Feb. 25 2020 Craig Sheaffer has worked with alfalfa his entire academic career. The University of Minnesota researcher can reel off a bevy of advantages that alfalfa adds to a farm’s cropping and feeding systems
Feb. 11 2020 For the second time in three years, total U.S. hay exports in 2019 eclipsed 4 million metric tons (MT). This was accomplished despite the flurry of trade battles that waged on and off during the past
Feb. 11 2020 Pitchers and catchers report to Major League baseball spring training camps this week. Beginning in the South, that’s a cue to be thinking about frost seeding pastures to bolster both productivity...
Feb. 4 2020 Pick a cow . . . any cow. How tolerant is she to fescue toxicosis? The truth is: We don’t always know. But how great would it be if we did? I’m convinced that someday we will select bulls and
Feb. 4 2020 There was a day when establishing alfalfa with a cereal grain companion crop was a standard operating procedure; then, better herbicide options were brought to market.Although companion crops are not
Jan. 28 2020 Photo: Robert Webster There are lots of things in life that rarely occur. The Chicago Cubs, for example, take home a World Series title about once per century. The Kansas City Chiefs are particip
Jan. 21 2020 Gary Bates is a self-proclaimed world’s expert on forage establishment failures. “Nobody has made more mistakes than me,” he said with tongue in cheek.The director of the University of...
Jan. 14 2020 The annual slug of hay and forage data that defines the previous year’s hay production and year-ending inventories arrived in inboxes last Friday. The USDA’s Crop Production and Crop Production...
Jan. 13 2020 As the growing season comes to an end, the hay buying and selling season begins. It’s still amazing how many round bales get sold on a per bale/roll basis rather than by weight
Jan. 13 2020 Richie Rainville grew up on a dairy farm in the far northern reaches of Vermont, near the town of Highgate and about 2 miles from the Canadian border
Jan. 7 2020 We’ve all used rules of thumb in our daily decision-making processes. Such rules or axioms are generally helpful and, more often than not, result in favorable outcomes.Farming and ranching don’t...
Dec. 31 2019 Natalie Shaw was working as the equine specialist for a major livestock nutrition company when she asked Steve Fransen what needed to be done to boost the supply of available teff grass hay for horse
Dec. 24 2019 Let’s start with this: Depending on where you’re driving down the road, the vast majority of bales you see sitting in the field or in barns will either be of the large round or large square...
Dec. 17 2019 In 1986, Carl Hoveland, former University of Georgia extension forage specialist, wrote, “The greatest opportunity for improving profitability in Southeastern beef production lies in stockering wean
Dec. 10 2019 Pressure on hay prices during 2019 came from all angles, according to Josh Callen, coauthor of The Hoyt Report. Callen recently spoke to the over 400 attendees at the Western Alfalfa & Forage Symp
Dec. 3 2019 The average U.S. alfalfa hay price during October dropped $2 per ton after going up by that same amount in September.The latest USDA Agricultural Prices report pegged alfalfa at $179 per ton, which wa
Dec. 3 2019 It’s here. No, I’m not talking about the traditional holiday season. Rather, I’m referring to the epicenter of the seed-buying season. Let’s face it, late-year seed purchases help...
