Craig Sheaffer has worked with alfalfa his entire academic career. The University of Minnesota researcher can reel off a bevy of advantages that alfalfa adds to a farm’s cropping and feeding systems

Photo: Robert Webster There are lots of things in life that rarely occur. The Chicago Cubs, for example, take home a World Series title about once per century. The Kansas City Chiefs are particip

Gary Bates is a self-proclaimed world’s expert on forage establishment failures. “Nobody has made more mistakes than me,” he said with tongue in cheek.The director of the University of

As the growing season comes to an end, the hay buying and selling season begins. It’s still amazing how many round bales get sold on a per bale/roll basis rather than by weight

I know a lot of farmers are glad to see #Harvest19 come to an end. It sure has been a trying year for most. Our planting and harvest windows seem to shorten every year, and we need to be prepared

Natalie Shaw was working as the equine specialist for a major livestock nutrition company when she asked Steve Fransen what needed to be done to boost the supply of available teff grass hay for horse

Let’s start with this: Depending on where you’re driving down the road, the vast majority of bales you see sitting in the field or in barns will either be of the large round or large square

It’s here. No, I’m not talking about the traditional holiday season. Rather, I’m referring to the epicenter of the seed-buying season. Let’s face it, late-year seed purchases help

Tall fescue is widely adapted to the eastern United States and considered a valuable grass for livestock production. Fescue is also known for being a hardy and drought tolerant plan

Water does not contribute to your forage economic value when balancing diets or pricing forage. Instead, the water is dried off, and it’s the grams (g) of nutrients and minerals per 100 g of total

Choosing the correct location for a hay barn can be a challenge. You might choose different locations depending on where you bale hay, how the farm is laid out, and whether you plan to sell your hay or

If you grow alfalfa, and if you grow corn for silage or grain, not taking advantage of the nitrogen provided by a terminated alfalfa crop is like flipping dollar bills into the toilet.Apparently, this

Tall fescue is the dominant forage species used in the eastern United States. Being a cool-season grass, it provides grazing during the spring and fall for many livestock producers around the

I found myself sitting in a pasture, camera in hand, amongst a group of very docile Angus heifers at the East Tennessee Research and Education Center a few miles south of Knoxville

Most married folks learn over time it is often beneficial to avoid known topics of controversary, especially when they involve the other’s small quirks. Such a strategy just leads to a more happy

As the growing season comes to an end, the hay buying and selling season begins.It’s still amazing how many round bales get sold on a per bale/roll basis rather than by weight. It’s a practice

Alfalfa has been identified as one of the crops that is eligible for government payments to farmers as a result of the retaliatory tariffs imposed by China on agricultural crops — alfalfa hay among

Four years. That’s how long the HarvXtra trait has been in the alfalfa grower’s toolbox and likewise growing in farm fields. I know of at least one farmer who has 1,200 acres of HarvXtra alfalfa

Alfalfa has long been a staple forage across most of United States. That “most” could be changed to “all” if not for the Southeastern states where alfalfa has historically been

Wherever I traveled this summer, a common theme was that the spring and early summer were extremely wet. This caused problems getting any high-quality hay made, but it also was problematic from the st