AB - Mattheis Research Ranch

Mattheis Demo Info Sheet - AB

About the Location

Mattheis Research Ranch is a 12,300-acre ranch located 25 kilometres north of Duchess, Alberta, at the junction of Hwy 36 and Hwy 556. Located within the Dry Mixedgrass Natural subregion of Alberta, the Mattheis Research Ranch is part of a large contiguous tract of rangeland with diverse topography, vegetation and wildlife.

The ranch is adjacent to the Red Deer River in the north and encompasses a creek, wetlands, vegetated sand hills and shrublands. It is made up of 10,000 native prairie Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) wetlands, 420 acres that are pivot irrigated, 200 acres of annual forage, riparian areas, 10 miles of shallow pipeline for water sources, 70 research sites used for comparison and numerous oil and gas wells.

About the Farm

Donated to the University of Alberta in 2010 by Edwin and Ruth Mattheis, the Mattheis Research Ranch is managed as a custom grazing operation. It is currently in its first generation at the university. Since the university acquired it in 2011, the ranch has been rotationally stocked with approximately 800 beef cattle for an average of six months each year, beginning in early May.

The university is conducting extensive grazing of the land base and monitoring livestock production at a research level. 

The Rotational Grazing Objective

The objective of the project is to move from a 20-day rotation to a five-day rotation.

What Happened

The Mattheis Ranch in southern Alberta provides grazing to three different groups of cattle during the grazing season. This year, these herds were made up of 450 yearlings, 250 cow calf pairs and a second group of 300 cow-calf pairs that rotate across the 12,300 acres of native and irrigated perennial and cover crops. Most years, the cattle have been able to remain on pasture for 365 days of the year. In some years, snow cover has required some additional on-pasture feeding. The implementation of the infrastructure will allow to increase the number of rotations on smaller pastures and to increase the number of days of rest. 

Plowing in the water line occurred late August across three miles of pastureland. One of the biggest holdups with the infrastructure implementation this year was the need to acquire crossing agreements with the pipeline companies whose lines cross the property. There were 17 needed including the Trans Canada pipeline. Installing the pasture pipeline requires a specialized plow and a 100-horsepower tractor with two hydraulic outlets. Joints are connected with fusion technology as high or medium density pipe is not conducive to standard waterline fittings. The installation of the two-inch polyline is non intrusive and buried at 12 inches across the field. The system is pressurized with a three-horsepower pump to move the water three miles away up to the 1,200-gallon water tank that feeds four pastures. The only preparation required was to mow the pasture along pipeline location prior to installation to prevent issues with the plow when burying the line. 

A Razer Grazer™ (portable fencing) was used to divide pastures into smaller paddocks to increase the number of grazing days for the season. The pie-shaped pastures under irrigation were able to sustain three grazing periods of five days each this season and if the warm weather persists there may be some pastures that will be grazed one more time. Irrigation of these pastures helped tremendously this year as there was a significant decrease of rainfall in southern Alberta. 

Additional changes were made on site as well through the seeding of a cocktail crop used for grazing that included sunflowers, oats, barley, peas, sorghum, turnips and radishes. Another paddock was seeded to a two-way mix of oats and ryegrass also under irrigation and was grazed over the summer months by the yearling cattle.

A demonstration day was held at the University of Alberta’s Mattheis Research Ranch demonstration site farm tour on July 24. Attendees enjoyed a tour that included discussions on using cattle to disperse seed, controlling annual brome grass and water and fencing infrastructure.

Update

This year at Mattheis, there were a total of 900 animals on the pasture this grazing season. Cow/calf pairs grazed nearly 10,000 acres of native range at this facility.  Development of water sites carried out the previous 2024 season made it possible to create additional paddocks. As a result, there is a visible improvement in the utilization of forage as the animals were distributed more evenly across the expansive pasture. Since the cows did not have to travel as far for water, forage around the water site faced less pressure and areas farthest away still saw use. Areas under high grazing pressure and no rest become hotspots for invasive weeds and undesirable forage species. Marcel, University of Alberta Farm Manager, says it was easier on the calves as well. They were able to keep up with the cows since water troughs were closer. The young calves moved paddocks with the cows and didn’t get left behind causing more stress and delayed moves.  

In June, 65 yearling heifers were equipped with collars using Nofence virtual fence technology. This emerging technology helps to direct animal movement without the need for physical cross-fencing. The fence positioning relies on satellite GPS while the collars communicate with the app via mobile network. You can monitor and make changes on your cellular device or desktop. When the animal approaches a virtual fenceline, it receives an audible cue from the collar.  This intensifies as it gets closer letting the animal know there is a boundary there.  To avoid an electric pulse, the animal learns to turn around with the audible. Training the animals to this technology has been successful at Mattheis. According to University Farm Manager Marcel Busz, yearlings learned to cautiously approach taller, ungrazed forage and respected the audible cues alerting them to a virtual fenceline. One complication was having to move the herd through a gate to a new grazing area. Animals were leery of the gate and hesitant to leave their known safe area. Once they felt comfortable and a lead animal went through, the remainder followed with no further issues. The animals were run through the chute again in August to adjust and loosen some of the collars to accommodate the yearlings growing frame. It took approximately 2 hours to fit all 65 collars. This project is being carried out on paddocks seeded to either perennial tame forage or irrigated pivots seeded to a polycrop mixture. Marcel says that using the collars at Mattheis this grazing season proves the technology works in their landscape. While overall grazing days remained the same, it gave Marcel the ability to create more paddocks.  This meant more rest and regrowth time for the forage. 

This year’s field day at Mattheis took place on July 22nd. The day started off with Lisa Ratz, Research Access Coordinator from University of Alberta, welcoming the nearly 60 people in attendance. Marcel led the group through discussions on virtual fencing showing how to set up the boundaries and what the app looks like. The attendants got a close up view of the heifers with the collars during the pasture tour. The group also ventured out onto the range to see the 1200 gallon water troughs, various pasture types and checked out the Razer Grazer on hand. Following lunch at the Gem Hall was plenty of discussion regarding the extensive buried pipeline project. Barry Irving demonstrated several types of pipeline typically used and stressed the importance of proper fittings and connectors. Other presenters included Karin Roen, a Program Agronomist with Chinook Applied Research Association (CARA). Karin demonstrated how to use Water Infiltration Kits. These handy tools allow producers to observe and measure differences of effective rainfall infiltration into soil with various crop types and management. Water infiltration speed and pattern is a direct indicator of soil health and is important when monitoring a change in grazing management. To complete the afternoon, Grant Listiwka talked about using annual polycrops in a crop and pasture rotation. 

Funding for this project in part has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund.