Awards

Jim Choquette Honored with the 2021 Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition Lifetime Achievement Award

If you want or need to know about effective grazing management, merely make a visit to the farm and ranch of Jim Choquette, located south of Upland, NE close to the Republican River. Jim is no stranger to the grazing community in Nebraska.  Twenty- five plus years ago, Jim transitioned his dryland row crop acres to permanent stands of native range. Former UNL Extension Educators, Bob Scriven and the late Terry Gompert convinced Jim to adopt management-intensive grazing practices. Jim has been on a quest to further subdivide his pastures ever since. With more pastures, grazing periods could be shorter and rest periods could be longer….keys to growing more grass. A diverse mix of warm season perennials like sideoats gramma, big bluestem and indiangrass now dominate the Choquette grazing lands. Jim has also seen the return of native species thought to have disappeared after previous decades of season-long grazing. Eastern gamagrass returned from the latent seed bank that was waiting for the proper grazing conditions. Jim has practiced the grazing principles of high stock density, short duration and long recovery for most of his grazing career moving cows almost daily while on native range. Weaned calves are stripped grazed on diverse cover crop mixes. An advocate of soil health principles, Jim recognizes that soil health is the basis of human survival.

At the recent Nebraska Grazing Conference held in Kearney, Jim Choquette and his family were honored with the 2021 Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition (NGLC) Lifetime Achievement Award. He and his family have hosted numerous grazing field days over the last decade. Jim has served as a mentor to numerous less experienced grazers. In reality, he has served and continues to serve as a mentor for the entire Nebraska grazing community. For more information, contact Ron Bolze, NGLC Coordinator, 402 321 0067 (cell) or [email protected].

 The Nebraska Grazing Lands Coalition is an independent organization of ranchers, interest groups, and agencies whose mission is to collaborate on projects that improve the management and health of Nebraska grazing lands and ensure long-term stability of rangeland resources. The NGLC is funded through grants from the Nebraska Environmental Trust and the World Wildlife Fund-US.