Oct. 17, 2023
Cows don’t necessarily need alfalfa or corn silage — they need energy, fiber, and protein. Forages with greater concentrations of these nutrients are ultimately more valuable to animals; however...


Oct. 13, 2023
It's the new “sexy” forage, also known as the cocktail mix; it’s mysterious, unknown, and risky...


Oct. 13, 2023
Thanks to research from Bill Weiss and Norm St-Pierre at The Ohio State University, we have a concrete understanding of the factors that contribute variance to feed sampling...


Sept. 19, 2023
To juice up the field day agenda I was attending, the organizers planned a round bale guessing game contest. One bale looked pretty normal while another was slumping worse than the Oakland Athle...


Sept. 12, 2023
With corn silage harvest underway — or almost underway — on many farms, crop fields will soon be ready to with seed winter forage. Wheat and rye are common cereal grains planted after corn f...


Sept. 12, 2023
Really dry or really wet — it doesn’t matter because both conditions can be lethal to new spring alfalfa seedings. Depending on where you hang your hat, weather extremes on either end of the spect...


Aug. 29, 2023
The critical fall period for alfalfa has been said to start roughly six weeks before the first killing frost, which is roughly around the first week of September for most of the Midwest. This hard sto...


Aug. 22, 2023
As I sit here in the Bozeman, Mont., airport waiting for the Boeing 737 with my name attached to it, I’m pondering the fact that once again orchardgrass has been a big part of this trip. Both the co...


Aug. 15, 2023
Enduring a drought is depleting for forages as well as farmers. Not only did the lack of rainfall through mid-summer limit yield and quality in hayfields across the country, but the dry weather has le...


July 25, 2023
With the turning of the calendar to August next week, the window opens for Northern regions to begin seeding alfalfa and alfalfa-grass mixtures. That window progresses to later dates as we move south...