Research Feedyards Promise
Leading Role For Panhandle

By David Bowser

BUSHLAND, Texas — With the dedication of two research feedyards in the Texas Panhandle this month, James Herring, head of Amarillo-based Friona Industries, says the area could develop into the leading beef research center in the country.

"That's a great thing," Herring says.

Research feedyards were dedicated at Bushland west of Amarillo and at the Nance Ranch, part of West Texas A&M University's campus east of Canyon on Aug. 18.

The Texas Agricultural Experiment Station and USDA's Agricultural Research Service will use the one at Bushland. The other will be for WTAMU's programs. The two share a number of faculty and staff as well as some funding.

"Everything here is not new," says Dr. Nolan Clark of the Bushland facility. "We first started feeding cattle here in 1955, something over 40 years ago."

In those days, they were working with highly concentrated rations.

"That was about 50 percent grain," he notes.

In the 1970s, the emphasis of the research changed to animal diseases, primarily shipping fever.

"We focused on that for a number of years," Clark says. "In 1979, we built a metabolism laboratory here so we could look at individual and small group feeding operations."

Today, they've added 18 new pens for environmental studies.

"You can see the transition we've gone through here in the feeding operations," Clark says.

The mission of the joint cattle feeding research program is to increase the efficiency of production with improved animal nutrition and health.

"Previous studies have indicated that feeder cattle illness and stress reduce feed efficiency, lower weight gain and reduce carcass quality," Clark says. "We're working to clarify these interactions between diet and health and their influence on peformance, and most of all meat quality."

With the expansion, Clark says they will be addressing the issues of dust, odor and the economical management and use of manure and wastewater.

"We want to take a holistic approach to manure and wastewater management and diet," Clark says. "We want to initiate these projects so we can protect our service and groundwater quality."

"We've been bumping the efficiency of beef cattle anywhere from a half to two percent per year for about as long as people have been measuring such things," says Dr. Louis Perino at WTAMU. "Historically, that's the precedent that we've set, and I don't see any reason why that would change."

He says past progress has been made through a team effort, a team that has involved cattle producers, their consultants, allied industries and the universities.

"The purpose of the WT feedyard is to develop the knowledge and to help figure out how to implement that knowledge so we can continue to advance the efficiency of beef cattle feedlot production at the rate that we've done it in the past," Perino says.

Academia, he says, is split into disciplines, veterinarians, nutrition, environmental planning, and meat science.

"But producers' problems aren't about disciplines," Perino says. "Producers' problems cross those lines."

That is why the multidiscipline faculty approach is important, he says.

"Accomplishment isn't just about improving efficiency," Perino continues. "It's about improving efficiency but doing it and maintaining the environment, enhancing beef quality and making sure the food is safe. We not only have to do our mission but we have to do it in the context of multidisciplinary action."

In the past, Perino says, WT has done research into animal health issues, into feedlot nutrition, and the environmental impacts of cattle feeding. All the research they've done has involved more than one discipline, he says.

"This is a labor of love for me," adds Herring. "I had the good fortune to be involved in this project from the get-go."

He says that in 1994, he and others from around the Panhandle got together and began trying to develop a coordinated effort among all the local, state and federal agencies and individuals involved in cattle feeding in the region. They wanted a beef cattle research center that would be the premier research center for the nation.

"I think we're well on our way to establishing that," Herring says. "We have a great opportunity here. Not only do I think it's an opportunity, I think it's our industry's responsibility."

The compelling reason for the research center, Herring says, is that the beef industry is losing one percent market share to poultry and swine every year at the cost of $1.2 billion.

"That's been going on for 16 straight years," Herring notes. "This is an extremely important business here, particularly for the Texas Panhandle. More than 30 percent of the fed beef in the United States comes from within 200 miles of Amarillo. It's a five to six billion dollar industry. We should be very proud of that.

"Never before has it been so critical for us to understand not only how feed production systems can be made to create a more efficient and better product, but how we can be better citizens in our community in doing so."

It would not have been possible without the support of the Texas A&M system, parent of West Texas, and the state legislature.

Herring says he hopes the research facilities will focus on two key issues, making a better, more consistent beef product for the consumer at a reasonable value and devloping environmental standards that will make cattlemen better stewards.

The only thing missing, Herring says as he stands at the podium in the 92-degree heat of a West Texas summer afternoon, is the allocation of research money to put some cottonwoods over the speaker's stand.