The Bennett Trust presents two conferences each year: the Bennett Trust Land Stewardship Conference each spring, and the Bennett Trust Women’s Natural Resource Conference each fall.
Upcoming Conferences
Bennett Trust Women’s Conference: Girl Power: Texas Female Entrepreneurs
October 9-10, 2023
Inn on Barons Creek, Fredericksburg, TX
This year’s Bennett Trust Women’s Conference will include a keynote address, followed by presentations on prioritizing stewardship while managing brush in grasslands, using websites and apps for improved ranch management decisions, women’s panel discussion, and key Texas laws for landowners. The conference will also include a bus tour of local ranches, businesses, and wineries.
Conference agenda
Conference registration
About Our Conferences
Bennett Trust Land Stewardship Conference
This two day conference is held annually in the spring. As Dr. Rick Machen, AgriLife Extension livestock specialist from Uvalde, said of a past conference, “it will include the best and wisest, accomplished stewards, visionaries and legacy-leavers together as educators for this conference. Those with a passion for natural resource stewardship and a love for the Texas Hill Country will want to be there.”
Bennett Trust Women’s Natural Resource Conference
The first Bennett Trust Women’s Natural Resource Conference was conducted in October 2015 in Fredericksburg, Texas. It is an extension of the original Bennett Trust Land Stewardship Conference. As noted by Dr. Redmon of a previous conference, “We in AgriLife Extension recognize there are more and more ladies starting to take over land management not only here in the state of Texas, but also all over the U.S.,” said Dr. Larry Redmon, AgriLife Extension Bennett Trust specialist in College Station. “And we recognized we did not have a program developed just for ladies who might have a lot of questions about how to manage their piece of property,” Redmon said. “So we’ve developed a program that will be held in Fredericksburg every year.”
Past conference topics, presentations and tours
- History of Texas Hill Country plants, animals and early people found in the region
- Water cycle of the Hill Country and Edwards Plateau
- Aquifer reacharge and spring flow, drought, urban sprawl, rainwater harvesting
- Juniper impacts on rangeland health, herbivore-forage interaction, and stocking rate and infiltration versus runoff on the Edwards Plateau
- Estate planning, elder law, 1-D-1 Open Space land tax valuation, and leasing implications
- Which animal species combinations are appropriate for which properties and an update on forage crop insurance
- Using wildlife as agriculture to satisfy the 1-d-1 Open Space Lands tax valuation
- Identification of agencies with the ability to provide financial assistance for ranch ownership
- Pasture walking tour of the historic Hillingdon Ranch in Kendall County
- Agritourism tours of sustainable vineyards, orchards and gardens in Fredericksburg and Gillespie County