WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD ARTICLE
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WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD
BY STAFF WRITER
LOWELL BROWN
KERENS - Down a dirt road among the scattered oak trees in eastern Navarro County is a ranch operation that accomplishes what many ranchers think is impossible, its owners say.
Jim and Judy Reed of Corsicana run a 1,780 ranch in Kerens, about 20 miles northeast of Corsicana, that they say is both profitable and earth-friendly. The Reeds are drawing statewide praise for their use of modern, environmental sensitive ranching methods that some traditional ranchers often think won't pay the bills.
"You don't have to rape nature to make money," Jim said. "You can be ecologically and environmentally sensitive as well as income productive. That's a balance that can be achieved; but it takes a willingness to be creative with ideas. That's what we try to do."
Among the earth-friendly ranching methods the Reeds have adopted are a rotational grazing system for their 100 cattle; an organized population control for deer, hogs, and duck; an effort to cultivate native plants; and a forest management program that enhances both timber and wildlife production. They also shy away from using herbicides and pesticides.
Late last month, Jim went to Austin to receive a 2000-01 Lone Star Steward Award for his ranch's achievements. The award, given annually to private landowners in Texas by the state's Parks and Wildlife Department, was presented to him and 10 other landowners at a ceremony attended by Gov. Rick Perry. The Reed Wildlife Ranch won in the Blackland Prairie ecological region category for its efforts to conserve and enhance the natural habitat of the land.
The deparment "recognized them for their efforts to be a better land steward and improving the quality of their land," said Matt Wagner, biologist for the department. "The goal of the ranch is to improve the land's health overall so future generations can realize the potential of the property."
The award and the publicity it has generated have may lifelong ranchers wondering how the Reeds achieve the balance between income generation and wildlife protectors.
"I'm on cloud nine," Jim said about winning the award. "The biggest response has been the local people around here; they've been real curious. Some of the (ranching) decisions I've made have been a little nontraditional, and now there's a better opportunity to share (those decisions)."
The Reeds hare former computer service workers who inherited the ranch just four years ago. They say their jump to acclaimed ranchers was not quite as big as some might expect.
FAMILY TRADITIONS
Both grew up working the land - Judy on her family's farm in Iowa and Jim at the Reed Ranch., which has been in the family since his grandmother migrated there from South Carolina in 1893 and bought some of the land. Jim attended Texas A&M University and later met Judy at a computer convention. They settled in Corsicana.
The Reeds retired from the computer industry after two decades when they inherited the land from Jim's father, who died in 1997.
"I was always around land and always had to interact with the outdoors," Jim said. "I learned to respect what the outdoors could do for me and what it could do to me. I knew I was gonna have to work with nature, so I try to support what nature's really trying to do."
Jim became involved with a local holistic management group, which provided him with a model for managing the land in a less environmentally harmful ways.
Judy, a master gardener with the Texas Agriculture Extension Service, works in the ranch's chemical-free garden planting vegetables and herbs. She helps educate other gardeners about earth-friendly planting methods.
"I love being out there 'cause I love to plant," she said. "I love to get my hands dirty."
The Reeds work at the ranch with their son, James, a cattle operator, and a few friends and family members work there part time. They have no full-time employees. Besides keeping cattle and hosting public hunting and fishing programs, they have also started raising crawfish to make extra money.
"When the Reeds inherited the ranch, it was primarily a cattle operation, and much of the land was overgrazed," Wagner said. "To heal the land, they began using the rotational grazing system," he said.
"The ranch is divided into 33 small pastures, called paddocks, divided by electric fences," Jim said. "The cattle are moved to a new paddock every one to five days to avoid overgrazing the land," he said.
"On a continual grazing system, a ranch can degrade each year," he said."I'm trying to reverse that."
Jim said a common criticism of rotational grazing is that it is slow to yield results, but he saw improvement in just two years.
"I was amazed at the way this land, when given a little bit of opportunity, how fast it cam back," he said.
This year, the ranch has hosted hunting trips for about 60 people in an effot to share the land with others. The hunts, mostly for hogs, deer, and duck, are also an important way to control the wildlife population.
Kirby Brown, branch chief of private lands and habitat for the department, praised the Reeds' wildlife population control, rotational grazing, and protection of the ranch's forested wetlands. The wetlands are areas flooded several times per year by the Trinity River, which borders about 60 percent of the ranch.
"The destiny of Texas land is in the hands of private landowners like the Reeds since 96 percent of the state's land is privately owned," Brown said.
The job of working the land in a responsible way is rewarding, the Reeds said, and fun, too.
"The part I didn't expect was my level of enjoyment of it and the people I'm getting to meet," Jim said. "It's been working out real well."
Judy agreed.
"One of our goals here is to be together and have fun and enjoy it," she said.
But, most of all, the ranch is about perserving the land for years to come.
"I'm hoping the decisions I've made will last for 50 to 100 years for the future generation", Jim Reed said. "That's the best thing that someone like me can pass along."
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