A week ago, I emailed the manager at our company’s Hoard’s Dairyman Farm and asked him if they had contemplated cutting alfalfa yet.His response: “We’re going to cut some today,

Working closely with growers the past 10 years, I too often recognized that high-quality forage didn’t materialize with a traditional harvest approach

Alfalfa is an important livestock feed, especially for dairy production and horses. Genetically-modified (GMO) resistance to glyphosate herbicide became available to farmers in 2011

Most alfalfa producers count on the first harvest in late spring to deliver the highest tonnage and best quality of forage of the year

The bermudagrass stem maggot (BSM; Atherigona reversura Villenueve) has severely damaged bermudagrass pastures and hayfields throughout the southeast U.S. since it was first discovered in southern Georgia

The blue alfalfa aphid is again present in many southwestern U.S. alfalfa fields. Growers and pest control advisers were hoping that 2019 would be a break from the annual battles they have been fighting

I recently rode with a hay seller to a Lancaster, Pa., hay auction and this article came to mind as I graded the quality of the hay, straw, and corn stover loads while buyers were bidding

Planning for next winter’s hay needs is a process that should begin now, before the hustle and bustle of summer arrives. Have you considered the type of hay-binding material you will use?

Name any Upper Midwest state and there’s a good chance widespread alfalfa winterkill is being discussed.Although no year is a good year to be looking at brown alfalfa fields in the spring, the timin

It’s true. When it comes to alfalfa, the holy grail is to achieve high yields, high quality, and a long stand life. The latter is often called persistence.We’ve talked about these production

The California dairy and alfalfa industries have been a largely successful, symbiotic duo for a very long time. However, the days of spreading alfalfa bales along a bunkline and feeding cows grain mix

John GoeserForages bring a variety of different facets to dairy and beef diets. The physically effective fiber and energy values for forages are often the focal point with nutritionists

What was once a minor curiosity has fully emerged as a major market for western U.S. hay products. Who could imagine a hay crop produced in Bakersfield would feed a cow in Beijing or Buraydah?

What agronomic traits might the perfect alfalfa variety possess? The laundry list could get pretty long and may slightly vary between individuals, but I’m sure “high yielding” would

Let’s get beyond the discussion whether storing hay in a barn versus outside on the ground is a paying proposition. It is.Instead, let’s focus on building the right hay barn for your needs

Experiencing the National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance’s (NAFA) Alfalfa Intensive Training Seminar (AITS) is like “drinking out of a fire hose; there is a lot of information in a short period

Fertilizer is and has always been a significant production expense whether you are growing corn, alfalfa, or pasture forage. Like humans, plants need nutrients for maintenance and growth, and there’

It’s January. Are you feeding hay or are the cows still out on stockpiled pastures? Perhaps both resources are being utilized.Making hay has become a dirty word in many grazing circles, yet the

Low-lignin forages are a hot topic in agriculture. With high digestibility and improved milk yield, it’s easy to understand why BMR (brown midrib) corn hybrids and reduced-lignin alfalfa varieties

Throughout the United States, a lot of alfalfa is grown with grass. This is sometimes done by design, but other times it occurs unintentionally. In some areas, grass is very well adapted