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, “Bu...

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...