Its complexities are many. It is both a blessing and a curse . . . loved and hated. Many have trouble living with it, but they would never engage the thought of living without it. This is the world of
Miller Adams created 50-foot corridors between every 50 feet of trees in his silvopasture system. He then seeded the open areas to switchgrass to promote better forage production during the summer
Making a drought management plan months before the grazing season begins is like having a head start in a race; however, it’s not too late to step up to the starting line
To have healthy, functioning grasslands that are nutritious as livestock forage, productive over time, resilient in the face of periodic droughts, that resist the erosive action of intense thunderstorms,
Who would have thought not too many years ago that crabgrass would reach the rock-star status it now enjoys? Even its name isn’t particularly enticing.Okay, maybe there are some of you who sti
Brock and Heidi Terrell are third-generation beef producers in northwest Nebraska. They don’t need convincing that strip grazing is the way to go when utilizing fall-grown cover crops for lactating
It might not appeal or even occur to cattle producers to bring sheep or goats into their grazing operation, but multispecies grazing can benefit the forage, the ecosystem, the cattle, and the bottom line.
The Year of the Great Inflation is how many people will remember 2022. Among the numerous things that inflated in 2022 was the price of nitrogen fertilizer. It seems every time the nitrogen price goes
Can soil really be considered healthy or unhealthy? Wouldn’t that require soil to be a living entity? How could this be if soil is made up of sand, silt, and clay particles and simply holds water
Dragging pastures is a spring ritual on many farms and ranches. Also known as harrowing or brushing in different localities, the process is meant to break up manure piles from the previous grazing sea
When I was about 5 years old, I desperately wanted to become a farmer like my grandfather and uncle. At that time, my family was living in the suburbs outside a large metropolitan area
Resiliency is the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. Weather occurrences such as drought are never welcomed, but there are proven strategies that will help cattle produc
Have you ever wondered why clay soils have such a good ability to absorb water? And yet, these same soils can become muddied and are prone to standing water in wheel tracks from vehicles traversing a
Alan Franzluebbers has been on a mission to better quantify the need for nitrogen in pasture systems. “If you have no nitrogen, then you have no yield,” said the USDA-ARS research scientist,
Photo: Emma Cotton/VTDiggerScott and Amber Hoyt operate an organic dairy farm in Vermont. Their recent experience provides a warning for others.In reading the January 25 issue of Hoard’s Dairy
Pastures are often the least-cost option for ruminant livestock production. In much of the Northeast, pasture and aftermath-grazed hay meadows are the largest portion of the agricultural acreage. Univ
Water flows downward according to gravity. If there is a hole in the bottom of a bucket, water drains out due to the pull of gravity. Without soil, a forage plant could potentially grow in a bucket wi
Interest in controlled grazing strategies have grown in recent years. This has largely been due to higher input costs. The promise of growing more grass with fewer inputs is intriguing, and some would
I grew up with conventional farming. Way back in the 1970s, most folks in farming thought that if you took a soil sample and applied the recommended amount of fertilizer, you were doing a good job of
