Now that mowers and balers are safely tucked away in machine sheds, and the focus shifts to marketing and selling the summer’s bounty. Hay marketing is a business that is built on trust and hon
Alfalfa’s high yields and forage quality make it a premier forage worldwide. If anything about alfalfa could be improved, most growers would want to extend stand longevity
“One of the major factors negatively impacting harvested alfalfa forage quality is leaf loss,” asserted David Weakley, director of forage research nutrition for Forage Genetics Internatinoal
How often have you harvested a beautiful field of alfalfa or a newly established stand of a high-quality variety of alfalfa, only to find out later that the lab test results were only average?
Forage producers differ greatly in their tolerance for weeds that invade hayfields or pastures. In the West, where hay is often grown for retail or export, there is nearly zero tolerance
It’s well known that the growing environment can impact the quality of forage. Cool temperatures generally are favorable for improving fiber digestibility, hot temperatures will speed plant maturity
One of the rituals here at the W.D. Hoard & Sons Company is that the editors of each magazine proof copy from all the other magazines. This being the case, I read a lot of articles on the care of
Measuring forage yield has never been easy, at least compared to weighing grain crops off the combine. During my university extension days, I spent many years dragging around heavy pad scales, one per
Although growers in the West and the South are well underway with this year’s alfalfa harvest, those in the Northern half of the U.S. are still greasing their mowers
The U.S. haymow is about 12% emptier today than it was one year ago.Based on USDA’s Crop Production report released last week, May 1 hay stocks dropped by almost 2.5 million tons
Although the popularity of game shows on television has never been higher, rarely do you hear questions that pertain to agriculture. One might argue that there needs to be a game show with
The rising value of protein over the last 10 months should cause dairy producers and dairy nutritionists to reconsider the value of alfalfa hay and silage in dairy rations