Adaptative Grazing Management for Prairies

VMS opportunity: AT: NGO Workshops and Programs on Wildlife Conservation and Land Stewardship

Zoom Meeting

The NPAT Fayette Prairie Chapter is delighted to host Matt Machacek, USDA-NRCS, for a presentation on adaptative grazing management for prairies. We are all too familiar with over-grazed grasslands. Our disturbance-based prairies, however, co-evolved with grazing mammals and fire. Grazing is beneficial to prairies if done correctly, and grazing can be an important tool in prairie management. Given his experience, Matt is well suited to address the topic.

Matt Machacek is a Rangeland Management Specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service and serves as a liaison to the Coastal Prairie Grazing Land Coalition. Matt grew up in Shiner, TX and in 2006, he graduated with a degree in Rangeland Ecology and Management from Texas A&M. Matt also earned a Commission into the Texas Army National Guard.

In 2006 he started full-time with the NRCS in Victoria, Texas. Other duty stations since have included Junction, Colorado City, and Corsicana learning every day how to better read the land and finding better ways to help explain it to the land manager. In 2011 he began work as a Regional Range Specialist in Corsicana assisting with the Blackland Prairie Grazing Land Coalition. In 2019, he transitioned back to Victoria assisting the Coastal Prairie Coalition serving 26 counties in South Central Texas. Over the years Matt has assisted with many demonstration projects, rancher field days, and several regional conferences designed to transfer technology on grazing land matters to Texas landowners.