Excellence in Rangeland Conservation Award
This award is given annually to an individual or group that has demonstrated exceptional skill and knowledge in practicing sound management of rangelands in the State of Colorado.
Membership in the Society is not required. The recipient will be requested to attend the Section Annual Winter Meeting to receive the award. Public announcement of the award will not be made until the formal presentation at the Annual Winter Meeting.
Award nominations are due by July 1, 2023
To nominate someone for Excellence in Rangeland Conservation Award,
please click here for the award criteria and click here to nominate them!
Membership in the Society is not required. The recipient will be requested to attend the Section Annual Winter Meeting to receive the award. Public announcement of the award will not be made until the formal presentation at the Annual Winter Meeting.
Award nominations are due by July 1, 2023
To nominate someone for Excellence in Rangeland Conservation Award,
please click here for the award criteria and click here to nominate them!
Congratulations to 2022 Conservation Award of Excellence Winner Toedtli Ranch
Our Section presented the 2022 Excellence in Rangeland Conservation award to the Toedtli Ranch. Present to receive the award were Doug and Joe Hatch. Doug and his son Joe took over management of the range in 2010, and in 2022 Joe and his wife Katie formed the J and K Hatch Ranches as the business company operating and managing the ranch. Our section's August 2022 field day was hosted at the Toedtli Ranch.
Through Joe and Katie's direction, holistic prescribed grazing is being practiced and improving quantity, variety, and quality of the grasses, forbs and shrubs through multi-paddock time-controlled grazing management. Joe puts it this way "Our grazing practice creates more vegetation and plant litter on the soil surface reducing the amount of bare ground. This increases water infiltration and improves the cycling of minerals, thereby helping to manage through drought."
The Toedtli Ranch sits in the heart of Colorado's shortgrass prairie in northeastern Weld County. The headquarters is located about 20 miles north of the town of Stoneham, CO. The total operating unit consists of 17,840 acres. The land used consists of rangeland and center pivot irritated that is planted to perennial grasses that is high-stock-density grazed. The dominant ecological sites are Loamy, Sandy, and Siltstone Plains. Major upland range plants include blue gram, western wheatgrass, needleandthread, sidebars grama, winterfat, fourwing saltbush, and several forbs that add diversity to the ecosystem.
The ranch is operated as a cow-calf production system and yearling pasture operation. Custom feeding of cattle is run through a feedlot enterprise. Commercial Red Angus cows are run April-October on the ranch. Calving occurs late April through May with the calves retained and sold as yearlings the following summer.
Through Joe and Katie's direction, holistic prescribed grazing is being practiced and improving quantity, variety, and quality of the grasses, forbs and shrubs through multi-paddock time-controlled grazing management. Joe puts it this way "Our grazing practice creates more vegetation and plant litter on the soil surface reducing the amount of bare ground. This increases water infiltration and improves the cycling of minerals, thereby helping to manage through drought."
The Toedtli Ranch sits in the heart of Colorado's shortgrass prairie in northeastern Weld County. The headquarters is located about 20 miles north of the town of Stoneham, CO. The total operating unit consists of 17,840 acres. The land used consists of rangeland and center pivot irritated that is planted to perennial grasses that is high-stock-density grazed. The dominant ecological sites are Loamy, Sandy, and Siltstone Plains. Major upland range plants include blue gram, western wheatgrass, needleandthread, sidebars grama, winterfat, fourwing saltbush, and several forbs that add diversity to the ecosystem.
The ranch is operated as a cow-calf production system and yearling pasture operation. Custom feeding of cattle is run through a feedlot enterprise. Commercial Red Angus cows are run April-October on the ranch. Calving occurs late April through May with the calves retained and sold as yearlings the following summer.
