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Virtual fencing ‘game-changer’ for ranchers grazing cattle
Tech can save ranchers time and benefit animals and land, becoming more viable
After the Caldor Fire destroyed seven miles of fencing on their cattle ranch in 2021, Leisel Finley and her family needed to replace the fence.
Finley, a sixth-generation rancher at Mount Echo Ranch in Amador County, said reconstruction costs were bid at $300,000 and would take at least a year to build, leaving the family without summer pasture and a herd of hungry cows to feed. Additionally, the U.S. Forest Service mandates that grazing be withheld for two years in postfire landscapes. This put the family in a difficult position.
While watching a recording of a California Cattlemen's Association meeting, Finley learned about a pilot program for virtual fencing. Desperate to find an alternative solution, she registered to try the livestock containment technology, which uses GPS enabled collars to monitor each animal's location in near real time.
Livestock producers can draw a perimeter on a map of their pasture using a laptop or smartphone application and send those instructions to the collar. The collar then uses audio and tactile cues to contain the animal in the area.
Eager to discover the short- and long-term benefits of virtual fencing, Finley turned to Scott Oneto, farm advisor, and Brian Allen, assistant specialist, from the University of California Cooperative Extension office in the Central Sierra. Since partnering with Oneto and Allen, Finley said she has come to understand and uncover more of the technology's potential.
The team has consistently observed the technology's value in integrating with and enhancing traditional livestock production systems across California. Though still in its early stages of development, the location tracking and containment system appears to provide time- and cost-savings that make it a game-changer for ranchers.
Ability to monitor location of animals in real time
Virtual fencing really stands out in its ability to monitor each animal's location in real time. During roundups, ranchers can use their smartphones to see their own location relative to their herd. The system can also send alerts if an animal crosses the virtual boundary or if a collar remains stationary for an extended period, potentially indicating that the animal is sick or that the collar has fallen off.
Rounding up cattle on large, forested grazing allotments can be challenging, as the process generally requires a group of people and many return trips to find every animal. Prior to virtual fencing, Finley and her father could gather about 85% to 90% of the herd in a week. Since using virtual fencing, Finley said one of their most recent roundups lasted three days, and they located every single cow.
Something that every livestock producer dreads is the notorious call from a neighbor or California Highway Patrol alerting them that one of their cows is out in the middle of the road. It always seems to happen at midnight or while they are out with friends or family. This scenario changes with virtual fencing.
Containment based on animal behavior
The containment system that virtual fencing is built on is based on animal behavior. When the animal crosses an invisible boundary, the collar emits an audio warning, prompting most animals to instinctively turn back into the desired area. If the animal doesn't respond, the collar delivers a mild electric pulse as a secondary deterrent.
Field trials by Oneto and Allen demonstrated the system's success. Recently, the team trained a herd of 37 cattle of mixed ages that had no previous exposure to virtual fencing. During the initial six-day training period, the cattle responded to the audio warning alone about 75% of the time when they approached a virtual fence boundary, with the remaining 25% of cases requiring an electric pulse.
After about three weeks, the herd was responding to audio cues alone about 95% of the time. The field trials also showed that the collars contain the livestock within the desired areas 90% to 99% of the time when the entire herd wears virtual fence collars and their basic needs for safety, connection to the rest of the herd, water, forage, shade, etc. are met.
Opportunities for improvement
While the technology is effective in its current capacity, there are notable areas where it can improve. One limitation to the system is the current reliance on cellular networks to operate. If an animal wanders into an area outside of coverage, the collar will continue to operate based on the last instructions but won't receive updates or report locations. This is especially a concern in many areas of California with poor cell reception, including the steep forested rangelands where many livestock producers have summer grazing allotments.
Another limitation is that some companies require a solar-powered base station with radio and cellular antennas to be placed on the pasture. These facilitate the transfer of animal locations and updates to the virtual fences. A base station going offline would create the same conditions as a drop in cell signal until the base station is repaired. Some companies are currently developing collars that bypass the need for these base stations.
The other major concern for ranchers is the cost for a virtual fencing system. The average rancher can expect to pay an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 in upfront costs. The cost to set up a base station alone is $5,000 to $10,000. However, this cost is highly dependent on several factors, including the manufacturer, the number of livestock to be collared, if the livestock are large or small ruminants, and the number of GPS base stations to cover the range.
According to Allen and Finley, the high cost of virtual fencing can be offset by the unique animal and land management benefits it can provide. “While physical perimeter fencing remains essential, VF is rapidly emerging as an innovative tool to control livestock with ease, precision, and flexibility in ways that were not previously feasible with traditional fencing,” Allen said.
Finley described the technology as a “game-changer” for her family.
Virtual fencing helps control invasive grasses, installing fuel breaks
While virtual fencing is designed to contain livestock without physical fencing, it is not intended to outright replace secure perimeter fencing. Instead, it operates best as a highly dynamic and adaptable cross-fence, allowing for more intentional grazing on the landscape to meet livestock production and natural resource conservation objectives within a secure physical perimeter.
With grant funding from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the UCCE team continues to work with Finley and other livestock producers to test these applications on California's diverse rangelands.
Within the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges foothills, these trials include using virtual fencing on cattle for targeted grazing of invasive grasses to support the recovery of native forage and installing fuel breaks within the wildland-urban interface to remove vegetation where the edge of a pasture meets urban housing.
Using virtual fencing, 25 cattle were successfully concentrated on a field of Medusahead (Elymus caput-medusae), an invasive annual grass. The herd respected the virtual fencing boundary 99% of the time despite nearby preferable forage. Grazing reduced medusahead seed heads from 2,072 per square meter in the ungrazed control area to just 68 per square meter in the grazed section.
In a different trial, 37 cattle with virtual fencing collars were contained within 120-feet-wide fuel breaks along the boundary of an annual rangeland and residential area. Cattle stayed within the boundaries 99% of the time, leading to an 81% reduction in fine fuel biomass and lowering wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface.
Within rangelands on conifer forests, these UCCE trials concentrate cattle on brush to reduce the flammable plants and vegetation that competes with desirable timber species. It also can prevent livestock from entering sites that are sensitive to livestock presence.
Upcoming grazing trials will focus on how virtual fencing works with goats and sheep. In addition to Oneto and Allen, UCCE's contribution to virtual fencing research is in large part due to Leslie Roche, UCCE specialist and associate professor at UC Davis, Dan Macon and Jeff Stackhouse, UCCE livestock and natural resources advisors, Kristina Horback, associate professor at UC Davis and Lone Star Ranch in Humboldt County.
To learn more about the trials led by the UCCE team,visit https://cecentralsierra.ucanr.edu/Virtual_Fencing/
Extreme weather accelerates nitrate pollution in groundwater
Extreme weather spurred by climate change, including droughts and heavy rains, may increase the risk of nitrates from fertilizers ending up in groundwater, according to a recent study from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study found heavy rains after a drought caused nitrates to seep 33 feet under farm fields in as little as 10 days. The study was published in Water Resources Research.
“The conventional wisdom was that it could take several weeks to years for nitrates to move from the crop root zones to reach groundwater,” said corresponding author Isaya Kisekka, a professor in the Departments of Land, Air and Water Resources and Biological and Agricultural Engineering. “We found these extreme events, such as California's atmospheric rivers, are going to move nitrate more quickly.”
In this study, different methods were used to measure how much nitrate, a component of nitrogen fertilizer, was seeping down through the soil in a tomato and cucumber crop near Esparto, California. Scientists conducted their research from 2021 until 2023 when California was experiencing periods of drought followed by atmospheric rivers. They measured nitrate during both the growing seasons and the rainy seasons.
Drought can leave more nitrogen in soil
Previous studies have shown about 40% of nitrogen fertilizer used for vegetables isn't absorbed by the plants but remains in the soil. During droughts, crops don't use nitrogen efficiently, leading to excess nitrogen in the soil. This study found that if a drought is then followed by heavy rainfall, that sudden burst of water causes nitrate to seep in groundwater more quickly. The nitrate concentration in the shallow groundwater exceeded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maximum contaminant level of 10 milligrams per liter for drinking water.
“In California, we often say we swing between droughts and floods,” said Kisekka. “These extreme events that come with climate change are going to make the risk of these chemicals ending up in our drinking water much more severe.”
Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for most of California's Central Valley. In some regions, such as the Tulare Lake Basin, nearly one-third of drinking and irrigation wells exceed the EPA's safe nitrate level. High nitrate levels in drinking water can increase health risks, especially for young children. It may also increase the risk of colorectal cancer.
Need for real-time soil nitrate monitoring
Central Valley farmers are required to report to the Regional Water Board how much nitrogen they applied to their field and how much was removed as part of the crop's yield. The study compared different ways of monitoring when nitrate from fertilizers seep into groundwater. Kisekka said the results highlight the need for affordable, real-time soil nitrate monitoring tools to help farmers manage fertilizer use efficiently.
By using conservation practices that limit leftover nitrates in the crop's root zone after harvest, farmers can help reduce nitrate contamination in groundwater.
This study's data will also help improve a model called SWAT, which is used to track nitrate seepage into groundwater across California's Central Valley. This effort is part of the Central Valley Water Board's program to regulate irrigated farmlands.
Other UC Davis authors include Iael Raij Hoffman, Thomas Harter and Helen Dahlke.
The study was supported by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service through its Conservation Effects Assessment Project. The national project is designed to assess the effectiveness of conservation practices across different watersheds. The study also had support from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
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