12/14/06 Land EKG

Land EKG Range monitoring can be a pretty dry subject unless the presenter is interesting. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back in one minute to tell you about an interesting educator. Charley Orchard was a featured speaker at a state cattlemen's convention I attended recently. Charley's subject was range monitoring, more specifically Land EKG, a user-friendly ecological data collection system he developed. While Charley's methods will certainly help increase rangeland production, Charley likes to carry his teaching and end result a step farther. The production needs to be a way to profit. Charley says the wealth is in the land and his philosophy is monetary profit will lead to the real wealth of keeping young people committed to the land. He sees one of the problems ranchers and farmers face is the fact that too many people are too many generations removed from the land. This creates quite a communication gap. That statement made me feel like I had found an ally, since I have been saying the same thing for some time. Ranchers know grasslands have to be managed properly if they are going to stay in business and we need to communicate that fact to the general public in a way that is interesting and understandable. Charley's Land EKG methods provide measurements that can be used to show and prove land management. But how do you communicate that proof to others? I'll tell you how Charley gets people's attention next time. I'm Jeff Keane.