Zeliff Farms

Middleport, NY--- Northeastern NatGLC Resource Manager, Troy Bishopp, partnered with Peter Zeliff and Nicole Porter from Zeliff Farms, American Farmland Trust, The New York Soil Health Program, USDA-NRCS, the Western NY Soil Health Alliance and 52 farmers and service providers for a pastureland conversion and soil health field day on the farm.

Troy Bishopp, a.k.a. The Grass Whisperer, moderated a grazing panel with farmers, Phil Keppler from SK Herefords and Peter Zeliff who shared their experiences and strategies for managing their beef herds, incorporating summer annuals into the rotation, seeing the land improvement and talking about the future of feeding Western NY consumers, nutrient-dense protein. In addition, he presented a spirited keynote entitled: “Practical Grazing for Animals, Microbes and People”.

The balance of the morning focused on the Zeliff Farm’s regenerative journey, soil data, soil amendment application strategies, trying new things, costs and fertility improvement on their land using compost, biochar and other innovative pursuits. This dovetailed nicely with a Biochar panel discussion, an economic analysis of the farm, and a pasture soil health benchmarking session.

The afternoon program included Cornell’s Joe Amsili demoing the NY Soil Health trailer capabilities to study soil structure, water infiltration and water holding capacity comparisons with differing ground cover. Peter flew his drone and simulated seeding and fertilizing capabilities and folks got to see 7 cover crop mixes planted 45 days earlier. Nicole hosted a pasture walk to see the grazing and trampling affect of the cattle, learn about the rotation strategies, look at the rolling “pigerators”, pastured poultry and abundant birdlife adjacent to the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. She also introduced her “shop” chicken farm mascot and talked about marketing nuances to customers who are buying up all they produce from the farm.

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