AUBURN - Don't keep off the grass.

Such was the message put forth Saturday, during a yearly seminar hosted by the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network (CLWN), which promoted the notion that farmers are not only the caretakers of the land, but of the water, as well.

As such, they should consider planting the optimum amount of grasses, the audience gathered in the Cayuga County Soil and Waters Conservation District, were told.

“I don't believe in silver bullets, but grass may be as close as it gets to being one, because it's good for wildlife, addresses agricultural production issues, energy production issues, and global warming. Grass is good,” said Keith Tidball, vice president of the CLWN.

But the challenge is, how to make it economically feasible.

While grass requires less maintenance than corn (which itself is technically a grass), Tidball said, cattle fed with grass often do not achieve the quality meat desired by consumers.

“The advantage to growing grass is a combination of it being a better filter (for groundwater runoff), and less intensive to get a crop. Corn means more trips on the tractor, fertilizer and pesticides,” he said, but conceded: “It's hard to finish beef on grass. Assuming you're a beef farmer, it may be a lot more challenging, until the market has a demand for grass-fed beef.”

With the tendency for that meat to be less tender, it is reliant upon consumer education to convince consumers that decreased quality is a fair sacrifice for good ecology.

“How do you value the fact that for $5 per pound, I'm protecting my water supply?” Tidball said.

Speakers from such sources as Cornell University, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Graze New York, gave presentations during the three-hour symposium, to raise awareness of the benefits of grass growing among ecologists and hunters, as well.

All speakers were invited based on a management group study of Cayuga Lake, which found contaminants, such as phosphorus, in sediments caused by runoffs from the surrounding land.

“That's why we as a watershed group hosted this program. We identified the key concerns. Farmers can help,” said Sharon Anderson, watershed steward for the CLWN. Grass, she explained, acts as a filter for rainfall runoff. It also helps hold the soil together, which prevents sediment.

Dr. Corinne Rutzke, executive director of the Northeast Sun Grant Initiative, and senior research associate of Cornell University, presented the supposition of utilizing grass crops as energy.

“By the year 2030, the goal of the Joint Biomass Technical Advisory Committee, is to obtain 5 percent of the nation's energy from biomass, and 25 percent of fuel from biomass,” she said.

To achieve this, according Rutzke, corn and wheat production must be increased by 50 percent, with 55 million acres of land dedicated to their production. That, however, could require utilizing some wildlife grasslands on conservation land preserves.

Indeed, a combination of corn, with grass, provides the best chemistry for biomass fuel, she said. While distribution of raw materials make the process cost-ineffectual over long distance, condensing the two into pellets reduces the amount of transportation.

“My husband and I bought a corn stove a couple of years ago. Let me tell you the impact that had on a farmer across the road from us. The farmer was renting his land for corn. He still had two silos of corn from the previous year, he sold for birdseed. By the end of last year, because of us and others who came to him by word of mouth, he had emptied both silos again, and was looking to buy more. We heated our house last year on two acres of corn,” Rutzke said. A mixture of grass pellets with corn pellets greatly improves burning efficiency, she added.

John Patterson, of Patterson Farms, in Auburn, asked a question concerning Carbon Grants. Carbon Grants, currently in use in the Midwest, are a method for industries that do not meet emissions standards to parley investment into such ecologically beneficial countermeasures as grass production - as grass absorbs carbon gas - to meet requirements. Such grants will soon be in place in the northeast, according to Brian Aldrich, agricultural educator with the Cornell Cooperative of Cayuga County.

Patterson, a dairy farmer, utilizes 2,400 acres of land, and has 1,000 milking cows. Grass is grown on 200 acres of his farmland. While he has received a Lake Friendly Farmer Award from the CLWN for such practices as using agronomic plants, such as alfalfa, and wheat, to neutralize manure; and for planting grass buffer strips between his farmland and water, the seminar was of little benefit to him, he said.

“None of this looks like an economical benefit to the farm. I'm not looking to grow crops for energy. They said that is still years away. I was hoping I could utilize some of the technology to help my nutrients on the farm. But no, it looked like the grass is going to leach back into the ground. I'm doing the best I can now, harvesting and feeding my cattle,” he said.

Still, his farm is ahead of the curve conservationally. Not only does it use a methane digester to create electricity, but it plans, in the future, to produce its own bio diesel fuel.

“We're going to try bio diesel crops to produce our own bio diesel fuel. We're growing soybean currently. But soybean creates its own nitrogen. I hope to grow canola, which will take nitrogen. That way I can utilize manure in the process,” Patterson said.