Sonoma Mountain Institute

1. Livestock Procurement and Program Resilience

1. GY 2025 Major Grazing Disruption and Resolution: Our cattle supplier canceled three days before Thanksgiving, disrupting our standard December grazing launch. We faced significant challenges, given that we were in a costly cattle market, and we needed 900-1,300 head to arrive later in the season to meet our grazing goals for the year.
2. Key Win: We secured new cattle and successfully initiated grazing in February, aligning with our planned goals for GY2025.
3. Impact: We averted a full-season interruption, demonstrated our team’s ability to adapt quickly under pressure, and expanded our network of suppliers.

2. Grazing Management Highlights

1. Triangle G Infrastructure Payoff: GY2025 was our first full season managing Triangle G with new fencing infrastructure (funded in part through EQIP).
2. Riparian Restoration: We enabled rest of the Rogers Creek riparian corridor through May, likely for the first time in over 40 years.
3. Ultra-High-Density Grazing Trial: We conducted a 250,000 lbs/acre grazing event in SMI1, integrating areas with and without past compost applications and co-located monitoring.
4. We had several different areas of impact in terms of grazing pressure, ranging from one rotation at high density at SMI and part of ACC1 at Triangle G, to two rotations at medium density across the rest of Triangle G, Green, and Hellman, and three rotations at Mitsui and Walsh. We also had two to three rotations at medium density, with a January-June grazing impact at Cayetana and Eames. These experiments will demonstrate a range of grazing pressures and timings for future reference in monitoring data reviews.
5. Full-Year Rest: The majority of SMI ranches received more than 365 days of rest before cattle arrival.
6. High-Impact Grazing: We ran 905 cattle across two main paddocks over ~3 days each, resulting in a clear biomass response.
7. Monitoring Integration: Trial grazing in SMI1 includes key soil and vegetation monitoring sites.

3. Soil Health Monitoring

1. Resample Event (April): In GY2025, we re-sampled Healthy Soils Grant compost spread areas for the first time since 2022.
2. Partner Collaboration: We conducted sampling in collaboration with former Sonoma RCD staff.
3. Data Relevance: This will be our cleanest long-term signal on the impact of compost due to a multi-year pause in applications. Most data suggests organic matter loss across California rangeland YOY. 
4. Results ETA: Lab results expected within the next month for review and analysis. 

4. Stockmanship Leadership

1. Whit Hibbard Workshop: This year, we co-hosted a Stockmanship Workshop at Eames Institute with ~50 participants.
2. Diverse Audience: The workshop included female operators, BIPOC ranchers, and teams from:
   1. TomKat Ranch – Majority of attendees were women, and women of color
   2. Paigelynn’s Coastal Land & Livestock, an independent women-owned business. 
   3. Open Field Farms
   4. Pius Ranch
3. Regional Impact: The event improved regional capacity for low-stress cattle handling and operational resilience.

5. Corrals and Shipping Infrastructure

1. Triangle G South Corrals: We upgraded the TG infrastructure for safer and more efficient ship-out of cattle and personnel. The new infrastructure improves animal welfare and safety outcomes. 
2. Field Testing: We successfully used the new infrastructure during ship-out, with feedback from Whit Hibbardfor additional refinements while he was here for the educational event. 

6. Prescribed Burn Planning

1. Sites: We coordinated burn planning for Triangle G and collaborated with Mitsui Ranch.
2. Timing: The burns were successfully executed in late June.

7. Hydrology and Beaver Structures

1. Beaver Dam Analogues (BDAs): All BDAs filled during winter, actively capturing sediment and initiating stream re-agrading.
2. Ecosystem Function: This winter marked the first full-season hydrological function across all BDA sites, resulting in improved hydrological capture.

8. Regional Monitoring Leadership

1. Cross-Org Collaboration: This year, we continued to lead development of a regional monitoring and data framework, helping standardize ecological evaluation across multiple grazing organizations.

9. Organic Certification Milestone

1. New Certifications Achieved: We successfully certified Triangle G, Mike Green, and Hellman Ranches’ organic operations—all of which would not have been certified without our leadership. In the process, we collaborated with one of our landowners to reduce the use of non-organic herbicides on grass trails. 
2. Strategic Significance: Organic certification strengthens ecological credibility and opens new markets and collaborative opportunities.

10. Additional Monitoring Efforts

1. Watershed eDNA Monitoring Water Sample: We conducted watershed monitoring to detect the range of wildlife and birds in the area, providing a snapshot of the wildlife we have not yet been able to capture in our existing monitoring data.