It might not appeal or even occur to cattle producers to bring sheep or goats into their grazing operation, but multispecies grazing can benefit the forage, the ecosystem, the cattle, and the bottom line. This is especially true when transitioning to regenerative grazing...

The Year of the Great Inflation is how many people will remember 2022. Among the numerous things that inflated in 2022 was the price of nitrogen fertilizer. It seems every time the nitrogen price goes up, there is a surge of interest in interseeding legumes in pastures and hayfields. Should times of high fertilizer prices be the only time we think about legumes as a nitrogen source for our pastures?...

Can soil really be considered healthy or unhealthy? Wouldn’t that require soil to be a living entity? How could this be if soil is made up of sand, silt, and clay particles and simply holds water and air as a medium for anchoring plants to the earth?...

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...