In New Jersey, farmland is helping researchers explore whether livestock farming and solar energy can successfully share the same land. At the center of the project a small herd of beef cattle are grazing between rows of vertical solar panels, which have been installed without replacing the grass beneath them. While the cows continue their normal routines of feeding, resting and roaming around the farm, scientists are monitoring how the panels affect both the animals and the farm’s farm.New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station: By measuring where cows choose to graze, rest and seek shade, as well as the quality of pasture, the project hopes to understand whether the land can continue to support healthy livestock without giving up its role in renewable energy production, according to the Rutgers Agrivoltaics program.
How cows in New Jersey are proving that farmland can produce food and electricity
The project is part of Rutgers University’s Agrivoltaics research program, which explores ways to use agricultural land for both food production and solar power.Unlike the tilted solar arrays commonly seen along roadsides or on dedicated solar farms, these panels stand vertically. They are also dioecious, meaning they collect sunlight from both sides. This arrangement leaves wide strips of pasture between each row, allowing room for cattle to graze and allowing farm machinery to continue operating.Rather than treating livestock as a barrier to renewable energy, the test asks whether grazing animals can remain a normal part of a functioning solar site.
How Blossom, Misty and Flurry are helping scientists study cattle behavior
The cattle involved belong to the teaching herd of Rutgers University, where they are already used for undergraduate agricultural education. Four Angus cows: Ideal, Queen, Fizzle and Blossom graze with two Herefords, Misty and Flurry.For researchers, the cows’ daily habits are as important as the grass beneath them. Cameras deployed around the site take photographs every five minutes, creating a detailed record of where each animal spends its time. This allows the team to compare whether cattle prefer areas closer to solar panels, remain in open pasture, or instead congregate under specially constructed shade shelters.The study also examines whether different layouts affect behavior. Some panel rows stand closer to each other than others, while the distance down the panels varies in different parts of the site. These subtle design differences can affect how freely cattle move around the pasture.
PC: Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program
Can pasture land remain productive under solar panels?
Research is not limited to animals. The grass is also being closely monitored.As the sun moves across the sky, vertical solar panels create changing bands of shade, creating small differences in temperature, humidity and light levels. Those changes can alter how fast the forage grows or affect its nutritional value to grazing animals.If pasture quality remains strong under these conditions, farmers can potentially continue to raise cattle without sacrificing productive pasture land for energy infrastructure. The answer is unlikely to be the same for each site, which is why detailed measurements during the growing season matter as much as the power generated over the farm.
How one region can produce both food and renewable energy
The experimental site has been carefully arranged so that different solar layouts can be compared under similar conditions.Three different replication blocks included control pastures with no solar panels as well as multiple panel configurations. Within each configuration, rows vary in spacing and ground clearance, making it possible to compare how design choices affect both vegetation and livestock behavior.Having repeated versions of each arrangement also strengthens the statistical reliability of the findings, making it less likely that differences are simply the result of weather or natural variation between pastures. This test reflects a broader question facing agriculture as demand for renewable energy continues to grow. Solar developments often compete with agricultural land, especially in areas where productive agricultural land is limited.Agrivoltaics offers a different approach by asking whether the same sector can serve more than one purpose. If pastures remain healthy and power generation continues efficiently, farmers may have another option to use their land without abandoning livestock production.For now, Blossom, Misty, Flurry, and the rest of the herd are following a familiar routine of grazing, resting, drinking, and roaming the pasture. Those common behaviors are providing researchers with the evidence needed to understand whether carefully designed solar arrays can become a practical part of everyday farming rather than replace it.