The South Dakota Grassland Coalition has been hosting an annual grazing school for over 10 years. The curriculum was developed to target producers interested in enhancing their livestock production through better grassland management. Classroom presentations and hands-on field experience provided land managers an opportunity to expand their knowledge in a wide variety of topics, from plant species identification to drought management to fencing and watering systems. A survey was generated in assessing the value that ranchers have obtained through this program. The survey consisted of multiple choice questions regarding each topic covered in the grazing school curriculum. The multiple choice answers were designed to evaluate whether the ranchers learned the importance of the topic and whether or not they implemented the practice on their own operations. A link to the online survey was sent via email to 176 past grazing school participants, and they were given two weeks to complete the survey. The response rate was 13.6%. The majority of the respondents implemented what they learned at the grazing school in their operation and 63% believed they have become more profitable. Nearly all the participants expressed interest in refresher grazing school workshops and provided additional topics they would like to see covered. This survey, albeit a small sample size, has shown that this Grazing School has successfully impacted South Dakota ranchers.
Oral presentation and poster titles, abstracts, and authors from the Society for Range Management (SRM) Annual Meetings and Tradeshows, from 2013 forward.