Pasture walk at the Andrew Batdorf farm

The South Central Grazers August pasture walk is scheduled for Wednesday, August 24th. Our hosts this month will be Andrew Batdorf and his family.

The Batdorfs are recent additions to our area – they have been at their new location since spring of 2015. They operate an 86 cow organic dairy herd. The farm consists of 560 acres that is currently in pasture, hay, and silage crops. Since moving to Missouri, one of the primary goals on the farm is renovation of native KY31 fescue. Some fields have undergone complete renovation while others have been over-seeded with clover.

At one of our recent pasture walks the suggestion was made that it would be interesting to see soil profiles at some of our pasture walks. Andrew is planning to have some backhoe work done next week and has plans to dig a pit so we can see the soil profile in one of the pastures. I’m sure this will be an informative exercise.

As mentioned earlier, the Batdorfs’ operation is organic. Andrew has 12 years of experience with organic milk production so I think we will all have the opportunity to gain some knowledge on this topic during our discussion.

Directions to the Batdorfs: Take State Hwy M west of Grovespring about 6 miles to the dairy on the right hand side of the road. If coming from the west take Hwy M east of Niangua about 6 miles to the dairy on the left hand side of the road. The farm address is 2216 State Hwy M, Niangua.