2023 Q4 Impact Report

Summary of Q4 Activities

Our donor-funded activities are broken down into 7 main categories. The activities completed during this quarter are outlined below:

University Involvement Support/ Science Projects

• Ongoing conversations with Oklahoma State University about participating in additional research projects, speaking events with students, and other opportunities for engagement.
• Additional baseline reports from biodiversity monitoring drafted.

Diverse Planting

• Perennial:
  • We continued to care for the orchard trees.
  • We have also obtained approximately 50 orchard trees, both some replacements for those that didn’t survive the first year and new varieties, and are planning for the planting of those trees early in Q1 2024.
• Annual:
  • Wheat: In early November, we planted 33 acres of winter wheat in the south field, adjacent to the orchard, using our brand-new No-Till Drill!

Livestock Incorporation

• Cattle: 18 steers were released onto the prairie portion of Rainmaker on July 28. The grassland was at roughly 3000-3500 lbs/acre Residual Dry Matter (RDM) when the cattle were introduced. These cattle grazed the grass down in this area to ~2000-2500lbs RDM, and were temporarily pulled off after some heavy rains in late December.  Early next year some older cows will be put on the pasture, to graze it down to around 1000lbs RDM, to encourage good forb growth the following year. 
• European Honeybees: We continued nearly weekly monitoring and food supplements until the honeybees went dormant in December. We then relocated the active hive to a more sheltered area, and lower to the ground, to help with heat maintenance over winter.  We are also looking into planting additional wildflower areas nearby next spring. 

Cover Cropping

• Cover cropping is beneficial to regenerative farming in many ways. It protects the soil from erosion. Many species replenish essential nutrients, such as nitrogen, in the soil. This year we have two cover crops planted: Native grasses and Barley.
  1. The deep roots from native species also help sequester carbon. Our native grass cover crop around the orchard will continue to develop around the orchard, which will help with carbon sequestration, soil stabilization and retaining water in that soil.   
  2. This year we planted 20 acres of a barley cover crop in our east field. This was planted at nearly twice the density that would be planted at for growing grains.  We also planted it during the fall, instead of during the spring as you would for grain.  The intention behind this is so that in the early summer, before the barley seed has matured, we will roller/crimper this stand into a dense mulch to suppress the annual weeds.  The mulch will also retain and slowly release nutrients as it decomposes over the course of the growing season.  We can plant Milo into this dense thatch, right after it is crimped, and harvest the Milo in the fall. 

Farm Equipment & Supplies

• We have made some major exciting additional equipment purchases this quarter: no-till drill, manure spreader, and roller/crimper. The no-till drill allows us to place the seeds into the ground at a consistent distribution and depth, even in uncultivated land.  The no-till drill gives better seed-to-soil contact for crop seeds and will help assure we have a more even stand at harvest.  This will complement our conservation seeder, which is still very important for grassland restoration tasks.  The new manure spreader makes it much easier to get vital nutrients into the fields, as we are only using animal-based sources of fertilizer.  We also got 26 tons of chicken litter to spread with it!  So now we no longer need to rent the manure spreader or the no-till drill, and that means that we can do these tasks when it is the optimal time for the tasks, not just when the equipment is available. 

Infrastructure

• Very exciting infrastructure development during Q4 was a source of water for our orchard and south field. We confirmed this year that groundwater is not available on the farm, and the rural water that supplies the house isn’t to be used for agriculture.  So we are catching water when it falls from the sky to use later!  We completed the earthwork and tank installation for a 30,000-gallon water tank.  This tank is part of a water catchment system that collects water from a roof system from a cover structure and channels it into the tank using gutters.  The rest of the catchment structure is already in the planning process and will likely be install in Q1 or Q2 of 2024. 
• We put down sand to level the floor of the greenhouse, and covered that with concrete pavers for drainage and a flat surface for shelving.
• The herbs and flowers planted around the tiny house continue to thrive, proving nectar for our honeybees and other pollinators.

Rainmaker Farm

• Ongoing monitoring of the Barn Owl Nest boxes Rainmaker Farm is using ecological pest management.
• We have been implementing a variety of Integrated Pest Management tools to manage the weedy or invasive species in our crops. We are primarily managing Horse Weed (Erigeron canadensis) through repeated mowing.
• We have updated our website to better reflect the work that has happened at Rainmaker Farm over the past two years, and more accurately capture the current project focus of the Gulch Foundation.