From Soil to Stream: How Regenerative Grazing Supports Texas Watersheds

As I am writing this, plentiful rains across East Texas are fueling an explosion of grass growth. Though ranchers are grateful for the rain and the forage, wet conditions bring to mind last spring’s veritable inundation. We received record-setting Spring rains, but then many of us struggled with droughty conditions for the rest of the season. Ranchers often feel powerless in the face of whipsaw conditions like these, but there are some ranchers that are changing how they think about weather extremes by changing how they think about the soil under their feet. Through regenerative ranching, they are working to increase the land’s ability to absorb and hold onto water, effectively buffering the harsh effects of climatic extremes. 

The goal of regenerative agriculture is in the name. It refers to the potential for regenerating our soils while also growing food, fiber, and fuel. Proponents of regenerative agriculture argue that the name is more appropriate than “sustainable agriculture” because sustainability implies that you maintain the status quo; regenerative agriculture aims to improve land over time and leave it better than when you started. Farmers and ranchers use diverse management tools to accomplish this, but they are all grounded in the principles of soil health.  

Healthy Soils

The soil health principles are based on biological processes, but before we can get into the biology, we need to acknowledge the alarming scale of soil loss since the advent of modern agriculture. Whether due to tillage or bare fallow, soil erosion continues to be an expected result in most of our agricultural systems. For the soil that didn’t wash away, 20^th-century agronomic practice focused on soil chemistry and overlooked the power of biological forces in soil formation and function. The unintended consequences of our preoccupation with N, P, and K, both environmental and economic, have led to a deeper study of how natural soil systems thrive without external inputs.

Innovative ranchers putting these insights into practice are showing that managing their livestock with soil life in mind can transform their operations and increase profitability, both through a reduced reliance on purchased inputs and higher production. For example, when we work to eliminate bare soil on our ranches, we not only protect the soil from erosion, but also modulate soil temperature and increase the amount of time it is in the ideal range for soil organisms and plants. By staying in the “sweet spot,” we can grow more grass and reduce our reliance on hay and purchased feeds. 

Life in the soil includes a marvelous array of organisms, ranging from microbes like bacteria and fungi to macrofauna like earthworms, mites, and beetles. Many regenerative ranchers consider these creatures a belowground “herd” that mirrors their livestock above ground. Their metabolism and excretions, combined with plant inputs like roots and their exudates, drive nutrient cycling in the same way that manure fertilizes our pastures. A healthy soil food web can also transform the physical properties of the soil by promoting aggregation, increasing pore space, and reducing compaction, while also boosting soil organic matter. This leads to soil that soaks up and holds onto the rain when it comes and is the key to creating resilient ranches across Texas, where water is often the limiting factor. 

Putting Livestock to Work 

Regenerative ranching prioritizes management over inputs, which is evident in its focus on adaptive multi-paddock grazing systems. This form of rotational grazing manipulates stock density and distribution to create the disturbance that healthy plants require while also allowing time for forages to recover before being regrazed. Periods of rest between grazings result in deeper roots, thereby increasing the zone where plant exudates and microbial life are building aggregates and organic matter. This is where the magic happens, and we can observe it on farms and ranches that have vastly increased their infiltration rates after adopting regenerative practices. 

Regenerative ranches are often easy to spot. The gates between fields are shut, and you often see temporary electric fencing breaking fields up into even smaller paddocks. Temporary fencing allows ranchers to adjust paddock sizes and control the frequency of moves, enabling them to be more adaptive in their management. Through continuous observation of their ranch, including the quality and quantity of available forage and the condition and metabolic requirements of their herd, regenerative ranchers can make holistic decisions that support both their land and their livestock. 

Rotational grazing also creates a patchwork on the landscape, promoting biodiversity. A regeneratively managed ranch may look messy if you are used to pastures that are continuously grazed and sprayed for weeds, but wildlife sees these diverse landscapes as a refuge. Ranches with multiple species of grasses and forbs at different stages of maturity provide critical habitat for insects and birds.  Sadly, grassland birds have declined more than any other type since 1970, and our essential pollinator insects are also in decline. Because our conventional agricultural practices oversimplify the landscape, they not only endanger native species but also lead to other unintended consequences and increased costs. A key example of this is our marvelous dung beetles, which we inadvertently killed when treating our cattle for flies and parasites. If we manage with biodiversity in mind and are more judicious in our wormer applications, we can reap the benefits of thriving dung beetle populations, including better nutrient cycling and less pest pressure.  

Healthy Ecosystems 

A regenerative ranch’s contribution to biodiversity can be hard to quantify, but that does not make it any less real. These types of benefits are called ecosystem services, and their impacts can extend far beyond a ranch’s fence line. Regenerative agriculture’s effect on the water cycle is a powerful example of this. When we increase the infiltration rate and water-holding capacity of our soils, we not only increase water available for plant production, but we also reduce downstream flooding and increase groundwater recharge and water availability for downstream communities. Any runoff that does occur is cleaner since less of our precious topsoil, and fewer pesticides and fertilizers (i.e., less money!) are washed downstream. This improves the water quality of our lakes, streams, and rivers across the state, and ultimately the Gulf Coast. Wider adoption of regenerative practices could move agriculture from one of our biggest threats to one of the biggest protectors of our waterways.  

It doesn’t seem to matter whether I talk with ranchers who are just starting to learn about the soil health principles or long-time practitioners of regenerative agriculture. Their sense of excitement is palpable… and contagious. They see that through their management, livestock can become an amazing force for good, increasing the resilience of our ranches and benefiting our watersheds and wider biological communities. If you’re a producer interested in understanding and adopting regenerative grazing, AFT’s Texas Grazing Network (TGN) can help you. TGN is a mentorship program that can pair you with an experienced regenerative rancher from your area who will provide personalized mentorship to help you put soil health principles into practice on your operation. TGN currently serves the DFW area, Central Texas, and Northeast Texas, and will expand to other parts of the state later this year.