Don’t be surprised if you find friendly fish swimming around pasture water tanks on some farms. As crazy as it may seem, keeping goldfish in water tanks has been reported as a method to keep water c...

It’s been a wet growing season — one of the wettest in recent memory — and harvest conditions have been less than ideal. Some first crop alfalfa and small grain silages that have been harvested...

Photo credit: Russ Higgins, University of Illinois After a spring of rain, humidity, and cool temperatures, the Midwest is susceptible to another year of depleted yields and low-quality silage...

Water is key for the survival of animals and plants; however, its quality can play just as big of a role for an animal to thrive and grow on pasture. In a Noble News and Views article, Caitlin Hebber...

Concerns are continuing to grow in the South about the possibility that toxicity associated with forage grasses is creating health issues in livestock and endangered wildlife. With the hope of determi...

After being brought to the forefront by studies done at the Noble Research Institute (Ardmore, Okla.), crabgrass began gaining favor as a high-quality forage alternative. Many farmers are now consider...

The traditional ways of getting hay to dry haven’t changed in a decade, but the weather patterns are changing more each year . . . and frankly, not for the better. With conditions being wetter than...

This spring has not been a kind one to farmers; it’s wet, and the forecast continues to call for more rain. Fields are being left unplanted, and hay is losing nutrition with each passing day.If current weather patterns continue, this sets up a scenario where hay harvest moisture is pushed to the limit or cut hay gets rained on.Do you bale wet hay with the risk of it heating and producing mold, or do you continue to let the nutritional value of the crop drop?For those...

With winter resulting in substantial winterkill and a wet spring delaying harvests, a lot of high-quality forage has been turned into, at best, heifer feed. There is justified concern about forage inv...

Transitioning some of your grazing acres to native, warm-season perennials can pose a utilization challenge. Pat Keyser, director of the Center of Native Grasslands Management at the University of Tennessee, recommends a goal of seeding about 30 percent of pastures into natives for a typical Fescue Belt beef cattle operation. He does not suggest seeding this acreage all at once, but rather to use an incremental approach, seeding only a few acres at a time...