2025 Grazing Recap
Grazing Year 2025 was defined by resilience, collaboration, and innovation in the face of both operational challenges and ecological opportunity. Across every aspect of our work—from adaptive grazing management to infrastructure improvements, data integration, and regional partnerships—Sonoma Mountain Institute continued to refine how regenerative principles translate into measurable outcomes in practice. This year’s efforts reflect a deepening of our long-term commitment: to manage land with attention and care, to share learning across our community of practice, and to connect science, stewardship, and strategy in service of thriving grasslands and resilient ecosystems.
Grazing & Management:
Grazing Year 2025 tested both the resilience and adaptability of our grazing program, underscoring the significant behind-the-scenes coordination required to keep operations running smoothly. Every successful grazing season depends on hundreds of small, well-timed actions—many of them invisible when everything goes according to plan.
Our resilience was put to the test this year when our primary cattle supplier canceled just three days before Thanksgiving, disrupting our standard December launch. With a challenging market and a need for 900-1,300 head later in the season, the team moved quickly to identify new partners, secure livestock, and keep our grazing goals on track. By February, we successfully initiated the season, averting what could have been a full-year interruption. The new cattle arrived healthy, calm, and trained to electric fencing–critical traits that allowed for smooth integration into our rotational system. This season reflected both the strong animal management skills and the focused daily work of our team, who navigated shifting conditions with attention and care. In all, the season ended with excellent weight gains, minimal animal loss, and attuned grazing impact that varied across the ranches we manage in service of their individual goals.
This was also a year of experimentation, refinement, and payoff across our managed landscapes.
Across multiple ranches, the team implemented a diverse set of grazing strategies to test the ecological outcomes of different densities and rest periods. The season included an ultra-high-density grazing trial at SMI1 (front barn paddock), reaching 250,000 pounds per acre, designed to explore whether a critical threshold of animal impact is needed to trigger more robust ecological responses. This area, which had rested for over 330 days, provided a unique comparison between zones with and without past compost applications, linking management practices to measurable monitoring outcomes.
Elsewhere, grazing pressure varied strategically across properties: one high-density rotation at SMI and Triangle G (ACC1), two medium-density rotations at Triangle G, Green, and Hellman, and three medium-density rotations at Mitsui and Walsh. At Cayetana and Eames, grazing occurred from January through June, allowing for additional seasonal contrasts in timing and intensity. Importantly, most SMI ranches received more than 275+ days of rest before cattle arrival, supporting plant recovery and soil health.
At Triangle G, we completed our first full season operating with the newly installed fencing infrastructure (partially funded through EQIP), which improved grazing management and control. That same site saw meaningful ecological progress, including the resting of the Rogers Creek riparian corridor, likely for the first time in over forty years, helping restore sensitive waterways and riparian vegetation.
To close the season, we conducted a high-impact grazing event at SMI–running 905 cattle across two main paddocks over three days. The resulting biomass response was immediately visible, demonstrating the power of concentrated animal impact when applied with intention.
Several of these trial sites, including SMI1, now serve as key monitoring locations, ensuring that the lessons from this year’s experiments inform our future grazing design and ecological evaluation.