Range shortcourse under way at CSC

This year’s shortcourse has drawn 43 participants, not counting more than a dozen instructors.

The program is designed to help the participants exchange ideas and learn more about managing range land, according to Dr. Chuck Butterfield, an agriculture professor at Chadron State and one of the organizers of the event.

Field trips are planned during the week to ranch land owned by the Bowen Family north of Chadron, U.S. Forest Service land and the Jim O’Rourke place south of Chadron and the Troester Ranch east of Marsland.

This afternoon (Monday) the participants will have a plant identification exercise in the hills immediately south of the Chadron State campus.

Butterfield noted that rangeland management becomes even more important than usual during droughty conditions such as the region is experiencing.