Promoting healthy watersheds through sustainable land management
Holistic Management International will host an Open Gate at Mimms Unit on September 13, 2014 and at Leo Unit on November 8, 2014. These educational events offer participants an opportunity to see from the ground up how producers are using Holistic Management to better manage risk, make better decisions, and reap the benefits of sustainable, profitable ranching. Visit HMI’s website for more information.
HMI last hosted an Open Gate at Mimms Unit in 2011.
The Ogallala Commons and Dixon Water Foundation are hosting a Playa Field Day on Tuesday, June 24, near Nazareth.
The event will be from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. beginning at the Home Mercantile Building, 101 Second St., in Nazareth. Texas Tech researchers will lead the tour of two playas, and those attending should dress appropriately and bring bug spray. There will be opportunities to wade in ankle-deep water to observe species like tadpoles, fairy shrimp, dragonflies and damselflies. The second playa is enrolled in the USDA-NRCS Wetlands Reserve Program and demonstrates improvements conservation efforts make, according to a news release.
There is a $10 fee for a sandwich lunch and refreshments. RSVP to Darryl Birkenfeld at 806-945-2255 to ensure an accurate lunch count.
Soon visitors to our Mimms Unit will be able to enjoy 360-degree views of the Marfa grasslands and surrounding mountains from this new hilltop viewing area, designed by Marfa’s Joey Benton. The 2.5-mile overlook trail leading to the hill will have signs with more information about sustainable ranching, grasslands, and watershed health. Stay tuned for information about a grand opening of this trail and viewing area later this summer.
The Marfa International School will be having a student art and media festival at 6:30 p.m. on June 5 at the Crowley Theater in Marfa. Their nature films, soundscapes and paintings all have ties to Mimms Unit. There will light refreshments and art on display starting at 6:30 p.m., with the the soundscapes and films starting at about 7 p.m.
The Dixon Water Foundation’s Bear Creek Unit in Parker County has been recognized with a Lone Star Land Steward Award from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. This honor was covered by The Weatherford Democrat and the Gainesville Daily Register.
TPWD also produced this feature about our work at Bear Creek:
Gainesville reporter Kit Chase has two articles in this week’s Daily Register about the Dixon Water Foundation.
“We’re grass farmers basically as well as raising cattle and sheep. We’re (also) raising our native grasses. We like to create an environment where there’s enough diversity for all of our animals. We take very good care of our land,” Dixon Water Foundation treasurer Melissa Bookhout says in the article, “Cooke County ranchers practice holistic land management.” The article focuses on the foundation’s Lone Star Land Steward Award, in addition to giving an overview of our grazing methods at Leo and Pittman Units
The second article, “Living Building’ soon to be complete,” features the new Josey Pavilion.
The Nature Conservancy’s Jim Eidson will be leading wildflower tours at Bear Creek Unit on May 4, and at Pittman Unit on May 24. Visit the Native Prairies Association website for more information about the Pittman tour, and this Facebook post to learn more about the Bear Creek tour.
As our Josey Pavilion nears completion, the innovative wastewater treatment system in this “Living Building” was featured in Biohabitats’ Leaf Litter newsletter. Scroll down to the article titled “Ranchers Walk the Talk of Sustainability.”
Odessa’s newspaper featured the Dixon Water Foundation’s endowment at Sul Ross State University. The $1.2-million gift will fund the creation of a new degree program in sustainable ranch management.
Sul Ross State University will offer a new degree program in sustainable ranch management, thanks to a $1.2 million endowment from the Dixon Water Foundation of Marfa and Decatur.
The endowment establishes the Clint Josey Endowed Chair for Sustainable Ranch Management in the College of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences.
Through $200,000 annual increments over a six-year period, the foundation’s gift will pay for the creation of both a B.S. degree and a certificate program in sustainable ranch management as well as a permanent endowment.
“Young, experienced ranch managers are in short supply,” said Robert J. Potts, president and CEO of the Dixon Water Foundation. “This program will help train young people how to manage economically and ecologically sustainable ranches that are so important to our state’s future.”
Bonnie Warnock, professor of Natural Resource Management, will be the endowed professor.
“This is an academic program that will study the ranch as an ecosystem, with people as an integral part of this system,” she said.
Warnock has conducted extensive ecological research on the Dixon Water Foundation’s Mimms Unit northwest of Marfa. Mimms Unit is one of four Dixon ranches in Marfa and northeast Texas, where the foundation demonstrates sustainable land management practices.
Under terms of the endowment, Warnock will begin developing a curriculum this year, with the first students to be enrolled in fall 2015.
She noted that a ranch is a rangeland ecosystem, and successful management of a ranching enterprise should involve an understanding of soils, water, energy, nutrients, vegetation, wildlife, livestock, in addition to economics and business. The curriculum will include classes in soils, range management, wildlife management, animal husbandry and agricultural business.
“We are looking at our ranching heritage with traditional range animal science classes, but we are really buying into the future,” Warnock said. “We will be learning how to incorporate a sustainability component.”
Rob Kinucan, dean of the College of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, said the endowment was the result of a lengthy working arrangement with the foundation.
“Bonnie has worked with the Dixon Water Foundation at the Marfa ranch for a number of years, and they appreciated the research she was conducting,” he said. “This endowment grew from that working relationship. The foundation board is an excellent group of people, and we are really pleased with this turn of events.”
Founded in 1994 by Roger Dixon, the Dixon Water Foundation promotes healthy watersheds through sustainable land management. In addition to demonstration ranches, the foundation finances annual grants, sponsors research projects and offers educational programs for landowners, students and others interested in sustainably managing land, water and wildlife.
Clint Josey is vice president and chairman of the board. When Roger Dixon died in January 2005, Josey became executor of his estate and president and CEO of the foundation. The foundation later changed its name to The Dixon Water Foundation. In 2007, Robert Potts became president and CEO, and Josey became vice president and chairman.
Warnock, who received Sul Ross’ Outstanding Teaching Award for 2011-12, joined the faculty in 2001. She ranches with her husband, Seth, near Marathon. Her family has been active in ranching near Marathon and Sanderson since the 1890s.
At Sul Ross, she teaches undergraduate classes in soils, range ecology, fire ecology, watershed management, habitat management, range inventory and plant identification. Warnock also teaches graduate classes in restoration ecology and field ecology.
This is the second endowed position at Sul Ross, both in the College of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. In 2012, a $1 million gift from Peggy and Dan Allen Hughes Jr. of San Antonio/Beeville established the Dan Allen Hughes Jr. Endowed Director for Borderlands Research. Hughes is a member of the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) Advisory Board of Directors.
Pictured (seated, from left) are: Josey, Vice President and Chairman of the Board; Dr. Quint Thurman, Sul Ross interim President; Robert J. Potts, President and CEO, Dixon Water Foundation. (Standing), David Rogers, president of the Sul Ross Foundation; Dr. Bonnie Warnock, professor of Natural Resource Management; Dr. Rob Kinucan, Dean, College of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. (Photo by Steve Lang)
