POLL Cow/calf on small acreage in Texas and deep south?

[Rafter S]

There are many different soil types in East Texas and even within each county. Most are loams. Loam is just a term denoting the soil has 3 or more components and the different loams are categorized depending which % of each of sand, silt, or clay makes up the soil. I have a high degree of silt and clay compared to sand. It's officially called the Hatliff-Pluck-Kian (HatA) complex. The Hatliff itself is a well drained deep sandy loam but the HatA complex is poorly drained, low degree slope, high % silt and clay frequently flooded and deemed 'not prime farmland" by NCRS because of the Pluck component.
2 Miles West or North of me, the soil type changes drastically, even tho the location is equally as close to the river as I am.

I think I'm on some kind of fault line. Here at home I can dig 3 post holes, 3' deep, and get 3 distinctly different colors of soil. Also, I'm on mixed soil, but there's deep sand and black gumbo each within less than 5 miles from my house. Driving south on FM362 from Highway 105 you start out on the prairie, with that black clay that sticks to your shoes so nicely when it's wet, and when the weather turns dry it will get cracks you can stick your hand in. After about 5 miles, with very little transition, you'll be in piney woods, with deep sand.

 

[greybeard]

Soil types can change even within a single piece of property of relatively small acreage. Most of mine is a clayey/silt loam that is hard as cement most of the year but all but floats after a long wet month. You can see it 'heave' as you drive across it and you better not travel the same tire tracks more than a couple of times or you will break thru the hard surface and there's no bottom to it.

Texas river bottoms generally don't need much or any lime, which is why so much of them are covered in hardwood and much less pine than areas a few hundred yards away from the flood plain. Floodplains in E. Texas generally get limestone silt brought down from the North and NW part of the state the rivers spread out and that silt keeps the soil more neutral. Not saying there are no pines in the bottoms, but not nearly as many.
Pines love acidic soil and the needles they drop are acidic in nature due to the uptake of acidic ions. It's a continuing cycle. Acidic soil begets acidic foliage, which are shed on the soil and decay, keeping the soil acidic for years after the pines are gone unless the landowner applies lime. The pine belt stretches from about I-45 Eastward across the Southeast USA, but not far West of I-45 in Tx, the pines just disappear. The soil is not as acidic farther West so pines are not as common. (Bastrop's Lost Pines area excluded)

I will try sometime to post a link to an app that will show you everything about the soil on any given piece of property. Will post it in the grass/pasture section. There's a learning curve to using the app (mostly to exclude info you aren't interested in) but once you get the hang of it the program works pretty good.

 

[greybeard]

The reason I posted this poll was I needed to get some honest answers from real people, doing real world cow/calf operations.
It's part of my effort to ensure agriculture and especially cattle production remains a viable part of my county, in spite of what the appraisal district is and has been trying to do. The article was one of several the Chief Appraiser handed me at a 1 on 1 meeting I had with her 2 weeks ago. To me, it's a cherry picked article chosen to try to convince me and others that cow/calf ops shouldn't be pursued in this county. (Their premise is that cow/calf requires too much acreage that ends up with ag exemption and they are doing everything they can to curtail how much is already in cow/calf and certainly to prevent new operations from starting up.

The writers of that article are Richard Machen and Robert E. Lyons, both with Texas Agrilife.

I wondered from the start how or why they would spend so much effort extolling the virtues of goat and sheep on small acreage, while basically throwing cow/calf enterprises on the same acreage right out the window.
I don't dispute their credentials in regards to forage production vs land capacity but IMO, their bias toward sheep/goat shows thru. Both have worked extensively in West and Southwest Texas, one currently is assigned to the Texas Agrilife station in Uvalde, and the other down at the same in Beeville.
Richard Machen:

Dr. Rick Machen, Outstanding Agriculture Alumnus, 2012

www.angelo.edu

Dr. Richard Machen | Texas A&M University Kingsville

www.tamuk.edu

Robert Lyons:

Texas A&M departments restructure - AgriLife Today

Two departments of Texas A&M's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have been revamped to better serve students and address environmental challenges.

essm.tamu.edu

Texas Society for Range Management

The Texas Section Society for Range Management envisions healthy, sustainable rangelands. Healthy rangelands provide dynamic, sustainable habitats for a wide variety of plants and animals.

texassrm.org

Dr. Robert K. Lyons
Assoc. Department Head/Prof. and Extension Range Spec

Primary Area Served

Statewide with primary responsibilities in Districts 10, 7, & 12 First point of contact for District 6

Area of Expertise

Brush management, grazing distribution, grazing behavior, stocking rate/carrying capacity

I called Dr Lyons and talked to him a bit to see if he thought his article held true for East Texas and farther East, considering the big differences in annual average rainfall and after a bit, he did conclude that there was a big difference in the possibility of running cow/calf operation in Eastern part of the state compared to the arid areas farther West and SW. Annual rainfall is a big part of whether the land is capable of forage production and areas to the East get a LOT more than areas to the south, southwest and west.

The following map shows the average rainfall amounts (the other numbers are the Texas Agrilife Extension Service Districts.)

I appreciate all who responded to the poll, no matter how you voted. I just wanted (and got) honest answers. I omitted much of this in the opening post because I didn't want anything to influence the voting in any way.

 

[Rafter S]

Soil types can change even within a single piece of property of relatively small acreage. Most of mine is a clayey/silt loam that is hard as cement most of the year but all but floats after a long wet month. You can see it 'heave' as you drive across it and you better not travel the same tire tracks more than a couple of times or you will break thru the hard surface and there's no bottom to it.

Texas river bottoms generally don't need much or any lime, which is why so much of them are covered in hardwood and much less pine than areas a few hundred yards away from the flood plain. Floodplains in E. Texas generally get limestone silt brought down from the North and NW part of the state the rivers spread out and that silt keeps the soil more neutral. Not saying there are no pines in the bottoms, but not nearly as many.
Pines love acidic soil and the needles they drop are acidic in nature due to the uptake of acidic ions. It's a continuing cycle. Acidic soil begets acidic foliage, which are shed on the soil and decay, keeping the soil acidic for years after the pines are gone unless the landowner applies lime. The pine belt stretches from about I-45 Eastward across the Southeast USA, but not far West of I-45 in Tx, the pines just disappear. The soil is not as acidic farther West so pines are not as common. (Bastrop's Lost Pines area excluded)

I will try sometime to post a link to an app that will show you everything about the soil on any given piece of property. Will post it in the grass/pasture section. There's a learning curve to using the app (mostly to exclude info you aren't interested in) but once you get the hang of it the program works pretty good.

That reminds me of a young pastor we had at my church in the mid 1970's. The church and parsonage are on some of the heaviest black gumbo you can find anywhere, but he planted a row of pine trees beside the road leading from the church to the cemetery. I, and pretty much everyone else, didn't think they had a chance, but they're still there.

I've always suspected that the only reason they lived is that a pastor planted them on church property.

 

[Brute 23]

It would not surprise me to see acreage limits on the tax exempt deal in the near future.

Some thing will have to give eventually. Just in my short lifetime I have seen land tracked up big time in our area. The fact is every one cant have 40 ac with 10 cows and a bull. It just doesnt work.

The days of well thats just bulls and give and take are gone. We have had to get real nasty with some neighbors about their animals running loose all over the place. Its turning in to a circus.

 

[greybeard]

It would not surprise me to see acreage limits on the tax exempt deal in the near future.

Some thing will have to give eventually. Just in my short lifetime I have seen land tracked up big time in our area. The fact is every one cant have 40 ac with 10 cows and a bull. It just doesnt work.

The days of well thats just bulls and give and take are gone. We have had to get real nasty with some neighbors about their animals running loose all over the place. Its turning in to a circus.

I do know that there is some pressure to have the State legislature do a bit of re-visit to 1D1 ag exemption, as land values have skyrocketed and there are more and more people(especially old folks) that are cashing out, taking the money and running. Those that sell out to developers means that land will never produce an ag product again. Ever and I can't stand to see it happen. May not be much of an issue out in the rangelands but anywhere within 100 mile radius of DFW, San Antonio, Houston, and even Corpus is seeing it happen more and more.

I have stated over and over at the CAD meetings that I am absolutely against awarding a 1d1 ag exemption to little hobby 'farmers' that throw up a fence on a few acres, put a few longhorns in the front pasture, some hay burnin pleasure horses out in the back and call themselves farmers or ranchers. That is not and never was the intent of 1d1. In the parlance of appraisals, that's called consumption(recreation) and not production.

I know of a place about 50 miles NW of me, around Tomball Tx, that a 400-500ac flat &cleared tract was developed last year. Back in the early 50s and before, decades ago, it was cotton and soybeans, then sold or willed to someone else and they ran cattle on it. In the 60s, that land was sold to some rich guy for $1500/ac and he turned it into a fancy Arabian Horse farm. I mean FANCY! Poured millions in to it. He sold stallions and brood mares all over the world. About 10 years ago, Houston built a tollway (outer loop) within a mile of Tomball and land values went thru the roof. In 2018, Arabian guy put the place up for sale and was asking $50,000/acre and got close to that. That's about what land was selling for all around that area as it just exploded in population from people out of Houston. $50K/ac generates a lot of property tax revenue even if he had an ag exemption. According to an interview he said he made a 4000% profit, but he didn't say exactly how much he had put in to the place. The developer that bought it, started building homes on it, selling on average $300,000 each. I know this because my youngest son bought one. 1/10 acre lots. You can't get 10 homes/acre because of setbacks and infrastructure but you can get 8. I'm quite sure they are already appraised pretty close to $300K too. The property tax revenue now has to be astounding.
.
Who are the winners and losers?
Horse guy made a big profit.. how much CG taxes took we don't know.
The homeowner has a nice house on a postage stamp plot but he's also got a 20 year mortgage.
8 homesites/ac at $300k each =$2.4 million valuation for an acre that 2 years ago was valued at $50k. Taxed accordingly.

The big winner is Harris County Tax accessor/collector.

The loser?
Agriculture. That acreage will never again produce a single boll of cotton, a single bushel of beans, a single head of cattle, or even a fancy horse.

Coming, to a farm and ranch near you and me....

My own county govt can't wait for it to happen here.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Progress, it happens.

 

[Jafruech]

If you're running a stocking rate of 25 ac a pair in that part of the country, you are seriously mis-managing your land. I've have 5.5 in of rain all year...and that was not well spread out. Even with MIG...the weeds didn't even grow this year. On a normal year it would take 1000 acres or more to run what you can run on 100 acres in the areas you're talking about. I know lots of guys who lease 40+ 100-160 acre properties...you do what you have to do to get grass. Especially on years like this.

 

[Huntet02]

I love it from April to October but it doesn't stockpile like fescue does. I have been on the edge of the Sandhills and Piedmont all my life and you can't beat a good stand of fescue with some clover in it.

And ole Greg Judy would surely agree with that...... shhhssshh mine is growing as we speak with the help of my Big sprinkler!

 

[Brute 23]

I agree about the small plots but they let people have an agricultural exemption on a high fenced place with deer. That isn't right to me. What does selling deer have to do with agriculture?

 

[Rafter S]

I agree about the small plots but they let people have an agricultural exemption on a high fenced place with deer. That isn't right to me. What does selling deer have to do with agriculture?

In my county if land is set aside for wildlife you can get the same tax benefits as you do for ag use. I know because I lost a lease pasture to that use. There are some stipulations to get that exemption, but I'm not familiar with them.

I assume the same, or something similar, is in other counties.

 

[greybeard]

I agree about the small plots but they let people have an agricultural exemption on a high fenced place with deer. That isn't right to me. What does selling deer have to do with agriculture?

Are you sure it's a straight 1d1 ag exemption....or is it a wildlife exemption for land previously under 1d1 exemption?

From what I could gather, some of the big hunting ranches lobbied the state legislature saying they were providing a multi billion $$ commerce enterprise to the state, bringing in out of state money so they should get a tax break. The legislature and TP&W came up with a plan and needed somewhere to administer it from and the legislature directed that the State Comptroller include it in the ag special valuation under 1d1.

You don't have to have a high fenced parcel to qualify either.

http://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/docs/96-354.pdf

 

[greybeard]

In my county if land is set aside for wildlife you can get the same tax benefits as you do for ag use. I know because I lost a lease pasture to that use. There are some stipulations to get that exemption, but I'm not familiar with them.

I assume the same, or something similar, is in other counties.

All counties as far as I know and I've read about 1/2 the Tx county's ag exemption rules.
If you look at the bottom of the State issued 1d1 ag exemption form 50-129, there is a section for wildlife exemption.

https://www.comptroller.texas.gov/forms/50-129.pdf