Ag News
New UNL range management and cow/calf specialist
Published Friday, July 24, 2009 at 02:15 PM
Dr. Karla (Hollingsworth) Jenkins, the new range management and cow/calf specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Panhandle Research and Extension Center, hopes her research will be useful to all the diverse cattle producers of western Nebraska. Jenkins recognizes the challenge that she faces in the Panhandle Extension District, which covers 17 counties in the western third of the state. Not only is the district large, but it’s also ecologically diverse. It includes the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, which is covered by relatively lush, tallgrass prairie. A highway sign touts Cherry County as “God’s Own Cattle Country.” To the west, in the northern Panhandle, Sioux and Dawes counties have short to mixed-grass prairie. Short and mixed-grass prairie also predominate in the southern Panhandle of Cheyenne and Kimball counties, where many cattle producers also raise dryland crops. But UNL has research facilities that will provide Jenkins with laboratories in all three settings: The High Plains Ag Lab near Sidney, and Sioux County Experimental Range north of Scottsbluff, and the Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory between Hyannis and Mullen. Jenkins began her duties July 1, based at the Panhandle Center in Scottsbluff. Her assignment is 40 percent research and 60 percent extension. For the Texas native, the UNL appointment is a return to the part of cattle country where she had some of her formative learning experiences as a graduate student. She said she is eager to begin research and also put on extension presentations that will help cattle producers increase the sustainability and profitability of their diverse operations. Jenkins received a Ph.D. from UNL in 1994 in animal science, with a focus on ruminant nutrition. Her master’s degree, also from UNL in 1992, was also in animal science, focusing on ruminant nutrition. She received a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M in agricultural education. She has managed a research feedlot at Texas AgriLife Research in Bushland, Tex., a research station operated by Texas A&M University. She also has been a beef cattle producer, feeding and finishing beef cattle. Jenkins grew up on a dryland wheat and grain sorghum farm in the Texas Panhandle. Her father also ran stocker cattle on summer annuals and native grass, and sometimes wheat pasture. She found that she enjoyed the cattle part of the operation, especially raising bottle calves and using the proceeds to fund her college education. She developed an interest in cattle nutrition and also decided she wanted to go into extension work. UNL was one of several schools with a good cattle forage research program, so she studied for her master’s degree under Terry Klopfenstein, professor of animal science. She conducted research into metabolizable proteins of summer annuals. For her doctorate she wanted to conduct research into native range and cow-calf systems. That took her west to the Sandhills and West-Central Research and Extension Center, where she worked under Don Adams. Adams and Klopfenstein both advised her doctoral program. Her Ph.D. research related to nutrient requirements of nursing calves on native range, diet selectivity, and nutrient requirements of gestating cows on range. She also conducted research in Tennessee. After time spent raising children, she moved back to the Sandhills, where she wrote articles about agriculture for a local paper. She returned to Texas to help with the family operation after her father passed away, then returned to research at the Texas AgLife feedlot at Amarillo. The UNL opening presented an opportunity to return to the Sandhills area she grew to love while in graduate school, so she applied and was selected for the post. Jenkins said she likes UNL’s team approach to research and extension. She’s eager to meet producers, and encouraged them to call her at 308-632-1245 or e-mail her at kjenkins2@unl.edu. “We want to see what everybody’s dealing with, so we can get out and develop programs to help make them more profitable.” She plans to conduct research at all three locations, the Gudmundsen Sandhills Lab, Sioux County Experimental Range and High Plains Ag Lab. One priority is finding ways to manage grazing during wet years to avoid overgrazing and leave the range healthy enough to weather dry spells. Another potential project is studying how nursing calves select which plants to graze on. This will build on some observations from research conducted for her Ph.D., and could affect the acreage recommendations for each cow-calf pair. “In a nutshell, we have plans for the whole area, rather than just one spot. We want to make sure we are meeting the needs of all the producers of western Nebraska.”
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