By Sonia A. Hall, Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, Washington State University
In an article earlier this year I discussed StockSmart, the free, online decision support tool we launched in 2023 that accesses remotely sensed forage production data and allows the user to easily define what is accessible to their livestock based on their fences, watering locations, the type of terrain their livestock will traverse and other parameters. As the climate changes, understanding how forage production is changing and how changes vary across a landscape and from year to year become increasingly important for informing sustainable grazing management. This is what StockSmart can help you do.
If you are interested in hearing more, I joined my colleagues Tip Hudson, Rangeland and Livestock Extension Specialist with Washington State University Extension, and Matt Reeves, Research Ecologist with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, to talk about StockSmart in the latest episode of the Art of Range podcast. We discuss stocking rate—what StockSmart calculates—and why it matters, what StockSmart allows you to do and explore, and cases where that would be useful information to have and why. Check out this episode. And if you work on rangelands and haven’t yet, listen to the close to 140 other episodes during which Tip “interviews researchers, ranchers, and resource professionals to bring you extended discussion on topics that are of interest to anyone in rangelands work.” Also, stay tuned: we are planning a webinar series to delve into StockSmart more deeply in November and December this year.
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