The title of this article may provoke the response: Why in this day and age would a dairy farmer ever consider grazing?

Crop protection often refers to the field and to agronomy. In agronomy, crop protection can take different forms, including insecticides or fungicides, with both aiming to maintain plant health when c

Farmers make many critical decisions prior to, during, and after harvesting forages. These decisions directly impact how well forage will ferment and be preserved for future feedout

Right now, you are likely experiencing sticker shock from looking at nitrogen fertilizer prices in late 2021 compared to the prior year

Alfalfa is known for its high nutritional value, and that makes it a valued forage source. However, alfalfa is often hindered nutritionally because of the indigestible lignin components

Research by the USDA Agricultural Research Service at its station in Idaho found higher crop yields where livestock manure had previously been applied

Corn harvested for silage can be an economically efficient way to attain high per-acre yields of digestible nutrients for feeding dairy cattle. However, silage harvest leaves little crop residue to co

The challenging winters of recent years have impacted both alfalfa’s persistence and yield

Alternative forages, such as cereals, warm-season grasses like sorghum, and mixed blends of annual grasses and legumes (sometimes dubbed cocktail mixes), continue to be a consideration for many dairies

Wars start after several years of struggle and conflict. When war finally breaks out, multiple battles rage simultaneously on many fronts, as people fight for their existence

as agronomists working in the forage and dairy space, we are often in a conundrum over forage moisture and forage dry matter (DM)

We have come a long way in our understanding of fat mobilization in the past decades

The 2019 corn silage crop appears to have potential based upon early sample analysis summaries. However, the key word in this introduction is “potential.”

From a soil health perspective, small grains may be planted to protect the soil from wind and rain erosion, to reduce soil compaction and penetration resistance, to improve soil porosity and soil water...

High rainfall totals this past spring, often accompanied by flooding, left many farmers in the Corn Belt, the Upper Midwest, and the Northeast unable to plant corn until well after the recommended time

The business decision to purchase seed, grow, harvest, and then incorporate reduced-lignin forages into your high-performing dairy diets is more than a nutritional balancing act

On occasion, growers ask for advice on forage seed mixtures. When growers are considering new alfalfa seedings, their questions focus on what other legume or grass species to add with alfalfa, and how...

Tree bark and wood are robust analogies for the impact that lignin has within plant cell walls. Lignin is a structural component of plant cell walls, nested within both acid detergent (ADF) and neutral...

Cows being fed corn silage often tell two different tales when changing from old to new crop silage. In some years, the story is positive with a resulting uptick in animal health and performance. At o

Wiersma is the alfalfa business manager with DuPont Pioneer. Thomas is retired from the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute and president of Oak Point Agronomics Ltd. Soil fertility is an