Soil test is a good tool, but it only tells part of the forage story

Tall fescue has become entrenched across the middle part of the eastern U.S., creating a region called the Tall Fescue Belt

“The turkey’s on fire!”That was how I was greeted at my parents’ house on Thanksgiving minutes before the rest of our family was supposed to arrive. No, the bird in the oven was

Effective animal management is essential for maintaining healthy pastures and maximizing forage production

It is common to hear from university faculty that stocker cattle and Kentucky 31 tall fescue are a bad combination due to the forage’s fungal endophyte and its impacts on animal performance

The cow-calf industry is set to see a few profitable years once again. The national beef cow inventory is at its lowest numbers in decades with USDA’s July 2023 count indicating a herd size 3% smaller

Many older perennial pastures could benefit from renovation. While we think of these as “permanent pastures,” we must realize perennial pastures evolve away from what was originally planted

I recently had a conversation with Dallas Mount, the CEO of Ranch Management Consultants, which is the parent company of the Ranching for Profit educational program

Over the past three years, we have been trying to identify if there is a decisive difference between using cereal rye, winter triticale, or winter wheat as a forage resource for beef cattle

When it comes to cow-calf production, it’s important to think about the big picture and how all decisions impact the operation. Is the goal to create a primary income for someone, generate supplementary

The development of forage harvesting equipment and silage bags has improved and facilitated the preservation of forages as silage. This technique allows us to preserve the excess forage production of the

When we combine the beef cow inventory of Tennessee with Kentucky, the number of cows managed pushes these states into the top five beef cow-calf states. The beef cow-calf sector of the southeastern U

The holidays, which offer a brief but welcomed distraction to winter feeding chores, have come and gone. For many during the past two weeks, we’ve experienced seasonal weather, followed by snow and

Due to drought and the lack of forage growth that comes along with it, hay inventories for the upcoming winter will be below normal expectations in many areas of the Midwest and Southern Great P

With high feed costs and areas plagued with drought, cow-calf producers are looking at options like early weaning, early pregnancy diagnosis to market open females sooner

It’s difficult to separate the animal and forage components of a pasture-based cow-calf system. Forage production and quality have peaks and valleys throughout the year, and the same can be tr

Drought has had a large impact on feed inventories and prices, causing many operations to assess and reduce feed costs

Performance of grazing animals is primarily affected by forage quality, the animal’s ability to select plant parts, and forage intake

Extremely dry conditions across parts of the country are forcing many cattle producers to make tough culling decisions due to a lack of feed available for their herds. When developing criteria for cul

Forages and grazing programs serve as the foundation of most cow-calf operations; thus, sound grazing strategies and forage management practices are vital for operational success