One year ago, alfalfa hay prices were in an epic stall pattern dating back to mid-2019. The average price for alfalfa hay (all qualities) essentially hovered in the $170 to $180 per ton range for month after month. That situation rapidly changed during 2021 when average alfalfa hay prices soared from $171 per ton in January to $213 in October. The price of alfalfa hay increased every month through October, the last reported month as of this writing. The average price...

It’s been another year of farm and ranch struggles and successes. If you weren’t always locked in on eHay Weekly every Tuesday morning, here’s a list of the 10 most popular articles that filtere...

There will be a lot of gift wrapping going on this week. It’s my opinion that the ability to wrap gifts correctly and neatly is a genetic trait that is either inherited or must be learned...

Since the Clean Air Act of 1970 was enacted, precipitation that is laden with sulfur, dubbed acid rain, has all but disappeared. That’s a good thing, but this change has some agronomic ramifications...

It was an easy sell . . . well . . . kind of. As an extension agent in one of the biggest dairy counties in Wisconsin, the large majority of farmers I worked with had corn-alfalfa rotations with...

Photo: Wayne Coblentz, USDA-ARSIn a recent social media post, a beef producer was bragging about the fact that his cows were loving some hay that was put up too wet. “It got hotter than it should ha...

Greg Halich is an economist by trade. He puts together full and partial budgets on everything from corn to hay and spends time in the classroom molding younger minds about the intricacies of futures a...

Winter annual cereal crops provide beneficial soil cover through the late fall, winter, and spring, but they also are an excellent forage source that can be incorporated into dairy rations...

Patience is a virtue for many things in life, and it’s certainly a desirable trait when grazing small grain forages. “Research indicates that forage intake and animal performance is limited w...

It was a trifecta of market movers that drove hay prices to record levels in 2021. That trio of factors included drought, economic fallout from the COVID-19 lockdown, and a significant commodity...