NEBRASKA GRAZING LANDS COALITION
A consortium of ranchers and private landowners that work toward the improvement of the grazing lands in Nebraska count on Keson Long Tapes to help them with their goals. The organization provides technical assistance and education on grazing land management for a state that is the third-largest producer of cattle in the U.S. .
Using a professional monitoring kit, members of the Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition regularly monitor the state’s grazing lands. And every professional monitoring kit the NGLC provides to all enrolled participants always includes a Keson fiberglass open-type reel long tape.
Keson Case Study: Keson Long Tapes Ensure that Farmers and Ranchers in the Nebraska Rangeland Monitoring Program Take Right Steps to Improve Land
Customer Profile:
The Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition (NGLC) is comprised of ranchers and private landowners throughout the state that work toward the improvement of the grazing lands in Nebraska. The organization provides technical assistance and education on grazing land management for a state that is the third-largest producer of cattle in the U.S.
To keep the state’s grazing lands healthy, the NGLC provides guidance for landowners that are ready to implement a rangeland monitoring system. This is done through regular monitoring of the grazing lands using an NGLC-approved professional monitoring kit. And every professional monitoring kit the NGLC provides to all enrolled participants always includes a Keson fiberglass open-type reel long tape.
Business Situation:
The NGLC, which is a non-profit organization funded solely by grant money, is helping the state’s farmers and ranchers to maintain national leadership as a cattle-producing state. Healthy Nebraska grazing lands translate directly into forage for livestock, habitat for wildlife, economic benefits for landowners and rural communities, and clean water for much of the Great Plains.
By teaching farmers and ranchers how to monitor their grazing lands, the NGLC helps them understand what happens to the land over time and how to take steps to maintain and improve the quality of grass species.
“The monitoring kit that we provide our members contains a Keson fiberglass long tape that the rancher will use to create a transect line in the field that spans about 50 yards,” said Ron Bolze, state coordinator, NGLC. “The farmer or rancher will create numerous permanent monitoring sites on their land.”
Keson’s OTR10165 Open-Type Reel Fiberglass Long Tape creates the straight line that is then used to mark the pasture monitoring area. This 165-foot, 40,000-strand fiberglass long tape comes with a ½-inch blade and features a tough, molded handle that is easy to grasp, with a metal-reinforced crank handle to provide years of use. It also features double-throat rollers to guide the blade return and prevent the tape from twisting during rapid reeling.
Once the monitoring area is marked, the farmer or rancher will select about five samples along the transect line and harvest a sample of the grass from each section. Bolze said the goal is to measure what is there, and preferably to improve the grass species composition over time.
“In most cases, ranchers are managing to create more warm-season species (i.e., big bluestem, little bluestem, switchgrass, Indiangrass),” Bolze said. “Those grasses, for the western two-thirds of the state, are the most productive, and offer the most cattle gain.”
And that is the ultimate goal: improve cattle gains. The NGLC is part of the national Grazing Land Conservation Initiative, receives funding support from the Nebraska Environmental Trust and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and has been providing technical assistance to farmers and ranchers since 1991. Bolze said the NGLC has been using Keson’s OTR Fiberglass Long Tapes for years because there is no need to even consider an alternative solution as part of its professional monitoring kit.
“We use Keson’s long tapes because they are durable, they handle field conditions, they come in both feet/inches, feet/tenths and metric measurements, and their customer service is always expedient and easy to work with.”
Benefits:
- Rugged long tapes proven to take a beating in harsh conditions and ensure years of reliable use
- Heavy-duty fiberglass always returns to proper length after pulling stops, ensuring accurate measurements
- Metal-reinforced handles and shovel-style rubber grips
- Great customer service, expedient processing of orders