{"id":34578,"date":"2022-02-16T13:38:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T19:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=34578"},"modified":"2022-02-16T13:39:36","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T19:39:36","slug":"northwestern-oklahoma-ranch-receives-10000-conservation-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2022\/02\/16\/northwestern-oklahoma-ranch-receives-10000-conservation-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Northwestern Oklahoma ranch receives $10,000 conservation award"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ranch near the small northwestern Oklahoma town of Freedom was selected as the recipient of a statewide conservation award.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The Lazy KT Ranch in Freedom, Oklahoma, was awarded with the Oklahoma Leopold Conservation Award and a $10,000 prize for its history of conservation-minded ranching. The award is named after the late ecologist Aldo Leopold.<\/span><\/p>

The owners of the ranch \u2014 Katie Blunk, her husband Michael Horntvedt and her mother Rose Kline Blunk \u2014 took land once marred by drought and full of redcedar, and turned it into a diverse ecosystem with native grasses and wildflowers that support pollinators like monarchs and bees. Katie said one of the main tools of conservation they use is prescribed fire.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI feel very strongly about prescribed fire. I mean, that\u2019s what we live for \u2014 fire courses through our veins,\u201d Katie said. \u201cWe have to have good fire on the land in order for our prairies to come back to the way they used to be.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Katie Blunk<\/p>\n

Cattle graze on grass at The Lazy KT Ranch. The ranch’s owners use prescribed burns to maintain high-quality forage for their cattle.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Katie said her cattle enjoy the post-fire forage, which is rich in protein, and the cattle\u2019s weights have gone up since starting prescribed fires.<\/span><\/p>

Katie is the president of the Cimarron Range Preservation Association, a group that promotes rangeland management in the area with prescribed burning practices. The organization helps to bring neighbors together to help with prescribed fires.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cThis group of neighbors helping neighbors has developed into a really well-oiled machine for implementing and rolling out prescribed burn practices in a real safe and effective manner,\u201d Katie said.<\/span><\/p>

The family also took measures to protect and conserve their water supply. They fenced off <\/span>riparian areas<\/span><\/a> to reduce erosion, built ponds and installed pipelines, water storage and solar-powered watering systems.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Katie Blunk<\/p>\n

Wildflowers grow on The Lazy KT Ranch in Freedom, Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<\/div>

The ranch sells Black Angus cattle as seed stock to other ranchers and also sells their \u201cJackass Ridge Beef,\u201d \u2014 named after a spot on their ranch called Jackass Ridge.<\/span><\/p>

To win the award, Oklahoma landowners applied or were nominated, and those applications were reviewed by a panel of agricultural and conservation leaders. The award is presented annually by Sand County Foundation, American Farmland Trust, Oklahoma Cattlemen\u2019s Association, Noble Research Institute, Oklahoma Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, ITC Great Plains, Oklahoma Conservation Commission and USDA\u2019s Natural Resources Conservation Service.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A ranch near the small northwestern Oklahoma town of Freedom was selected as the recipient of a statewide conservation award.\u00a0The Lazy KT Ranch in Freedom, Oklahoma, was awarded with the Oklahoma Leopold Conservation Award and a $10,000 prize for its history of conservation-minded ranching. The award is named after the late ecologist Aldo Leopold.The owners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":34584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[491],"tags":[1381,1382,693],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34578"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34586,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34578\/revisions\/34586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}