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June - The Petty Family’s Iowa River Ranch
2007-11-04
Along the eastern bank of the Iowa River, Dave and Dian Petty’s cow/calf, cattle-feeding, and crop operation stretches for seven miles between Eldora and Union and spans nearly 3,000 acres. About half of the land is rented from twenty neighbors; the Petty’s own the rest.
Dave has made a career of taking marginal cropland and overgrazed pastures and turning them into profit on his Iowa River Ranch. “I began renting small pastures when no one else wanted to do that,” he explains. “Much of this land along the river was rough ground and not suited to farming.”
Dave reseeded pastures and turned the marginal crop fields into forage. Now the rolling hills, wooded ravines, and river bottomland are perfect for grazing the Petty’s five-hundred-head Angus herd. Good business and good stewardship go hand-in-hand for these Iowa beef producers.
Adapted from story written by Laura J. Miller Photo by Jerry DeWitt
