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We're here to help farmers and ranchers apply regenerative ranching principles.

09/25/2026

Two courses. Four days. One of the most practical combinations Noble Research Institute offers.

Noble Grazing Essentials runs Oct. 6-8 on Noble's main campus in Ardmore — three days of hands-on grazing management covering forage evaluation, carrying capacity, stocking rate calculations and building a grazing plan that works for your land. Then, on Oct. 9, the Prescribed Burn Workshop at Noble's Oswalt Ranch picks up where grazing management leaves off, with four hands-on learning stations that show how prescribed fire fits into a practical land management plan.

Grazing management and prescribed fire aren't separate conversations. Used together, they're two of the most powerful tools a producer has for improving forage diversity, managing brush encroachment and building long-term soil health. Attending both gives you a full picture of how they work together on the ground.

Bundle the two and save $50 off the Prescribed Burn Workshop. Registration for both closes Oct. 2.
Register for Noble Grazing Essentials: https://shop.noble.org/products/noble-grazing-essentials-ardmore-ok-october-6-8-2026

Register for the Prescribed Burn Workshop: https://shop.noble.org/collections/all/products/prescribed-burn-workshop-ardmore-ok-october-9-2026

09/24/2026

Thank you for showing up for Noble Giving Day! Every gift helps put education, tools and resources into the hands of farmers and ranchers working to build healthier soil, stronger operations and a better future for the land. To everyone who gave, shared and helped spread the word: thank you for investing in the people who care for our land every day. Noble Giving Day may be over, but the impact of your generosity is just getting started.

09/23/2026

The Fall 2026 issue of Noble's Legacy magazine is here — and the cover story is one that stays with you.

Ben Minden was an Army Ranger who finished his military service on a Friday, loaded his horses into a trailer and drove to Montana to build his house. He didn't have a solid plan. He had a piece of land, a love of horses and a hunch that ranching might offer something close to what the military had given him.
It did. And it gave him an idea.

In 2021, Minden founded Bear Hug Cattle Company, a nonprofit in Wilsall, Montana, that fast-tracks veterans into ranching careers through a rigorous 10-week program. More than 100 veterans apply each year. Four are accepted. The program has helped graduates find second careers in an industry that turns out to have a lot in common with military service.

"The No. 1 thing veterans need when they get out is a sense of purpose," says Minden. "And ranching gives you that in a serious way."

"In ranching, you get a second family right away. You're around good people; you get to make relationships right away that are going to be lifelong friends and mentors. It doesn't really feel like you're leaving behind all the things you like — community, purpose and strong values."

Read the full story in the Fall 2026 issue of Noble's Legacy magazine — and subscribe to have future issues delivered directly to you: https://www.noble.org/legacy/2026-fall/finding-meaning-after-the-military/

09/22/2026

Consider this your timeline cleanse.

Sometimes the best thing we can share is what this work actually looks like. Healthy land doesn't just produce more grass or more profit. It brings pollinators back to the pasture, songbirds back to the fence line and wildlife back to land that had been quiet for years. It shows up in a sunrise over a well-rested paddock and in the color of a hillside that hasn't looked that way in decades.

This is what regenerative ranching looks like beyond the data — and it's one of the best reasons to keep doing the work.

09/21/2026

Shannon Ferrell, agricultural law professor at Oklahoma State University, has a message for Oklahoma farm and ranch families — and it starts with a question most producers have been putting off.

Noble Research Institute and OSU Extension are partnering to bring the Farm Transition Workshop to producers across Oklahoma this fall, kicking off in Ardmore on Sept. 25 at Southern Tech Center from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Workshops follow in Claremore, Guymon, Lawton and Woodward through November.

"Keeping farmers and ranchers on the land is at the foundation of our work," says Noble president and CEO Steve Rhines. "A successful transition is just as vital to that mission as healthy soil or sound grazing management. Land stewardship only continues if there's a next generation ready to carry it forward."

Participants leave with an action plan, at least three concrete steps to take within the first month and continued support through OSU Extension throughout the project. Registration includes the Farm Transition Workbook, meals and breaks. Fees start at $75, with pricing structured to encourage multi-generational attendance.

Register at https://secure.touchnet.com/C20271_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=68&CATID=904

09/19/2026

Today is Noble Giving Day.

For more than 80 years, Noble Research Institute has worked alongside farmers and ranchers to strengthen the land they depend on and help agriculture thrive for generations to come. Your gift helps continue that work by equipping producers with the knowledge, tools and support they need to improve soil health, build more resilient operations and care for the land that sustains us all.

This Noble Giving Day, you can be part of that legacy. Give today and help build a stronger future for our land, agriculture and the communities that depend on both.

https://www.noble.org/get-involved/noble-giving-day/

09/18/2026

True or False: Regenerative farms and ranches can support more than four times as many insect species.
Answer: True.

A healthy landscape is buzzing with life. Research found regenerative farms and ranches supported 4.5x more insect species. That diversity matters because insects play an important role in pollination, food webs and the ecosystems that birds and other wildlife depend on.

When farmers and ranchers manage with the whole ecosystem in mind, the benefits can reach far beyond the pasture. This Noble Giving Day, you can help provide producers with the knowledge and skills to care for their land and the life it supports.

This Noble Giving Day, September 19, invest in the people caring for the land and help give wildlife, pollinators and healthy ecosystems more places to thrive: https://www.noble.org/get-involved/noble-giving-day/.

09/16/2026

Colleen Withers ranches with her husband Matt on Withers Ranch in Paisley, Oregon — a seventh-generation operation in the high desert on the western edge of the Great Basin, where 8 to 11 inches of annual rainfall, vast public land allotments and terrain that requires horses rather than ATVs make for a ranching context unlike most anywhere in the country.

She recently sat down with the Ranching Returns Podcast to share the full story — the ranch's history stretching back to 1872, the family's involvement in the Country Natural Beef cooperative, their approach to succession planning across four generations currently active on the ranch and what it was like to drive six hours to attend Noble Profitability Essentials in Pendleton, Oregon.

"I don't know if these guys come west of the Rockies," Colleen says of first discovering Noble. "This is a really unique opportunity for an organization with that amount of reach and resources to be coming to Oregon."

What she found was a course less about spreadsheets and more about rethinking what she valued as a ranching family. "Noble really challenges ranchers to recognize that you can survive the tough times, you can thrive even in hard times," Colleen says. "That's the direction we're trying to go."

She's since joined Noble's Producer Advisory Panel and brought Noble's senior regenerative ranching advisor and consultant, Steven Smith, to Paisley to see the operation firsthand. Her takeaway on whether Noble's principles transfer to Oregon's high desert: "The principle remains the same, but the context doesn't."

Listen to Episode 283 of the Ranching Returns Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGXqD7mM2s4

09/15/2026

Prescribed fire is one of the most effective land management tools available — and one of the most misunderstood. Noble Research Institute's upcoming Prescribed Burn Workshop gives producers a hands-on introduction to how fire can fit into a practical grazing management plan.

The one-day workshop takes place Oct. 9 at Noble's Oswalt Ranch, running from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT. Participants will rotate through four hands-on learning stations covering the principles, planning and application of prescribed burning before coming together for a live burn demonstration. The day wraps up with a debrief to discuss what happened during the burn, what participants observed and how those lessons apply to their own land.

Whether you're considering prescribed fire for the first time or looking to better understand how it can work alongside your existing grazing management, this workshop provides practical, real-world exposure to the process.

Registration is $75 — and producers attending Noble Grazing Essentials in Ardmore, Oct. 6-8, can add the workshop as a bundle and save $50.

Registration closes Oct. 2. Seats are limited.

Register here: https://shop.noble.org/collections/all/products/prescribed-burn-workshop-ardmore-ok-october-9-2026

09/14/2026

Most horse pastures on working ranches are managed as an afterthought — a small, overused trap near the house that gets whatever the cattle don't need. Noble general ranch manager Joe Pokay used to think the same way — until he started applying adaptive grazing principles to his working horses and watched the land respond.

"Every acre matters," Pokay says. "If I apply the same principles to the 25 acres my horses graze as I do to the rest of the ranch, it'll benefit from the same positive effects: fresh grass, better nutrition, better health for the animals, better health for the soil."

This Noble Rancher article walks through five practical lessons Pokay has learned grazing horses within a regenerative management plan. Horses do graze differently than ruminants — they have top teeth, tend to graze closer to the ground and can be selective in ways that leave tall, oxidizing plants behind. But the core principles of stock density, plant rest and recovery and frequent observation still apply.

One of the more creative solutions he's landed on: an inverted-triangle paddock with water in the middle of the wide base. As he moves horses toward the triangle's point, the paddock gets incrementally smaller — giving the high-traffic area near water the same grazing impact as the larger sections further away.

"Remember, at this scale, you're building fence in feet, not miles," Pokay says.

Read the full article: https://www.noble.org/regenerative-agriculture/dont-forget-your-horses-when-making-regenerative-grazing-plans/

Address

2510 Sam Noble Pkwy
Ardmore, OK
73401

Opening Hours

Monday	8am - 5pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm

Telephone

(580) 223-5810

Website

http://www.noble.org/

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