Presenter Matt McKinney gave an informative presentation on the Bently Ranch. The Bently Ranch is 13,000 acres and located in Minden off 395. Matt confirmed that the ranch is for sale but there have been no serious buyers. The owners (Chris Bently and his wife) have retained all of the employees and will wait for a buyer at the price they are asking for. Most of the ranch employees have worked there longer than Matt who has been there for 25 years.
The ranch won't be developed but "could make a couple of nice golf courses''. There are another 16,000 acres in the Pine Nut Mountains purchased years ago by the Bentlys that are being sold individually in 40-plus acre parcels. There is another 80 acres off Stephanie Lane in the hot springs area that may be developed into 1 acre lots (approval has been received from the planning commission and will be voted on by the county in November). This should protect the hot springs. They also have put 980 acres into the Herman Track Conservation Easement.
The ranch is open to the public. They accept green waste Monday - Friday and are the only facility that accepts wood waste. You can get free wood chips if you want. The ranch still grows all of the crops for the distillery - that contract was part of the distillery sale. As Matt described it, "think of it as a sister company and the sister went and got married." Foley won't be using the hops that are grown on the ranch, which is probably for the best since they are so water intensive.
The compost made from the green waste is the main source of fertilizer for the crops. They do lots of soil testing and change the compost mixture as needed. 85% of the irrigation is with the circular sprinklers. They still grow a lot of garlic (350 acres). Snyder out of Yerrington leases the land. Some are seed garlic which the main recipients are the San Jose area and Harris Ranch in California. The cattle part of the ranch has been reduced to about 500 dairy cattle. The butcher shop has been closed as they couldn't process/harvest the animals quick enough due to lack of facilities in Northern Nevada.
There have been lots of rumors about why Chris Bently pulled out of the area and moved to Scotland. According to Matt, the main reason is that Don Bently (Chris' dad) was the collector of all of the land and Chris "never personally bought into anything in Nevada" except the Distillery which he and his wife opened. COVID killed the distillery - it had only been opened a few months when COVID hit. Like the ranch, the Bently's kept all of the Distillery employees on payroll. Their new love is a castle in Scotland where they are putting their time and efforts in.
Matt McKinney Bio: Matt was born and raised in Wyoming and his parents were both from California. He attended Cal Poly where he received a BS in Ag Business as well as an MBA. He worked in Lodi at purebred cattle ranches for a couple of years before moving to Nevada. Matt has been with the ranch for 25 years as of October 21st. He served on the Planning Commission for a few years. He has been a 4H Leader for 15 years, the President of the Nevada Jr. Livestock and an avid FFA Supporter. He has 3 daughters - all in college currently. The oldest is working on her PhD at the University of Wisconsin in microbiology and the middle daughter is at Oklahoma State studying Ag Business. Matt is currently trying to start an ag loan program to help students at Douglas High purchase their first medium size animal to raise and sell.
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