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stone barns center for food & agriculture

grant award: $300,000; year awarded: 2021

The Hudson Valley region of New York is an important biodiversity hot spot, but is experiencing dramatic changes from climate-driven warming. Increased temperatures are driving slowed growth and dormancy of the grasslands during hot weather, reducing biomass for wildlife habitat and resiliency after grazing. Stone Barns Center will convert 50 acres of pasture to wildflower grassland using seed mixes with compositions conducive to future climate conditions. This work will also have mitigation benefits, with the diverse grassland sequestering greater amounts of carbon than a monoculture and will demonstrate a model for working lands providing sustainable sources of food for people and habitat for wildlife in a changing climate.

 

watch and learn:

Native Warm Season Grasses - Cover Crop - Forage Sampling

This video shows how Stone Barns staff took samples of the cover crop for forage nutrition analysis. This data can also help to increase farmer adoption of these conversion processes.

Native Warm Season Grasses - Cover Crop - Grazing

A member of Stone Barns’ livestock team discusses what it was like to graze the first warm season cover crop.

Native Warm Season Grasses - CoverCrop

This video shows the different cover crops in our Stone Barns’ cover crop mix and describes how they hope it will help with establishment of the native warm season grassland and make it easier for farmers to adopt this process with their own fields.

Native Warm Season Grasses - Dr. Keyser - Plot Assessment

Stone Barns’ consultant from the Center for Native Grasslands Management, Dr. Patrick Keyser, gives his assessment of our pilot native warm season plot, that was planted directly without cover cropping.

 

 

The WCS Climate Adaptation Fund: proudly supporting innovative actions to address the impacts of climate change since 2011

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