We’re excited to celebrate another group of ASGA Certified Solar Graziers! 🌱🐑☀️
From July 27–29, participants gathered in Plymouth, Indiana, for an immersive Certified Solar Grazing Workshop through the American Lamb Board and ASGA. Through hands-on learning and expert instruction, they gained the knowledge and best practices needed to successfully integrate livestock grazing with utility-scale solar installations.
ALB’s Camren Maierle led the training, which went through best practices for implementing sheep grazing on solar projects, covering everything from sheep management to site design recommendations. Dr. Andrew Weaver spoke about the importance of sheep health, management and care while on solar and on the home farm. We ended the day with a tornado warning and headed into the basement to finish day 1!
Local farmer and Solar Grazier Evan Gunthorp joined us for day 2 and gave a wonderful presentation on bidding, managing, and running a smooth solar operation in NW Indiana. Throughout the workshop, farmers and solar graziers from the Midwest were able to talk, share stories and converse about the material presented in anticipation of the solar site tour!
The final day of the workshop started at Doral Renewables Mammoth North Solar site with a presentation from Dr. Andrew Weaver about portable electric fencing. His presentation was very informative about the different types of polywire and electric netting, and how to properly use them on solar sites. After the completion of the presentation, we were able to see the Agrivoltaics of Mammoth North in action. Farmer and Solar Grazier, Billy Bope, spoke about his operation on Y block. He elaborated on using multi species grazing, which includes, sheep, chickens, kune kune pigs, guardian geese, livestock guardian dogs, rabbits, and honey bees working together on his site! We enjoyed watching the chickens chase bugs and watching the sheep moving seamlessly through the arrays. We caught glimpses of the pigs and the guardian geese all while the livestock guardian dogs made their way through the group of people keeping watch over their “flock” of species. It was a fun final day of the training!
A huge thank you to Doral Renewables and Billy Bope for hosting the training! Additional thanks to Evan Gunthorp (Traditional Grazing Solutions), Chad & Jackson Raines (Key Farms), Beau Stafford (Wiscovery Farms), Breanna Reed (Bee-Ewe-tiful Farms), and Kevin Richardson (American Solar Grazing Association) for offering valuable insight to the graziers and Doral Staff!
Photo Credits to Doral Renewables LLC