ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Farming Staff
CARLISLE (Cumberland Co.)
—On a somewhat dreary, overcast
day, purebred Angus breeder Bob
Boyce leans on a stone wall of his
porch, binoculars in hand, observ
ing the cattle in his fields.
Looking toward the southeast,
Boyce is watching, through the
mist, whether a couple of his cows
are coming into heat.
More than a dozen cows either
recline, chewing away happily, or
meander about, searching for
fresh, new growth of an alfalfa
grass mixture on a one-acre pad
dock on the intensively rotational
ly grazed farm.
“Isn’t this a great spot to keep an
eye on the cows?” he says, point
ing to the deck on which lawn
chairs and a gas-fired grill sit
He gazes on many of the Angus,
but “number 10”—he refers to all
the cattle by numbers stands
out.
“Looks like you’re begging,-
number 10,” says Boyce over the
peaceful sounds of a wind chime.
“Yeah, I think she’s ready.”
To Boyce, the day was exciting
because he was about to breed
another cow, expanding his steadi
ly growing herd base with some
improved genetics.
The grazier and Cumberland
County farmer founded LiT Pon
derosa Enterprises, a “grand
experiment” in modem farming. In
addition to a rotationally grazed
cow-calf farm, LiT Ponderosa is
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Boyce’s Lil’ Ponderosa Farm:
One Giant Grazing Experiment
the headquarters for Boyce’s hay
ing and fencing equipment dealer
ship. He also sells watering sys
tems, alfalfa and other seeds, and
freezer beef and breeding stock.
Boyce even operates farm service
and financial planning businesses.
Boyce makes it his business to
experiment, to try new strategies,
as he builds his breeding and freez
er beef operation.
He markets freezer beef to more
than SO customers from Pennsyl
vania and other states, including
Virginia, Maryland, and New
Jersey.
“My dad had a saying,” said
Boyce as he reviewed Angus
Association registrations. “You’re
dead when you stop learning.”
As he slowly develops his farm
and customer base, Boyce is busy
experimenting. Those experiments
can be as complex as choosing the
best alfalfa-grass mix on his more
than ISO acres (out of about 256
acres tillable, on three farms) of
pastureland, in partnership with
Ron Deihl. Or they can be as
simple as how to improve soil fer
tility in selected spots by placing
round hay bales and, while cattle
eat the hay, spread manure on the
ground.
They also include fencing
equipment experiments (Boyce
prefers the “pigtail” fence posts to
allow easy attachment to establish
paddocks inside the primary fenc
ing). They include watering sys
tems (one-inch lines buried to 36
inches in depth) to reduce the dis-
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The focus of a lot of Boyce and Delhi’s pasture studies: finding the best mix. “I’m
trying to find the best pasture mixes to grow on dry, shaley ground,” he said.
tance that animals have to walk for
water.
The focus of a lot of Boyce and
Delhi’s pasture studies: finding the
best all-season mixture.
“I’m trying to find the best pas
ture mixes to grow on dry, shaley
ground,” Boyce said.
In a remote comer of his proper
ty, Boyce cleared trees and brush
using a bulldozer. After he pushed
the debris aside and applied lime to
the area, Boyce used a lane border-
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ing fencetow as an experiment On
the left side, next to woodland to
provide shade for the grazing ani
mals, looking down a long slope,
he disced over and seeded rye
grass. On the right side, near the
fence, he seeded an orchardgrass
perennial ryegrass mix. He uses no
fescue on the farm.
Boyce is trying to figure out
what types of grasses to use in
exercise or “sacrifice” areas. The
farm soils are a combination of
Weikert and Berks.
But that’s not the end of Boyce’s
experiments. His at-home field-
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 20, 1998-A2l
test sites are dotted throughout the
farm, from one comer to the next
In 1986, two years after retiring
from 17 years as a marketing pro
fessional for AT&T, Boyce and his
wife Kate decided to settle on the
farm, formerly owned by Mr. and
Mrs. Carroll Miller. Boyce discov
ered the farm while working under
contract to Boeing Computer Ser
vices in the Cumberland Valley.
In 1996 Boyce started the
purebred black Angus operation
with nine head. The next year, herd
size was increased to 25 head. This
(Turn to Page A 24)
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