and Vegetation Health

Fat Apple Farm manages about 650 acres in New York’s Hudson Valley. The farm is made up of about 250 acres of pastureland for grazing livestock, and most of the remaining 400 acres are covered by woodlands.

The Hudson Valley is a fertile area for agriculture, particularly popular for large confinement dairy operations. However, conventional agriculture businesses generally avoided this hilly, flood-prone parcel of land, home to a large wetlands area and a big pond. Before we took over the farm, the land here had been abandoned for about two decades.

Without any active cultivation, woodland trees and bushes had begun to encroach and overtake the pasture around the farm. The pastures were overrun with goldenrod and aster instead of a healthy, diverse mix of grasses. While the soils were not depleted, the plant mix didn’t provide a high organic matter or high “brix” content (sugars present in forage) that is necessary to sustain healthy grass-fed livestock.

Regenerating Land: Using Animal Impact to Increase Productivity

In 2017, Fat Apple Farm started our transition to turn uncultivated land into productive pasture. Our first goal was to improve the mix of vegetation on the land, moving from tough forage like aster to grasses and legumes that would be high in energy and other minerals and nutrients beneficial for livestock.

The key to making grasslands more productive? Animals.

Our basic strategy started with fencing in small 20-30 acre parcels of land each year. First, we’d mow down the existing vegetation. Then, we’d introduce our cattle and pigs in rotation.

Cattle would forage from the pasture, and our pigs would forage while also eating supplemental feed. Because their manure adds nutrients back into the soil, we are very particular about sourcing local, non-GMO feed to supplement our pigs. This high-quality feed for the pigs and the foraging and fermenting of the cattle began feeding the soil microbes and adding nourishment for pasture vegetation. Meanwhile, the animals also help churn through the soil and existing plant life, laying the foundation for our next stage.

After our livestock passed through a parcel of land, we’d plant cover crops to encourage a new biodiverse mix of vegetation.

Goldenrod presented a challenge, because it shoots up tall very early in the spring and outcompetes other grasses for resources. We quickly learned to focus on summer annuals, like sorghum, millet, cow peas, and clover, that would break the existing cycle. After a summer annual cover crop, we no-till seeded a highly diverse mix (10+ species) of pasture grasses, legumes, and forbs in the fall.

Our strategy was to create a diversity of forage high in energy (sugars), build up vegetation that recovers quickly after a grazing event, and increase microorganisms and fungi that add fertility and life to a sleepy soil.

With this rotating cycle of grazing then planting cover crops, and allowing the pastures to rest in between grazing rotations, the mix of vegetation in our pastures slowly began to evolve.

Changes Over Time: Cultivating Productive Pasture

Intentionally applying animal impact jumpstarted many changes in our pastures.

Diverse vegetation: After a year or two of grazing rotations, we gained a larger percentage of desired cover crops and fewer undesired plants. Over time, we have been able to convert our pastures to a varied mix of perennial grasses, clovers, and legumes.

Good forage: We consistently test the brix content of our forage, tracking how it is increasing over time. Having high levels of sugars in the grasses available to our livestock is critical, particularly for our cattle. A diverse plant mix, heavy on perennial forage, allows us to increase the number of grazing days we can get on our pasture per year (which allows us to increase how many cattle are in our herd).

Less flooding: Four years ago, rain events caused flooding on various areas of the farm. As we’ve developed more deep perennial roots in the ground over time, we’ve seen a clear change: rain is now percolating into the soil, instead of just running off. We are determined to avoid the operational nightmare of muck and mud (compaction), and better rain infiltration also makes our pastures more resilient to changing weather. In addition, improved infiltration benefits our neighbors and the entire local watershed by filtering water that enters the streams on our farm and minimizing soil leaving our farm.

Healthy local wildlife: We’ve noticed an increased diversity of local birds and insects. Dung beetles, who help move nutritious organic matter into the soil, are a particular favorite. While we know that improving our soil health is beneficial for our livestock, it is also rewarding to see that local wildlife find our farm a healthy, beautiful place to live.

Increased carbon matter (currently being studied): Increased organic matter in the soil provides fuel for microbial communities, benefits plants, increases water holding capacity, and, according to new studies, may prove to sequester large amounts of carbon. A local university has recently taken soil carbon testing samples from our soils, and we are excited to study and share the results of this research over time.

Shop Regenerative, Grass-Fed, and Pasture-Raised Meats

Regenerative agriculture uses strategic animal impact to create notable changes in local ecosystems. The healthier our land, the better off we are as farmers. And as our land becomes healthier and more productive, we are able to raise even more grass-fed and pastured livestock for you and your family.

Your support of Fat Apple Farm helps us carry out this work, feeding local communities and adding resilience into our food system. See our retail inventory for local and ethical meat options, from pasture-raised pork and poultry to grass-fed cattle.