After the speaker spent the better part of 45 minutes discussing the virtues of high forage fiber digestibility, he opened the floor up for questions. First out of the chute came this question in the...

Harvesting hay from the road right-of-way is a common practice in many parts of the United States. While the phrase “It’s better than feeding snowballs” is often associated with road ditch hay...

Never, ever complain or worry about a dry late winter and early spring.We’ve probably all done this and perhaps still do, but more often than not Mother Nature evens the score in May and June...

It could be said that cereal forages don’t have a maturity window for harvesting high-quality forage but rather a harvest peephole...

There was a day not too many years ago when virtually all fermented forage in the Midwest was stored in permanent, upright silos. These days, a significant percentage is stored either under or w...

Perhaps no physiological phenomenon is more important to the livestock industry than that of plant regrowth. Where would we be without it? Regrowth occurs each spring after winter dormancy, foll...

Long-time nutritionist Steve Woodford (left) and Tom Kestell regularly discuss forage quality tests and associated ration adjustments for Kestell’s high-producing dairy herd...

Cows aren’t the only creatures that like to eat alfalfa; count alfalfa weevils in that group as well.Entomologists across the U.S. are either filing reports of already severe alfalfa damage from wee...

Here we go — the start of another growing season. In some areas of the U.S., the initial cutting of alfalfa is underway; for others, it is near, while some are just starting to watch the first signs of growing plants.The initial spring cutting of alfalfa can make or break a harvest season. It’s a fascinating study of how forage quality can change ever so quickly, or how it may change at a tortoise-like pace.Why?No cutting of alfalfa grows under the environmental...

It’s that time of year when some hay, livestock, and dairy producers will seek available hayfields to bolster their own forage supplies.When you sit in an extension office as I did for 27 years, the...