Much gets written and discussed about making high-quality alfalfa. In fact, there could be an entire volume of Encyclopedia Britannica dedicated to the topic. If we were to list the factors involved...

July 2, 2019 • Hay acres in the U.S. are projected to be down only slightly in 2019 compared to last year, according to USDA’s Acreage report that was released last week. The decline totale...

If you grow alfalfa, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Aphanomyces root rot. It’s a disease that has dogged me my entire working career and it can take out a new seeding field in fairly shor...

June 4, 2019 • Alfalfa will be included in the next round of government facilitation payments being used to somewhat offset losses incurred by trade war tariffs. At this time, it’s unknown...

The record rainfall that has impacted a wide swath of the U.S. this spring and early summer has resulted in a large number of prevented planted acres. Many grain farmers, and no doubt some dairy and b...

If ever there was a year that prompted the strong desire to disregard alfalfa autotoxicity and write it off as a bad dream, this is it. The problem: It’s not a bad dream. This spring has provided...

It was nearly 10 years ago when I attended an agronomy field day in Arlington, Wis., and heard John Grabber speak about some initial research he was doing that entailed establishing alfalfa under sila...

Remember dust? That’s the stuff that develops when soils are dry. It has been missing in action this spring across a good chunk of the U.S. Last week, I had the chance to travel across several Mid...

A week ago, I emailed the manager at our company’s Hoard’s Dairyman Farm and asked him if they had contemplated cutting alfalfa yet.His response: “We’re going to cut some today, before the rai...

Working closely with growers the past 10 years, I too often recognized that high-quality forage didn’t materialize with a traditional harvest approach...