2026 Grazing Season Update

July 16th

Hello, CARMers!

Thanks to a handy crew and an extra early start at 5:30am we weighed all the livestock in one day and beat the heat. Heat is not something we’ve typically had to consider when it comes to our shipping logistics.

We hope the winter and spring precip get us back to a full season in 2027.

Review previous updates here.

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Let’s dive into the details

Here’s the exit CARM stocking rate, before we pulled for the season:

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Highlights of Happenings

Station Rainfall:

	Rainfall_Total
Jul	2.21
YTD	6.06

Cumulative Rainfall (in)

Rainfall Distribution

The big rainfall we had fell in the North East portion of the station, it filled the ditches.

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The pasture below is 19N on the cattle drive to gather the station. This pond is not a common occurrence here. It may be late for 2026, but ever ounce counts towards a better 2027.

Station Biomass:

Biomass lbs/ac	NDVI (greenness)

CPER Viewer Maps

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Livestock

701x: Where are the cattle?

Take note of how different the grazing patters were over the last couple of weeks of the season. I’m noticing the cattle were hanging tight to the lowlands (HighHawk & CenterCreek have creek beds) or pushing out of their pastures (thinking of you PrairieRidge).

CARM 1 - HighHawk & Slayton

Last Week	This Week

CARM 2 - CenterCreek & PrairieRidge

Last Week	This Week

CARM 3 - OwlCreek & SaltTree

Last Week	This Week

Gains

I pulled this together real quick for curiosity. Please note these do not have any shrink applied. We’ll provide complete data at the fall meeting.

CARM Project Variability Across Pastures (TRM is yellow)

CARM vs TRM

Long-term Grazing Intensity

Grazing Management:

2026 Grazing Management Plan

CPER Viewer Longspur Habitat

Last Date Recorded - Special Note here: Even though the biomass suggests to changes to stocking rate, the CARM Scientific team thought otherwise, see comments below.

[1] "2026-07-06"

	Last_Week	This_Week	Trigger_Status
CenterCreek-LongSpur	340	256	All on tall
CenterCreek-Pasture.Mean	365	278	All on tall
HighHawk-LongSpur	442	305	30/70
HighHawk-Pasture.Mean	474	351	30/70
OwlCreek-LongSpur	358	273	All on tall
OwlCreek-Pasture.Mean	472	355	30/70

The table above is showing the remote-sensing values populated by CPERViewer.

	Management.Decisions
2026-06-29	NA
2026-07-06	CenterCreek triggered a move to send 100% to tall grass, and OwlCreek and HighHawk were triggered to go down another stocking rate level. However, given the conditions in the tall structure pastures and other study pastures below thresholds the Stakeholders held a meeting on July 7th and voted to send animals home early due to extreme drought conditions.

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Up & Coming

• CARM Stakeholder Meeting October, date coming soon.

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Desktop Field View

On behalf of the USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources and Systems Research Unit, we thank you all for your continued participation in this project.

Happy Trails,

CPER Crew