One of the challenges of growing alfalfa is the potential for winter injury and stand thinning or loss

Across much of the Midwest, the hope for a perfect growing season has already been dashed as planters and forage harvesters sit idle in barn sheds as one of the wettest springs in recent memory imposes...

Spring means alfalfa scouting and corn planting. Gear up for another year

Last week, I officially shed the winter coat and put it away. I’m not talking away, away because I’ve now lived in Wisconsin long enough to understand that sometimes April will pretend to be...

The dramatic climb in the use of winter grains for very high-quality forage, which also protects the environment in a sustainable manner, has opened a new forage rotation window of opportunity

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

It was a very wet fall for some regions of the country, including the Midwest. That made corn silage harvest a challenge to say the least

No-till and cover crops improve soil health, but benefits of these cropping methods also reach the pocketbook

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...

While not a devastating year for growing crops, it certainly was not ideal. Weather, milk prices, and export bureaucracy have left many feeling a bit underwhelmed

The feed supply: the quality cards we’ve been dealt presented by Mike Hutjens, University of Illinois and Mike Rankin, Hay & Forage Grower magazine

Mike Rankin and Mike Hutjens, forage feeding specialists, will reviewed 2018 forage and crop yields, pricing, quality, and availability parameters. Additionally, supplements and by-product feeds was summarized,...

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...

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

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

As farmers get their choppers, trucks, and tractors ready to chop and store corn silage, there is one other thing they should plan out ahead of time this chopping season – testing your kernel processor

With a growing world population, we hear time and again that we will have to feed more people with fewer farmers and less resources

The lowdown on

There’s a lot of interest in sulfur fertilization these days. Environmental efforts to reduce air pollution have been highly successful, and much less sulfur is now deposited on cropland via precipitation

There’s considerable interest in reduced-lignin alfalfa, which comes from both genetically modified varieties and those developed using conventional plant breeding. Reduced-lignin alfalfa can provide very...