Nov. 27, 2018
When the calendar turned to 2018, there was good reason to believe that hay demand would easily support production barring any sort of widespread weather calamity. This optimism was buoyed by a strong export market and, at long last, the prospect for higher milk prices.It’s the dairy economy and export markets that most often dictate hay prices in the West.“Demand picked up from some dairies in May as the milk-price projection was $16.00 per hundredweight and higher...

Nov. 23, 2018
Bales Hay Sales in Buckeye, Ariz., is home to a constant flow of Phoenix-area customers looking to buy 95-pound, three-tie bales to fill their livestock needs. Many of their customers are local horse...

Nov. 23, 2018
If you’re like me, there’s still a good part of each day that is spent thinking. Just the other day, I was thinking about how many great ideas humanity has lost because, rather than thinking, time was being spent perusing a cell phone screen...

Nov. 20, 2018
Sitting comfortably reclined in my living room and watching the Weather Channel on the evening of October 11, I couldn’t believe the devastation. Hurricane Michael had made landfall on the Florida P...

Nov. 20, 2018
The onset of winter means digging into those stored forage inventories with the realization that any forage additions can only be accomplished in the form of outgoing cash.There are many good reasons...

Nov. 13, 2018
As alfalfa producers look to new varieties with the promise of improved fiber digestibility, don’t forget about some of the basics that will allow for full economic returns.That’s the advice from...

Nov. 6, 2018
“If you still think relative feed value (RFV) is a good measure of forage quality, I’m not going to be able to help you today.”...

Oct. 30, 2018
Many years ago, during my extension agent days, I got a phone call from a large dairy producer. The conversation went something like this:DP: “Mike, these seed salesmen are beating me up and I don�...

Oct. 23, 2018
Once you talk and listen to Tom Kestell, it won’t be something you’ll soon forget. His years of feeding a herd of dairy cows that now annually averages over 45,000 pounds of milk per cow have arme...

Oct. 16, 2018
Grass — any grass — is somewhat peculiar in that a specific species or variety likely will perform differently depending on what region or state it is grown in. That was just one of the take-home...