Hay & Forage Grower - Apr/May 2023

April/May 2023 hayandforage.com

Stop winter calving! pg 8

Forages can raise the resilience baseline pg 14

Build silage piles with removal rates in mind pg 26

Forage seeding tech has advanced pg 28

This timothy producer takes fields nobody wants

This self-made western Idaho farmer was one of the first in the area to produce timothy hay for exporting. Most of it is grown on marginal land.

MANAGING EDITOR Michael C. Rankin

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DEPARTMENTS

4

Can the South help curb the alfalfa trend line?

Well-respected plant breeder Joe Bouton explains why the South is a largely untapped region for successful alfalfa production.

Forage seeding tech has advanced

Air seeders have changed the way many row crops are planted. Now they are being used for small-seed forage crops, too.

11

11

SILAGE IS NO ACCIDENT

IS THERE A BEST MIDWEST CEREAL OPTION?

16 ALFALFA FED IN PREPARTUM DAIRY DIETS

22 A UNIQUE ROAD TO BEEF-GRAZING SUCCESS

26

BUILD SILAGE PILES WITH REMOVAL RATES IN MIND

29 CORN SILAGE DISCONNECTS

12 GETTING TO THE ROOT OF SOIL HEALTH 14 FORAGES CAN RAISE THE RESILIENCE BASELINE

Steve and Judy Freeman, along with their dog, Annie, are shown surveying their herd of South Poll cattle. Their Missouri farm rests in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The former “city kids” have developed a top-notch grazing operation and currently run 180 brood cows on 900 grazeable acres, consisting mostly of tall fescue. Read more about this successful cow-calf operation beginning on Page 22.

Photo by Mike Rankin

What’s old is new again

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

CHOICES: We make them every day. Some seem big, others less significant, but only time can truly measure the magnitude of choice outcomes.

When large square and large round balers were introduced, many haymakers made the decision to relegate their small square baler to the scrap heap along with the need for excessive manual labor. The eventual demise of the small square bale was widely predicted.

Like many kids who grew up or worked on farms, I have the methodic and rhythmic sounds of the plunger, needles, and knotters stamped on my brain. Those were the days of flat racks, balekicker wagons, and hay elevators. These tools of the trade no longer define the small square bale enterprise as they once did.

To be sure, large hay packages dominate the rural landscape, but the small square bale has somehow remained relevant. This is so because some haymakers have refused to let small square bales die a slow death. In doing so, they took it upon themselves to design and build tools and implements that removed sweat labor out of small square bale production. These days, farmers who produce large numbers of small square bales have mechanized the enterprise from field to customer. Hay hooks are left hanging on the wall.

The ability of the small square bale to remain a viable commodity has resulted in something that I think many people thought would never happen. After more than 30 years of essentially zero research and development in small square balers, multiple farm machinery manufacturers are now marketing or will soon offer balers with significant technological advances, ranging from on-board flake counters to double balers. There are also smaller companies marketing tech tools and hardware that further enhance baling operations. This type of investment was thought inconceivable only a few short years ago.

Perhaps a pertinent question to ask is: What is sustaining a viable — and perhaps growing — small square bale industry?

I think the answer comes down to one animal species — horses, or more specifically, horse owners. Small ruminant markets also play a role. For haymakers who have stuck with the

small square bale market, they have experienced a steady demand from an equine and retail feed supply market that much prefers bales that accommodate close human interaction.

In the March issue of Hay & Forage Grower, Krista Lea from the University of Kentucky reported on a recent national survey of horse owners. Respondents ranked bale size as the third most important factor when purchasing hay. Bale size, with small square bales preferred, followed only hay price and dealer reputation as the top three considerations. Many hobby farms don’t have the space or equipment to deal with large hay packages, and they’re willing to pay for the convenience of smaller bales.

Although there are many individual horse owners who buy direct from the hay producer, there is also a large retail feed supply and racetrack market for small square bales. These markets can be lucrative. A past study published in the Agronomy Journal found that small square bales sold, on average, for $105 more per ton than their large round bale counterparts over a period of years at one Kentucky auction.

In the Western states, three-tie bales remain a common commodity and are desired by not only horse owners, of which there are many, but also export customers. Many commercial hay producers in the West split their production into large square bales and small three-tie bales. Slicing and dicing large square bales into small-bale bundles is also common.

These days, technology now offers multiple options in various price ranges to collect and stack small square bales out of the field. There are even easy methods for loading flatbed and van semitrailers without hand labor. It’s these handling innovations that have largely kept the small square bale industry viable for the producer and reduced the massive labor requirement of years gone by.

Small square bales will never dominate the hay market, but it’s also not time to issue last rites. If it was, equipment companies wouldn’t be investing in the enterprise. Hay producers who have chosen to traverse the small square road will continue to profit from a lucrative niche market. •

Happy foraging,

Mike Rankin Managing Editor

THIS TIMOTHY PRODUCER TAKES FIELDS NOBODY WANTS

by Mike Rankin

IT’S not Idaho’s Magic Valley, nor is it Washington’s fertile Columbia Basin. Rather, it’s the land in between, located on the western edge of Idaho in the far eastern Palouse region. Here, in Idaho’s Panhandle, is where Wade Simons and his wife, Edie, have built a successful farm business, leasing land that, by their own admission, “most farmers don’t want.”

Simons, who originally grew up on a small farm in northeast Washington, graduated from the University of Idaho-Moscow in 1996 with an agricultural engineering degree. Not finding a job that fit him out of college, he started working for a nearby farmer that he had become acquainted with during college. His new employer was one of the first in that area to grow timothy for the export market. Simons’ work at the farm and his hands-on schooling on timothy production would shape the rest of his farming career.

“After three years as an employee, I set out on my own and bought a Freeman 330 baler with a Wisconsin engine that was older than I was,” Simons

remembered. “Initially, I started doing custom baling and took some part-time truck driving jobs hauling hay for the export market or to dairies and feed stores in western Washington. I borrowed a late 1960’s John Deere tractor from my dad and made 38,000 bales that first summer.”

Before the second year of self-employment, Simons added another baler and a stacker. “From that point, we just kept picking up land to rent, sharecropped some, and lived like paupers,” he recalled of those early years. “I knew my numbers and was sure it would work if I kept enough volume, but it was a slow growth process.”

Wade married Edie in 2003 and they

bought a 118-acre farm near Princeton, Idaho, in 2006, where they reside today. “At that point, we were farming about 800 acres of leased or sharecropped land and still doing some custom work.”

Currently, Simons farms about 2,300 acres of mostly leased land that’s located from just north of Palouse, Wash., to Harvard, Idaho, a westto-east span of about 20 miles. The Western fields are more productive than those to the east. “We spend a lot of time on the road,” Simons noted.

A timothy pioneer

Simons Farms LLC grows and harvests about 1,100 acres of timothy for exporting. This is done with the help of Edie, who helps with fieldwork, their 18-year-old son, Chet, one fulltime employee, and several part-time workers. Like his first employer out of college, Simons was one of the pioneers in the area to successfully grow the cool-season grass for the export market.

To break the hay rotation, the Simons

Simons Farms

Wade Simons bales timothy for the export market. He was one of the first farmers in western Idaho to do so. These days, there are about 34,000 acres of timothy grown in the region.

also grow spring and winter wheat, barley, garbanzo beans, peas, and canola. “We shoot for about a 10-year rotation,” Simons said. “Ideally, seven of those years will be timothy, and then we go to one of the other rotation crops for three years, depending on the location of the field. For example, we don’t do legumes in some fields because the elk and deer just decimate those crops,” he added.

“Timothy has only become a viable crop in northern Idaho in the last 20 years,” the veteran grower said. “Now, there’s about 34,000 acres of timothy in this region. I just happened to work for one of the first to grow it and continued to do so once I got on my own.”

Simons continued, “Our timothy comes off two to three weeks later than that of growers in the Columbia Basin. So, that makes for an interesting market dynamic. If they have a good crop, that’s worse for us from a market price perspective. However, if their crop is down in either yield or quality, we can benefit.”

Simons harvests his export timothy as 3x4x8-foot bales that are made with two Massey Ferguson (MF) balers. “We like to ship directly out of the field to the exporter in Moses Lake or Ellensburg, Wash., so tarping is something we don’t have to do very often,” Simons explained. “The exporters like to keep it in the Columbia Basin because there’s a lot less rain to deal with during storage than here. Most of the timothy goes to Japan for their dairies.”

In addition to timothy, the Simonses also grow 350 acres of mixed-grass hay and about 40 acres of alfalfa, which are packaged into three-tie bales using three Freeman balers. The bales are picked up in the field with a Freeman 7000 stacker. “It’s a pull-type stacker that works really well on our steep hills when used with a four-wheel drive tractor,” Simons noted.

The farm’s alfalfa fields are cut two times per year and average 3 to 3.5 tons per acre annually. The alfalfa and mixedgrass production is marketed locally to horse owners, stables, and for livestock at Washington State University in nearby Pullman. Certified weed-free straw is also produced and sold for roadway mulch and to the Forestry Service.

Low moisture needed

Simons has seeded timothy both in the late fall and spring, but recently has favored the latter to avoid winter annual

weed problems. He uses different timothy varieties that vary in maturity and plans it so he can start with his western-most fields and work east into Idaho. This lengthens his harvest window.

Timothy fields receive phosphorus and potassium fertilizer in the fall as guided by soil tests. Nitrogen and sulfur are applied each spring. “We generally start cutting timothy the end of June, and that’s the only cutting we get for the year,” Simons said. “None of our ground is irrigated.” The region gets about 23 inches of precipitation each year, but little of that total falls during the summer.

Using a 16-foot MF rotary mower-conditioner, Simons drops a wide swath, which expediates drying. The crop is then raked once with a MF RK772 rotary rake. In good years, he will harvest 4 tons of timothy per acre with a single cutting, but his average is 3 to 3.5 tons per acre. Any timothy regrowth by fall is cut off with a rotary mower to prepare for the next year’s crop.

Even for timothy, Simons likes to bale in the evenings or early morning before the crop dries too much. “It just makes a lot better bale, and you don’t get as much shattering,” he explained. “For export timothy, we have to stay at 12% moisture or less. I like the 10% to 12% range. We try to get it bone dry and then bring the moisture back up with a little bit of dew,” he added.

“In 2022, our quality was down, and everything was ready at once because we had to wait out the rain and cool

weather in June,” Simons noted with frustration. “Brown leaf disease was a real problem, but we had good yields.”

For the Simonses, success has been achieved by being early adopters on a road less traveled. That road has resulted in becoming a proficient timothy grower — on fields nobody else wants — in a region not blessed with the greatest soils, flattest fields, or longest growing season, which are attributes common among many the Simonses production competitors. Once again, we’re reminded that a winning hand often lies with the individual, not the cards they’ve been dealt. •

Mike Rankin

Simons Farms

Small square bales of mixed alfalfa-grass and alfalfa hay are made and marketed locally to horse owners, stables, and for livestock housed at Washington State University. Simons uses a pull-type bale stacker to consolidate bales in the field before they are trucked home for storage or to the customer.

From left to right are Chet, Edie, and Wade Simons. Their canine companions were also eager for some exposure.

Stop winter calving!

IRECENTLY had a conversation with Dallas Mount, the CEO of Ranch Management Consultants, which is the parent company of the Ranching for Profit educational program. We were discussing the critical things that unprofitable cow-calf operations need to change to become profitable. We each settled on our first thing to change, and I’d like to explore those two management options and why they are so important to profitability.

Dallas’ top change was to be able to graze for at least 10 months in eight out of every 10 years. It is well documented that feed costs are the number one determinant of profitability in the cowcalf sector. Generally speaking, grazing is a lower cost per cow-day option than feeding stored forages. Grazing may include using perennial pasture or range, crop residues, cover crops, or some other annual forage. At the time of this writing, many of our clients are seeing anywhere from $1 to over $2 in cost savings per cow-day when they can graze forage rather than feed it. Dallas says he sees few profitable cow-calf operations that feed anything more than 60 days annually.

Work with nature

My top change is to stop calving during the winter months. This closely ties into Dallas’ recommendation of feeding no more than 60 days. Yearround grazing is much easier to accomplish if cows are calving on green grass, and you are carrying dry cows through the winter on dormant forage.

Calving on green grass is often described as calving in sync with nature. All wild ruminants give birth when grass is actively growing or when there is an abundance of summer dormant forage. No wild animals give birth in the winter months because it is nutritionally challenging and the likelihood of newborn survival is much lower.

Take that previous sentence and look at it in context of domestic beef cattle or ewes giving birth in the winter months. We have artificially made winter nutrition both challenging and expensive. That is what we call a lose-lose situation. Ranchers with cows calving in the winter greatly lower the probability of

calf survival while significantly ratcheting up their workload. Another lose-lose situation. Compound these negative factors with cows that come from bulls with a low propensity for easy fattening and physical structure that favors showring fashion rather than female functionality, and we have dysfunctional mothers calving in the harshest of conditions. One more lose-lose situation.

A hundred years ago, almost all beef cows in America and the rest of the world comfortably calved on green grass in spring and early summer. What happened to that very sensible operating model?

Economics have changed

Well-meaning university extension agents and other industry leaders started promoting graded feeder cattle sales held each fall. The idea was to get a better calf price for cow-calf producers by sorting each farmer’s calf crop by weight and class and then pooling those calves with similar ones from other producers. This gave the opportunity for all the smaller outfits to sell their calves in larger, uniform weight and class lots that would make them more attractive to cattle buyers.

It was a good idea, and it worked well. So well, in fact, that almost the entire cow-calf industry started calving earlier and earlier so that they could take bigger calves to those graded sales during the fall. In a single generation, most farms and ranches shifted from calving on green grass in the spring to calving earlier and earlier in the winter.

The problem that has been growing over the past 50 years from the inception of the fall feeder calf sale is that input costs have climbed at five to 10 times the rate that the value of beef cattle have risen over the same period. That is in inflation-adjusted dollars, not nominal dollars.

A business model that worked in the 1970s when there was a reasonable balance between input costs and product value no longer works when the cost-tovalue relationship has become so badly skewed against the cow-calf producer. In this day and age, with slim margins in the cow-calf sector, Dallas Mount is absolutely correct. It is very difficult to have a profitable operation if you have to feed any more than 60 days.

If you find yourself in the situation of needing to feed more than 60 days, it is time to consider whether you should even be in the cow business. If you consistently have three to five months of serious winter, you should probably be in the yearling business or just turning around spring-purchased pairs.

It’s probably time for a lot of farms and ranches around the country that are currently running a marginal cow-calf enterprise to really look long and hard at the economic viability of their operation and make some radical changes to the business model. •

JIM GERRISH

The author is a rancher, author, speaker, and consultant with over 40 years of experience in grazing management research, outreach, and practice. He has lived and grazed livestock in hot, humid Missouri and cold, dry Idaho.

By Paul Schneider Jr., AG-USA (This is a paid advertisement)

Mycorrhizal fungi are far more important than most farmers have imagined.

The mycorrhizal fungi membrane

With suitable conditions, mycorrhizal fungi will form a membrane between the plant and soil. This membrane gives the plant the ability to select the nutrients it takes up, plus the ability to leave behind or even exclude toxic ions like aluminum, cadmium and lead.

The surface area of this fungal membrane can become enormous, developing as much as 500 miles of fungal hyphae in a single cubic foot of soil. The more complex it becomes, the greater the health and vitality of the plant.

When one uses herbicides, pesticides, nematicides or fungicides, when one applies excessive fertilizer and does excessive soil cultivation, it kills off helpful fungi. In reality, most farm land doesn’t contain very much mycorrhizae. In their absence, plants must rely exclusively on their roots to take up nutrients. This isn’t good, because most plants were designed to need the help of fungi.

A plant’s root system has just one thousandth of the surface area of the fungi membrane, so nutrient uptake is severely limited without the help of fungi, sometimes decreasing by 70% or more. We are now seeing chronic, diet-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and immunological diseases.

Hydroponically functioning soil

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You can request the AG-USA info. packet for more simple strategies to further increase mycorrhizae growth. A symbiotic relationship

God created 90% of plants to function in relationship with mycorrhizal fungi. Grass, alfalfa and other plants certainly do need mycorrhizal fungi, with each being dependent on the other. Let’s get this synergistic relationship working again!

The mycorrhizae membrane is very important to your farm. One of our goals at AG-USA is to help farmers cooperate with nature by helping to establish a mycorrhizal fungi membrane in their soil. Our passion is the healing of the land.

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High-quality corn silage is no accident

DAIRY diets today typically contain 25% to 35% corn silage on a dry matter basis, and some may exceed these levels. With greater inclusion rates, the quality of the corn silage becomes important to the performance of the dairy herd.

Great corn silage does not happen by accident. It is the result of careful planning and effective execution of the plan. It involves a team, including the dairy producer, corn grower, and custom harvester. Sometimes these three are under the same ownership, but most of the time the dairy producer needs to get the other team members to agree to the plan.

Many factors define great corn silage, but the most important include finished moisture content, yield, starch content, starch digestibility, fiber content, fiber digestibility, quality of fermentation, and the absence of anti-quality factors, including molds and mycotoxins.

It begins with seed

The planning process starts with hybrid selection. Choose hybrids adapted for the soils and growing conditions in your region. You may encounter a lack of silage-specific data for your area and need to expand the search to data from grain studies while working with your seed suppliers to identify closely related silage hybrids. Soil types and environmental stresses have important impacts on yield and quality.

If you have a minimal amount of specific hybrid data available, do a small test plot on your own operation. When selecting hybrids, consider your silage harvest window. If you have a window that extends for a few weeks, selecting hybrids with different harvest maturities and using multiple planting dates will help match harvest timing to the maturity of the silage crop.

Hybrid selection will have a considerable impact on fiber content, starch content, and fiber digestibility. Many regions have access to brown midrib (BMR) hybrids that generally have better fiber digestibility compared to conventional hybrids. This could be a home run for silage quality if you can realize improved forage digestibility

with no loss of starch content.

The next step is establishing the planting plan. This includes the timing of planting and the soil fertility, pesticide, and weed control programs. Giving hybrids the best opportunity to perform are dependent on adequate nutrition and the removal of production barriers. It’s no different than your dairy herd.

With higher nitrogen costs, it is tempting to reduce the amount applied. Work closely with an agronomist to determine the adequate levels for your situation. Under application of nitrogen will limit the yield of forage and grain. Sometimes, a production cost savings may actually result in higher-cost forage due to lack of tonnage and/or grain yield.

If you are on irrigated land, the irrigation plan is essential. Make sure you have adequate water available for the whole season. If you are going to be short of water, work with your agronomist to determine the appropriate plant populations to match the available water. This is a tricky question due to the correlation between plant population and silage yield. Remember that the irrigation at the end of the growing season has a direct impact on starch yield. Considering that 20% of the starch is deposited in the last two to three weeks prior to harvest, running out of water at the end of the season will reduce silage quality.

A most decisive time

Harvest timing may be the single most important part of the plan. Harvesting at the correct moisture (62% to 64%) and grain maturity is critical to obtaining high-quality corn silage. This generally requires purposeful coordination with the custom harvester. Matching planting decisions to provide an adequate harvest window for the available equipment and harvest personnel is a critical discussion. It goes beyond the chopper and extends to adequate packing in the silo.

Consider the cut length and kernel processing capabilities of the equipment being used. Cut length will depend on the effective fiber needs of the herd as directed by the herd nutrition professional. Current goals

for adequate kernel processing score (KPS) have risen to 75% to 80%. Effectively communicating to the custom harvester the goals for KPS is the responsibility of the dairy producer.

Well in advance of harvest, decide on the type and application of silage inoculants. Sometimes is it advantageous to choose different inoculants for forage fed during the summer versus winter. Controlling secondary fermentation will reduce the loss of the most digestible nutrients from the silage mass. Match inoculant selection to the need to control secondary fermentation.

Finally, ensure that secondary fermentation does not negate all the hard work of the previous steps. Carefully cover and seal within a few hours of completing silo filling. Maintenance of the silo cover is important to prevent silage loss during storage. Matching the silo face to the volume removed daily is another example of controlling secondary fermentation.

Delivering a high-quality silage is a major management component of top-producing dairy herds. Often, poor silage quality reduces daily herd production by 5 or more pounds per cow. A silver bullet does not eliminate the negative impact of poor silage. Attention to the details and development and execution of a plan is necessary; it does not happen by chance.

So, how did you do in 2022? Some goals for the corn silage you are feeding today might be: 36% to 38% dry matter, more than 38% starch, KPS of 75 or greater, total tract neutral detergent fiber digestibility (TTNDFD) of 50%, 30-hour NDFD of 60% or greater, and 7-hour starch digestibility of 75 or greater. If you did not achieve these goals, try to determine why. •

MIKE

BROUK The author is a professor and extension dairy specialist with Kansas State University.

Is there a best Midwest cereal option?

The right cereal forage to grow for spring grazing depends on a farm’s goals and individual needs.

is a great option for planting winterhardy small cereals as they will help reduce erosion and will have enough fall growth to allow for grazing in the early spring.

2. To get top performance of growing calves or lactating cows, keep plants vegetative. Start grazing when the plants are about 5 inches tall and try to keep a maximum height of 8 to 10 inches.

Rotational grazing can assist with keeping the plant maturity more uniform and reduce selective grazing.

OVER the past three years, we have been trying to identify if there is a decisive difference between using cereal rye, winter triticale, or winter wheat as a forage resource for beef cattle.

Triticale is often held up as the best overall forage option. Indeed, when we evaluated these three species as options for silage production, triticale outyielded both cereal rye and wheat at the soft dough stage. However, at earlier stages, there did not appear to be a yield advantage of triticale over cereal rye, and both triticale and cereal rye seemed to outyield wheat.

Maturity differs

Cereal rye did seem to start maturing earlier and hit each of the maturity stages about a week before winter triticale. It is often thought that rye is lower quality than triticale, but when harvested at the same relative stage, there was surprisingly not a major difference between cereal rye and triticale. Similarly, when grazed for a month in early spring (early April to early May) in Nebraska, forage quality among species did not appear to differ. Basically, all three species were top quality when grazed before the stem started to develop; however, in one year, the rye was ready to be grazed a week earlier than the

triticale and wheat.

In another year, a cold snap after calves were turned out resulted in less growth for the triticale and wheat than the rye, limiting intake and lowering gains of the calves from 3.1 to 1.7 pounds per day. In the two years where intake was not limited, steer weight gains did not differ, averaging 3.4 pounds per day for all species.

Rye seems to be more productive when conditions are cold compared to wheat or triticale. This means that it can provide earlier grazing in the spring in the Upper Midwest and is likely the best match for double cropping.

On the other hand, triticale maintains its feed value better into late spring. This makes it well suited for hay and silage, or for stretching grazing well into June.

Wheat can have a dual purpose, allowing for grazing and grain, although in the Midwest, the grazing window for wheat is limited before it will start to reduce subsequent grain yield.

Maximize their advantages

Regardless of the species choice, there are some key recommendations that will ensure producers get the most out of these cereal forage sources.

1. In general, earlier planting in the fall will result in more growth and earlier spring grazing. Corn silage ground

3. Boost stocking density as the spring progresses to ensure the cattle can keep up with the forage growth. This can be achieved by either adding more cattle or reducing the number of acres being grazed. A good starting point is about one cow or two stockers per acre.

4. Make sure your mineral supplement contains a significant amount of magnesium (Mg). If using a 4-ounce mineral, aim for a least 10% Mg. This will prevent grass tetany in lactating cows and can improve gains in stocker calves.

As with most questions, the answer to which species is a better choice depends on the goals and situation. Each of these winterhardy small cereals can provide a high-quality source of forage for grazing at a time when few other options are available in the Midwest.

Cereal rye is the most winterhardy and provides earlier grazing, triticale seems to provide more forage later in the spring, and wheat can offer the opportunity for grazing plus grain when planted early in the fall. •

MARY DREWNOSKI

The author is a beef systems extension specialist with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Mary Drewnoski

Getting to the root of soil health

TO HAVE healthy, functioning grasslands that are nutritious as livestock forage, productive over time, resilient in the face of periodic droughts, that resist the erosive action of intense thunderstorms, and that extract nutrients from soil efficiently, these swards need a vigorous root system!

Indeed, productive grasslands are well-rooted in a variety of soils and landscapes. Restrictive layers from high clay content, saturated water conditions, or subsoil acidity can be challenging for some forage species. However, with time, even these difficult soil conditions can be managed for proliferation of deep roots. Silver bullet solutions for obtaining deep rooting may be elusive, but some guiding principles are appropriate.

Roots come in different forms

Most grass roots proliferate near the soil surface because this is where nutrients are concentrated and in plant-available forms from decomposition of soil organic matter; it’s also where fertilizers are often applied. Rainfall that more frequently wets the soil surface than it does the subsoil may be another reason for dominance of roots near the soil surface. More ideal oxygen levels are also present near the soil surface.

Legumes and many forbs tend to have thicker taproots to search for water deeper in the profile, but with a significant number of lateral branches to explore near the surface, too. Taproots may be able to compete better than fibrous roots for water and nutrients

deeper in the soil profile.

Extracting water deep in the soil profile can lead to days and weeks of more available forage when growth is prolific and summer winds start drying out the upper profile. Deep roots provide a steady conduit of water to keep forages actively growing and able to withstand drought. Soils are healthier when roots can proliferate to extract water and nutrients while depositing carbon throughout the soil profile. How grasslands are managed can alter the extent of rooting depth. Usefully, the extent of forage mass above ground is a reflection of the rooting mass below ground. Therefore, tall forage stands that have been deferred from grazing can be envisioned to have deeper rooting systems than short forage stands that have been continuously grazed. More precisely, greater rooting density near the soil surface mirrors that of greater density of forage per inch of height from the soil surface.

Rotational stocking to create variably tall and short forage stands over time may be a relatively simple way to encourage deep rooting while also harvesting the nutritive value of forages with livestock consumption. Lengthy intervals between hay cuttings may achieve similar deep rooting, although nutrients are being removed rather than returned to the same land via livestock excrement.

What about soil carbon?

A common perception is that deep rooting leads to deep soil carbon

accumulation. Research on this topic is underway. At least in the warm and moist conditions of the southeastern U.S., significant accumulation of carbon deep in the profile may not be as likely as often hypothesized.

Accumulation of soil carbon is dependent on the net balance between carbon inputs from surface residues, sloughed or dying roots, and decomposition of carbon from soil microorganisms that feed on these carbon inputs. High carbon inputs can be negated with high soil microbial activity. •

For more detailed information on soil carbon accumulation, scan the QR code.

ALAN FRANZLUEBBERS

The author is a soil scientist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Raleigh, N.C.

JE Weaver (1968) Prairie Plants and their Environment

Big bluestem

Switchgrass

Sandhills of Nebraska

Forages can raise the resilience baseline

by Kim Cassida

RESILIENCE is a word that is often bandied around, but what exactly does it mean in relation to agriculture and forages? The Oxford Dictionary defines resilience as the “capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties.”

We can probably all agree that forage growers face no end of difficulties even in “normal” times and are used to dealing with challenges, often involving all kinds of weather at all the wrong times. However, resilience is about more than dealing with these ordinary challenges. Extreme events are truly becoming more extreme and ever more frequent, and these can have long-lasting implications for operations that are not prepared for them.

Stable is not resilient

We always strive for stability in our farming systems, but stability is not the same thing as resilience. Figure 1 illustrates the differences among stable systems and those with good or poor resilience. In an agricultural context, stability is defined as the ability to maintain function with only minor variations in capacity when challenged with “normal” events. An example is the recovery of pasture productivity after an ordinary summer slump caused by an expected seasonal dry spell or other

normal weather variations. This is represented in the left graph panel where system performance varies up or down as conditions change but generally sticks close to the average.

Resilience is shown in the right panel of Figure 1 after system capacity is challenged by some extreme event. A forage-related example would be pasture recovery after a 100-year drought. Capacity of the resilient system will crash in immediate response to the event, but once the event is over, it can then recover quickly to the original level. On the other hand, the system with poor resilience may crash farther, recover more slowly, and never regain its original performance.

Recognize that the concepts of stability and resilience apply best to whole systems, whether man-made or natural, and not to single pieces. Human nature makes it easy to get tunnel vision and pay too much attention to a single thing and miss the fact that the bottom is falling out somewhere else entirely. For example, farmers may be focused on the effect of drought on their own pastures and not be aware that a widespread drought may also affect things like seed availability if forage seed crops fail or fertilizer supplies if river shipping is impacted by low water levels.

In a forage context, the pieces of an agricultural system include the natural resources that are available on a partic-

ular farm such as acreage, soil, water, weather, and climate; the resources available to the farmer such as equipment, infrastructure, financing, labor, time, purchased inputs, and opportunities to learn; market factors such as sales outlets, prices, and consumer preferences; social factors such as family concerns, quality of life, and public perception; and regulatory factors on local, state, and national levels. These things are all so thoroughly entwined with each other that it is rarely possible to change one without impacting something else, often in an unexpected way.

In the face of all these complexities, we may hear the phrase “business as usual.” This is often interpreted with a negative bias, but all it really means is that normal practices continue without change. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the system is stable, meeting needs, and nothing unusual is happening to disrupt it. The problem happens if conditions change and practices do not change to adapt, setting things up for issues when an extreme event inevitably happens.

Inherent forage resilience

One way to reduce severe consequences resulting from disasters is to raise the baseline for normal capacity by changing practices proactively before the disaster strikes. Forage crops provide a rare opportunity to do this and actually improve resilience of agricultural systems. There are three features of forage crops that are useful in helping raise the baseline for resilience.

The first is biodiversity. Research clearly shows that enhancing biodiversity increases the productivity, stability, and resilience of agricultural systems. Biodiversity does not need to include complicated forage mixtures or rotations. At its most basic level, it simply means growing more than one plant or animal species, either at the same time, such as a mixed grass/legume hayfield, or in sequence, such as including alfalfa in a crop rotation or following grazing cattle with pastured poultry. If wisely chosen to meet farm goals, mixtures or rotations as simple as two species can provide benefits over growing a single crop.

Forages, especially pastures, are already commonly grown in deliberate mixtures of compatible grasses and legumes in order to buffer seasonal forage availability, raise the quality of animal diets, and improve forage yield. These mixtures also provide the diverse

Mike Rankin

roots that help create the vibrant community of soil microbes and underground life needed for healthy soil. Aboveground, forages also support healthy populations of pollinator insects as well as other beneficial insects that can help reduce pest problems in neighboring crops and rotations.

The second important feature is perenniality. Perennial forages live for many years, reducing the need for establishment disturbances. Research has shown that these species often have greater capacity to improve soil, protect water, and sequester carbon than annual crops do, even if the perennial is only grown as part of a rotation. The extensive and undisturbed nature of perennial root systems enhances their value for soil improvement. Better soil health typically improves resilience.

Waste not, want not

The third important factor is circularity (Figure 2). The concept of linear versus circular systems was first used in the context of economics, but it can be applied to any system that uses resources. Linear systems are based on the consumption of new resources for each production cycle. Resources that are not fully used during production, distribution, and consumption of the product do not re-enter the cycle and instead become a liability as waste products that need costly disposal somewhere along the line.

In contrast, a circular system uses the concepts of reuse, repair, and recycle to turn waste products back into the production process as an asset. This greatly reduces both the amount of new resources needed and the cost of waste disposal.

One classic example of circularity is inclusion of livestock in cropping systems where feeding livestock can add value to grain crops and convert forage rotations, cover crops, or crop residue into valuable manure nutrients that are put back into the farm to support plant growth and reduce the need for chemical fertilizers. Legume-grass forage mixtures are another example where the legume can provide most of the nitrogen needed by its grass companion and also provide nutrients for subsequent crops in a rotation while reducing the need for purchased fertilizer.

Alfalfa rotations routinely fix enough nitrogen to supply the entire requirement for a subsequent corn crop.

1. Good versus poor resilience

A) In a stable system, normal events cause minor fluctuations in capacity around an average (dotted line). (B) After an extreme event, systems with good resilience will quickly return to the original capacity, while less resilient systems may recover slowly to a new, lower capacity.

A

Partial benefits from an alfalfa rotation may last as long as five years after the alfalfa rotation ends. Some forage crops, such as alfalfa, chicory, and brassicas, are able to improve phosphorus availability in soils and thus also reduce the need for phosphorus fertilizer. This will likely become even more important in the future because world supplies of rock phosphate, the source of most phosphorus fertilizers, are limited. In order to build resilience, we need to learn more about how it develops. The Ag Resilience Project is a collaboration among researchers, nonprofit organizations, and commodity groups across the U.S. One very important part of the project is building a volunteer farmer network encompassing all types of farming systems to help learn what makes a farming system resilient to today’s challenges. We expect that

A circular system needs less resources because most “waste” returns to production cycle as an asset

forages will play a large role.

The project will be using online surveys and interviews to learn about farming practices and decision-making processes that enhance or impede resilience in U.S. farming systems. If you are interested in learning more about participating as one of our volunteers, please contact the author at cassida@msu.edu. •

References for this article can be provided upon request.

The author is an extension forage and cover crop specialist with Michigan State University.

KIM CASSIDA

Figure

Figure 2. Linear versus circular systems Linear versus circular systems

Alfalfa fed in prepartum dairy diets

Hay & Forage Grower is featuring results of research projects funded through the Alfalfa Checkoff, officially named the U.S. Alfalfa Farmer Research Initiative, administered by National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance (NAFA). The checkoff program facilitates farmer-funded research.

LFALFA hay can be used in rations for pregnant and nonlactating dairy cows without necessarily causing metabolic diseases such as clinical hypocalcemia — also called milk fever. That’s the conclusion of recent research by Virginia Tech’s Gonzalo Ferreira.

The dairy management extension specialist used Alfalfa Checkoff funding to compare grass hay and alfalfa hay diets fed to prepartum cows with either calcium chloride or polyhalite mineral, which are acidogenic products that can prevent hypocalcemia.

ence (DCAD), which improves calcium mobilization and reduces the risk of hypocalcemia in fresh cows.

But previous research Ferreira had completed on prepartum cows successfully consuming polyhalite salts as an acidogenic product got him thinking: “What if we can feed a large amount of these acidogenic products with alfalfa to be able to feed alfalfa without any (health) issues?”

He and Ahmerah Thompson, a Virginia Tech graduate student at the time, tested that theory by feeding 79 pregnant cows four diets using calcium chloride and polyhalite, each with grass and with alfalfa.

sium in the alfalfa and less potassium in the grass hays. We were expecting to see a big difference in the amount of negative DCAD in alfalfa versus grass — with higher DCAD in alfalfa and lower in grass,” Ferreira said. But that didn’t happen.

Test the alfalfa

One important take-home message from this study was that not all alfalfa hays are the same in nutrient content, and the same is true for grasses. Nutritionists and farmers should have hay analyzed for the minerals it contains before it’s fed. They may be able to feed forages like alfalfa that they have avoided in the past, Ferreira pointed out.

Funding: $91,721

“Typically, nutritionists avoid feeding alfalfa to prepartum dairy cows,” explained Ferreira. That’s because alfalfa, high in protein and energy, also contains high concentrations of potassium. Potassium can wreak havoc on a prepartum diet that is supposed to maintain a negative dietary cation-anion differ -

PROJECT RESULTS

1. Dry matter intake was highest for grass hay diets. DM intake didn’t differ between acidogenic products; no interaction was seen between hay type and acidogenic products.

2. Urine pH decreased in all four diets, with all showing negative DCADs, but less so for cows on the grass hay diet.

3. The amount of calcium in plasma declined substantially around calving, but hay types and acidogenic products didn’t affect levels.

4. Calcium output in urine increased in cows on grass hay calcium chloride.

5. Only one cow had acute signs of hypocalcemia; 13 others showed levels of calcium in the blood within the hypocalcemia range without showing signs of the disorder.

The grass hay contained 7.5% crude protein (CP), 74.9% neutral detergent fiber (NDF), 0.36% calcium, 0.09% sodium, 1.88% potassium, 0.38% chloride, and 0.15% sulfur. The alfalfa contained 19.6% CP, 45.6% NDF, 1.52% calcium, 0.16% sodium, 2.5% potassium, 0.77% chloride, and 0.32% sulfur. The grass hay had a DCAD equal to 289 mEg/kg dry matter (DM); the alfalfa hay’s DCAD was equal to 292 mEg/kg DM.

“We were expecting much more potas-

The study looked at DM intake, urine pH, calcium concentration in the blood and urine, and the amount of hypocalcemia shown by cows consuming the diets. More DM was consumed by cows eating grass hay than alfalfa. Dry matter intake didn’t differ between acidogenic products, and no interaction existed between hay type and acidogenic products.

Urine pH declined in each of the four

Cows consumed diets containing grass hay and calcium chloride as an acidogenic product (GHCL; DCAD = -209 mEq/kg DM), grass hay and polyhalite as an acidogenic product (GHPO; DCAD = -207 mEq/kg DM), alfalfa hay and calcium chloride as an acidogenic product (AHCL; DCAD = -190 mEq/kg DM), or alfalfa hay and polyhalite as an acidogenic product (AHPO; DCAD = -194 mEq/kg DM). Error bars represent standard errors of the means (SEM).

diets, all of which showed negative DCADs, but less so for cows on the grass hay diet. The concentration of calcium in plasma dropped substantially around calving, but hay types and acidogenic products didn’t have an effect. Calcium output in urine was elevated the most in cows on the grass hay calcium chloride diet.

Only one cow had acute signs of clinical hypocalcemia, which typically occurs when calcium concentration in the blood drops below 5.5 mg/dL, Ferreira said. “But several cows had low calcium concentrations at the clinical level (below 5.5 mg/dL) and did not show it as hypocalcemia. That is something intriguing to investigate

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further,” he added.

In his research report, Ferreira wrote that more study is needed evaluating fertility of the soil and the use of acidifying fertilizers “to better understand how to incorporate alfalfa hay in prepartum diets for pregnant and nonlactating dairy cows in the prepartum period.” •

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Can the South help curb the alfalfa trend line?

by Joe Bouton

THE first “Alfalfa Conference,” which was later to become the North American Alfalfa Improvement Conference, took place in Washington D.C. on January 13, 1930. Its chief purpose was “to discuss the problems that seem to be concerned with the decline in acreage of alfalfa in certain alfalfa districts, with special attention being given to the wilt problem; the relation of subsoil moisture to the yields of alfalfa; and to the causes of the decline in production in the Mississippi Delta and the black lands of Mississippi.”

It was the final part of that 1930 conference quote that caught my attention. I grew up in a Mississippi Delta cotton-farming family in the 1950s and 1960s — peak years for national alfalfa acreage, yet I never saw even one acre of alfalfa. However, my mother and my uncles told me stories about it from when they were children, as my grandparents grew a lot of alfalfa. It was grown to feed mules used for plowing cotton fields and for the family milk cows. When times were bad, young alfalfa leaves were added to the family’s salads. Further digging through the literature found similar stories in other Southern states. But then, alfalfa acreage went out as quickly as the confederacy itself.

What happened?

For families like mine, tractors eliminated the need for mules and milk was easily obtained from grocery stores, so there was little need for my family to grow alfalfa by the time I was born. The domination of row-crop agriculture over animal agriculture is also an obvious cause. For example, there are reports of over 8 million acres of Georgia cotton grown north of Macon during that crop’s peak years. That is a lot of land — and a lot of erosion — with not much left over for other intensively managed crops like alfalfa.

The South

“We call it ‘Co-Cola’ — just like God calls it.” Rev.

C. Dean Taylor

The South is a region steeped in its own unique history, myth, and culture. For this article’s purpose, it includes the 13 states in the southeastern quadrant of the nation from Texas and Oklahoma straight across to the Atlantic Ocean. It is a warm, humid region in contrast to those states at similar latitudes.

State experiment station bulletins on successfully establishing and managing alfalfa are found throughout the region as far back as the early 1900s. Even as Southern animal agriculture grew in importance in the latter half of the 1900s, and alfalfa was successfully grown, acreages were cyclic and

seldom high. The crop simply never achieved the primacy of the Midwest and West, including its geographic cousin, the dry Southwest.

The reasons why alfalfa acreage remains comparatively low are unique to the South. Southern producers define perennials as surviving generations instead of years. Tens of millions of perennial forage acreages (cultivated as opposed to native) are therefore planted to persistent grasses such as bermudagrass, tall fescue, and bahiagrass. In many cases, pastures of these grasses were established by grandparents and still used today. It would be easier to find Big Foot than alfalfa fields with that longevity.

Southern soils are inherently acidic and aluminum toxic, so required lime and fertilizer additions were seen as problems. When compared to grasses where simple nitrogen fertilization and the region’s mild climate and high rainfall produce abundant forage, alfalfa management was seen as too intensive and high risk. Periodic outbreaks of the alfalfa weevil were also devastating. Most importantly, Southern producers are mainly, if not exclusively, graziers, and alfalfa’s intolerance to grazing was a severe handicap.

In the end, national seed companies adopted a narrative that alfalfa acreage would not grow substantially, so there is little incentive to invest in promotion, marketing, or sales efforts. While understandable back then, this position is puzzling today because the region contains the majority of the nation’s beef herd, a substantial percentage of the nation’s dairy herd, and tens of millions of acres of pastures, hayfields, and cropland suitable for conversion to alfalfa. For these simple reasons alone, the South would seem an obvious target for alfalfa acreage and seed sales’ growth.

Recent successes

Southern research and outreach programs of the recent past, and continuing today, are changing the former negative alfalfa narrative for a new generation of producers. Individuals who can only be called mavens (Yiddish for “one who understands”) are now promoting a new narrative that alfalfa is easily grown, even in small acreages, and is the best crop to solve problems inherent in Southern perennial grass systems.

Joe Bouton

Alfalfa fields like this one in Jennings, Fla., are becoming more prominent in the South.

Alfalfa is being used as a “tool” to form compatible mixtures with bermudagrass, enhance the nutritive value of grass hay, and reduce nitrogen fertilizer costs without harming grass persistence, thereby supporting yearround, high-quality forage production. Winter weather in the region is mild, grazing seasons are long, and Southern producers are fundamentally graziers. Using adaptive, grazing-tolerant varieties, along with embracing new research on grazing management, was an important step.

Those who do not want to harvest alfalfa often or worry about unpredictable rainy weather now practice targeted grazing with grazing-tolerant varieties. Persistent weed problems were overcome by the glyphosate resistant trait. Alfalfa as a component of wildlife management plots are common. Dairy farmers who planted corn crop after corn crop for silage on the same land are seeing lost productivity and are finding that alfalfa is still the best rotation crop with corn.

Success of past marketing and sales

efforts directed for the South such as the “Alfagraze — Hay It or Graze It” program, and more recently, the “GotBermudagrass?” initiative increased seed sales and acreage substantially and demonstrated what can be done. Recent “Alfalfa in the South” workshops are also doing much to promote alfalfa use and are well attended by motivated producers.

Future opportunity

Harvested alfalfa acreage rose substantially after the 1930 Alfalfa Conference, reaching a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, national acreage experienced a slow decline, losing almost half of that peak acreage. In fact, one of the main issues discussed during the 2022 World Alfalfa Congress held recently in San Diego was the continuing loss of U.S. alfalfa acreage, especially in the Western growing areas due to drought and water restrictions.

Can this national trend be reversed?

Alfalfa is slowly but surely becoming an important part of the South’s exten-

sive forage-livestock systems by serving unique and multiple uses, even in small acreages, and is being promoted as such. All it needs now is a boost from the seed industry. The industry’s past reluctance was understandable but is now a self-fulfilling prophecy. It looks like a lost opportunity.

The answer to the posed question above and this article’s title is: “Yes, it can, but the alfalfa seed industry will need to work with the current Southern mavens to employ better marketing and to take some financial risks in order to develop a Southern alfalfa market.” The outcome of any company doing that will enhance its market share and bottom line. •

The author is a professor emeritus with the University of Georgia in Athens and owner of Bouton Consulting Group LLC.

JOE BOUTON

With the most experienced team in the industry, Liphatech Ag has the in-field and on-farm knowledge to provide farmers and producers with expert solutions and care.

Steve and Judy Freeman have developed a profitable herd of South Poll cattle that are able to tolerate natural fluctuations in the quality and quantity of available forage.

A UNIQUE ROAD

TO BEEF-GRAZING SUCCESS

All photos Mike Rankin

by Mike Rankin

THE South Poll cows were red and slick. At their side — an equal number of 1-month-old or younger calves already grazing on spring fescue in a Savannah-like setting. Their owners and caretakers, Steve and Judy Freeman, both admired and surveyed the herd while perched on their respective utility vehicles. Had the late Grant Wood been there, he would have broken out his paint brushes for an updated American Gothic.

Steve and Judy Freeman were city kids by any definition. The former was raised in Long Beach, Calif., while the latter grew up in Los Angeles. Each had some animal lovers in their ancestral bloodlines, and both matured with a desire to be around animals. So, how did two free-spirited West Coast youngsters end up in Hartville, Mo., owning and operating one of the most highly regarded grazing operations in the United States? Read on.

The couple met in San Diego, where Judy was the manager of a thoroughbred racehorse ranch and Steve was an employee. “I considered a good date as going to the bookstore,” Steve said. “It was there that we started reading about — and became interested in — homesteading.”

Soon after, with no planned destination and some saved dollars, they left California in a 1-ton van with two 80-pound dogs as passengers. They meandered around the country for close to a year, living in the van. At one point, a friend told them about the Ozark Mountains, and it sounded like an area that would meet their minimalist needs. Eventually, that’s where they headed and arrived in the area’s rolling hills in 1978. They were married during that same year.

“We knew Judy could always get a job with horses, and her employer would have to hire me because I was a part of the package,” Steve chuckled. “We ended up in Springfield, Mo., where Judy was hired at a purebred Arabian ranch while we remained living in our van.”

Eventually, the Freemans bought a small 86-acre property near where they reside and farm today, about 50 miles east of Springfield. They started a Grade C goat dairy where Judy milked 30 goats by hand and trained border collies while her husband worked on a neighboring beef farm.

Steve explained, “We were good with numbers and knew we could make it

work. Our plan was to pay it off in a year. Then, about six months in, our milk processor put a quota on us and cut our price in half. That’s when we started raising some calves to supplement our income.”

While working on a beef farm and catching cattle for people with dogs that they had trained, Steve got really interested in grass and farming. “My employer was a great mentor who taught me a lot,” he said.

bought cow-calf pairs in March — the bottom of the market — and sold steers early the next year for what we paid for the pair,” Judy recalled. “Our timing was just blind luck,” Steve added.

The Freemans currently have 180 brood cows, breed 60 to 80 home-raised yearling heifers, and also purchase stockers to graze with the heifers. “If we have a drought year, we don’t want to be put in a position of selling our breeding stock,” Steve said. “So, we like to keep a cushion and protect ourselves. However, we also want to utilize our grass during the good times. That’s where the stockers come into play, and it’s worked really well. We can sell those stockers in a week if we have to,” he added.

Trials and errors

Steve noted that there’s been a lot of experimentation to match the right number of animals to acres. “When you’re dealing with biology, that sweet spot is a moving target. But you’ve got to learn how to keep the canoe afloat and not drown in those dry years. Right now, we’re at about 3 animal units per grazeable acre. We’ve been under 2 animal units per acre, but that required feeding a lot more hay.”

“We try to match our cows’ nutritional needs with the available forage,” Steve said. “Calving in mid-April and May helps to do that.”

Steve also took a part-time job as a milk tester, thinking that he could learn about dairying, which might provide the couple’s ticket to independence. What he determined was that if there was a way — other than dairying — to make a living by farming, they should pursue it. “The early 1980s was not a time that inspired you to want to get into dairy farming,” he said.

Although the farm economy was in shambles, the young couple had saved money from an inheritance and figured it was a good time to buy a farm because land values had crashed. That was the beginning of their foray into the beef business. They sold their 86 acres in 1987 and bought the 468-acre farm they now own and operate, expanding it to 900 grazeable acres. “That first year, we

The Freemans stopped making their own hay about 20 years ago and now purchase what they need. “When we sold the baler, that was liberation day for me,” Steve said, noting that he was making his own hay plus doing custom baling for neighbors.

“Haymaking took a lot of time away from our cows and grass. The cows have to be the number one priority when you’re in this business, and making hay just kept me from things I needed to be doing,” Steve said. “Admittedly, there have been dry years when we’ve had to pull the cattle off pasture and feed purchased hay in a sacrifice pasture. Afterward, we just renovate the pasture once conditions improve.”

Toxicity mitigation

“All of our fescue is toxic,” Steve said. “We calve from mid-April through May, trying to match our cows’ nutritional needs and availability to the grass. Judy moves the cows — usually that means every day, but it could also be up

continued on following page >>>

to every three days. We try to take at least a third of the plant off each spring on all of our pastures to reduce seedhead formation.”

If needed, Steve will also clip pastures high to control seedhead development and promote tillering. That said, he no longer worries if some of their pastures get too tall. They’ve learned how to still use those pastures and also enjoy the wildlife benefits that taller pastures can offer. The Freemans don’t fertilize their pastures. “We feel like we get enough nitrogen cycling from manure and mineralization to keep pastures productive,” Steve said.

Through years of trial and error, the Freemans now have their 88 pastures fenced in rectangles or squares and use polywire and step-in posts to portion available forage to the cattle within the paddocks. “Flexibility is essential in this business,” Steve asserted, “and even those who don’t start that way eventually get to that point. We have about 120 watering points and stripgraze in the winter.”

Over time, their pastures have become more diverse, and their cattle often tend to graze the nonfescue species first. “We actually see more fescue toxicity effects in the fall when the pastures revert to a higher percentage of tall fescue,” Judy said.

Cattle are grazed the entire year, but the Freemans use bale grazing on stockpiled fescue to slow movement during the winter. Clover is also frost seeded into pastures. “I love to sow seed,” Steve

said. “I’ll sow ryegrass where the pastures get damaged, and I’ve also seeded some chicory. I’ve been trying to grow warm-season grasses. That’s still a work in progress. We’ve had some failures and successes, but I still want to get more established,” he added.

Settled on South Polls

The long road of experimentation with grass has also extended to the cows. Through the years, there have been periods of Angus and Beefmaster, but the Freemans finally settled on South Polls.

“Before we switched, our cows probably weighed 1,300 to 1,600 pounds,” Steve said. “Calving ease became a real problem, especially for the first-calf heifers.”

It was Judy who suggested they do something different, so they bought some South Poll bulls to breed their heifers.

“Those bulls were small and gentle and didn’t seem to be affected by the heat like the Angus were,” Judy said. Steve added, “They were nonstop breed-

ers, gained weight, and I swear, had a smile on their faces during the whole breeding season. It was amazing.”

The Freemans really liked the South Poll-Beefmaster cross and soon started keeping the calves after initially selling them. “Since then, we’ve been exclusively South Poll,” Judy said. “The South Polls really do well in our Missouri heat and have excellent reproductive performance. That’s important because we are breeding in July and August.”

Steve said that they keep all of the heifers and sell an equal number of cows to interested buyers, mostly for breeding stock. They also keep a few bulls to use and sell. Animals that don’t breed on time, or don’t perform well in their system, are freely culled.

“In the beef cattle business, you’ve got to be pretty bare bones. You have to increase your margins, and you’ve got to increase your turnover,” Steve said. “All of this hinges on how you manage your grass and your ability to keep the cows’ nutrition and intake needs in sync with grass growth.”

It’s been over 40 years since the Freemans left the West Coast shimmering in the rearview mirror of their 1-ton van. The journey since has been fraught with numerous trials and errors. These days, there are still challenges, but also a much higher level of contentment as the Freemans are more easily able to enjoy the cows, the grass, the plant diversity, and wildlife that all permeate their highly regarded beef operation. •

With abundant forage soon after birth, the Freemans’ calves learn quickly how to graze.

Red clover is frost seeded to boost forage nutritional value and provide nitrogen for the tall fescue pastures.

PUT YOUR FORAGES TO THE TEST

Forage growers across the country are invited to participate in the 2023 World Forage Analysis Superbowl. Awardwinning samples will be displayed during Trade Show hours in the Trade Center at World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, October 3 - 6. Winners will be announced during the Brevant seeds Forage Superbowl Luncheon on Wednesday, October 4.

Contest rules and entry forms are available at foragesuperbowl.org, by calling Dairyland Laboratories at (920) 336-4521 or by contacting the sponsors listed below.

$26,000+ in cash prizes made possible by these generous sponsors:

Entries Due Harvest Year Category

August 24 2023

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Crop/plant/sample specifications

Dairy Hay >75% legume; grown by active dairy producers

Commercial Hay >75% legume; commercially grown and sold in large lots off the farm

Grass Hay >75% grass

All hay samples: Must be from a bale, any type or size; use of a preservative or desiccant is allowed.

Baleage Any mixture of grass/legumes Baleage: Must be processed and wrapped as baleage and show signs of fermentation.

Alfalfa Haylage ≥75% legume

Mix/Grass Hlg <75% legume

July 12 2022 Standard Corn Silage (non-BMR) Must be whole plant, recommended chopping height 6”-8”. Must contain >75% standard variety.

July 12 2022 BMR Corn Silage Must be whole plant, recommended chopping height 6”-8”. Must contain >75% BMR variety.

All silage samples: Must be ensiled in a normal preservation process and show signs of fermentation. Use of a preservative is allowed. Additives affecting fiber content or any other adulteration will disqualify the sample.

Samples analyzed for (expressed on a dry matter basis):

Hay, Baleage, Haylage: Dry matter, crude protein, acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), neutral detergent fiber digestibility (NDFD), relative forage quality (RFQ) and milk per ton.

[RFQ is a ranking of forage quality based on NDFD and should not be confused with or compared to Relative Feed Value (RFV).]

Corn Silage: Dry matter, crude protein, acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), neutral detergent fiber digestibility (NDFD) and milk per ton.

Build silage piles with removal rates in mind

by Peter H. Robinson

SILAGES are the most important form of forage in many dairy areas, and most large dairy farms use piles as their primary silage preservation method. However, spoilage and the resultant “shrink” of silage while it is ensiled represents an economic loss to dairy farmers and contributes to degraded air quality. This is because many shrink losses are due to volatilization of acids such as acetic acid and alcohols such as ethanol. These aerosol losses have attracted the attention of various government regulatory agencies, especially air districts in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

The first critical control point to minimize silage spoilage is during pile building. The goal is to limit oxygen entry to the silage mass as much as possible during storage since oxygen supports the growth of aerobic microorganisms. The resulting heat production can lead to silage with degraded nutritional quality and greater amounts of shrink.

Oxygen is the enemy

Many practices have been suggested to mitigate silage spoilage by reduc-

ing oxygen in the ensiled mass. These include building piles on a concrete base, applying an inoculant before ensiling, creating a high pack density, rapidly covering the ensiled feed with a thick plastic cover over a thin inner plastic film, sealing the pile periphery with soil or weights, and using “weight lines” along the area of plastic overlap on the pile surface and all around the pile. Many of these practices are commonly used commercially and can result in silage masses that are stable for up to a year or more.

The second critical control point occurs once the silage pile is opened to facilitate feedout. Opening a pile allows ambient air to directly infiltrate the exposed silage face. Worse, opening a silage pile also permits air to move between the pile surface and its plastic cover, often penetrating well back of the exposed surface. This surface air penetration, and the resultant spoilage of surface silage, can move into the pile faster than the exposed face moves back. This is why surface spoilage often gets much worse during the life of silage pile unloading.

Air penetration after the pile has been opened has led to many suggested

mitigations, including minimizing the exposed silage face area at feedout, maintaining a smooth silage face, using moveable weight lines along the plastic cut line at the top of the silage face, and leaving no piles of loose silage overnight. However, the critical mitigation step is to feed sufficient silage from the exposed silage face during feedout to stay ahead of the growth of mold, yeast, and their associated surface spoilage.

Stay ahead of the spoilage

Feedout speed of a pile is a huge factor in determining the extent of silage spoilage in a pile and is a function of the face area and amount of silage fed per day. While the latter is largely driven by the number of cows fed the silage, making it difficult to simply feed more or less silage in real time, face area can easily be controlled at pile building. So, the question is: How can a silage pile be created with a face area that will result in a desired feedout speed?

The area of the pile face at feedout is a function of controllable, known factors. These include the width of the pile at grade, the angle of the sloped sides of the pile, and the width of the top of the pile, which is generally a function of

Mike Rankin

A number of factors must be considered when rightsizing silage piles.

the width of the packing tractor. The amount of silage dry matter (DM) fed out daily during the time that the face is between the fill and butt ends of the pile (the main part of the pile) can be estimated based upon these known factors.

Spreadsheet help

To facilitate this calculation, a spreadsheet was created to estimate feedout speed from known or anticipated measurements available at the time of pile building. These values can be entered into the spreadsheet (see

example) and used to calculate the anticipated feedout speed of the pile after opening when loadout is in the main mass of the pile. This spreadsheet is available by request from the author (email address in author’s bio).

The ideal or safe target feedout speed to avoid spoilage varies among and within crops, so exact numbers for the speed required to avoid mold and yeast growth with its associated spoilage and shrink are not possible. However, as a general rule, feed removals of less than 5 inches per day from the face

suggest that mold, yeast, and shrink troubles are likely to occur while values of over 10 inches per day will generally be safe. •

The author is a retired dairy nutrition extension specialist with the University of California-Davis.

He can be reached at phrobinson133@gmail.com.

Prior to silo pile building calculation of anticipated rate of silage face removal (inches per day) during unloading of wedge shaped piles

Purpose and use of this program:

This program calculates expected pile loadout speed (expressed as inches per day that the exposed face moves back) as an indicator of the potential extent of surface spoilage of silage after pile opening during loadout.

Example values in the inputs section are highlighted in red text. The outputs include various characteristics of the pile with a final estimate of silage face load out speed.

Interpretation of loadout speed:

In general, as loadout speed of the face moving back increases, the extent of surface silage losses from a wedge-shaped silage pile will decrease. This is because substantial surface spoilage occurs after the pile is opened and air can easily move in and out of the space between the pile surface and cover plastic at the exposed face. While there are many factors that impact silage recovery percent from a pile — such as density, time of storage, integrity of the cover plastic, use of an inner plastic film, speed of covering, final pH, crop and (very importantly) the tolerance of the farm for spoilage before silage is disposed of, the rate of movement (speed) of the exposed face is a very big factor. This is because it is air penetration at the face, which leads to mold and gets worse as unloading progresses. That said, in general, face removal of more than 10 inches per day is associated with very low spoilage losses whereas removal speeds less than 5 inches are associated with spoilage losses in excess of 10% or more.

need at feedout 20 tons/day as fedTotal expected removal from the pile, once opened, as wet tons of silage per day. Desired width of pile 65 feet This is the desired (planned) width of the pile at grade (i.e., the width at the bottom of the pile).

Expected angle of the pile sides 45 degrees

Outputs based on user inputs

35 to 55 degrees are normal values, with 35 degrees rather steep and 55 degrees rather moderate, and are realistic slope limits.

Expected top width 18 feet This is the expected width of the pile at the top to allow full compression of all of the flat top.

Expected side width 23.5 feet This is the expected width of the sloped sides of the pile at grade.

Expected height to flat top 23.5 feet This is the expected height of the pile from grade to the flat top.

Anticipated silage need 6.6 tons/day DM This is silage needed for feedout calculated as DM tons.

Anticipated silage need 13,200 lbs./day DM This is silage needed for feedout calculated as DM pounds.

Expected face area 976 ft3

This is the expected area of the exposed face.

Pounds per foot of face 16,098 DM This is the number of lbs. of DM in each linear foot of pile once unloading is off the fill ramp.

Anticipated speed of silage use 9.8 in/day

P.H. Robinson, 530-219-3000, phrobinson133@gmail.com

This is the expected “speed” that the face will move per day during feedout. If it is undesirably low or needlessly high, change the expected characteristics. While some characteristics may be more or less fixed, others are not. For example,reducing only the pile width will increase the feedout speed. Increasing (moderating) pile side angles will have a similar impact.

PETER H. ROBINSON

Forage seeding tech has advanced

S PLANTERS are “getting after it” across the country, many people have been upgrading their old toolbars with new precision, highspeed equipment. These upgrades have drastically changed the planting game for row-crop farmers. Now you can have your cake — with 99.9% accuracy — and eat it, too — up to a 10 miles per hour planting speed.

How many acres you can cover in a given period of time is one thing, but doing it with super-high accuracy and perfect planting depth was unheard of 10 years ago. These new planting technologies have changed planting row crops going forward, but what about cereals, legumes, and grasses? Have these small-seed crops been left in the high-speed planter’s dust?

Box drills remain

We haven’t seen a lot of changes with box drills over the years. All drills essentially still work in somewhat the same fashion. Some farmers will still broadcast their seed and drag or disk it in just to get across acres faster. Both drilling and broadcasting remain effective ways to seed, but we have had a few new players and innovations enter the market in the past few years that

not everyone has heard about.

One of the simplest innovations in most box-type drills has been improved down pressure settings. Some companies use different springs while others are now pneumatic. Either of these enables the double-disc drill to cut through the heavy residue left from today’s high-yielding crops. This saves the need for the additional coulter in previous no-till units. Of course, it is important to be able to get through the residue while maintaining a proper planting depth. I encourage you to take a look at the new designs of the same older drill you currently run, and most likely, you will be impressed.

For those of you who still like to broadcast your seed, the rising popularity of vertical tillage and highspeed disks has drastically improved germination rates. Many farmers can now plant lower rates — closer to that of a grain drill — and still get a great stand. This is mainly due to the fact that both of these units are able to run at shallow depths. Certain high-speed disks can run as shallow as 1 inch, level the surface, and still move all of the soil to fully incorporate the seed and firm up the seedbed with the weight of the rear rollers.

The latest and newest player is the air seeder. I’m not talking about the large 80-foot air drills for the North. I’m referring to the air seeders that can be mounted on other implements and can seed rates as low as 3 pounds to the acre.

Amazing accuracy

The small air seeders can be mounted on vertical tillage units, rolling harrows, and high-speed disks. Some companies even have a thatch drill designed to lightly cover or scratch in grass seeds. These units have amazing accuracy and can cover widths up to 60 feet. Several of the newer brands are from Europe, where they have been used for years. They are just new to North America. One popular brand is from a Canadian manufacturer.

The hoppers on these units can be loaded with a seed tender and have one or two metering rolls that measure the seed coming out. Once they are calibrated, they are the most accurate seeding tool I’ve seen for small grass and legume seeds. Another use for these units can also be to incorporate pop-up fertilizer. We have mounted these units on planters and also used them on high-speed disks to incorporate the fertilizer or micronutrients in one pass. Farmers are interested in saving trips wherever they can, and this is one way to do it.

I have seen firsthand how helpful and handy air seeders can be. You’re not necessarily reinventing the wheel but adding another wheel to the tools that you already have. With the price of equipment continuing to go up, I think it’s important to make sure that you can fully utilize each piece of equipment that you own — maybe even cut down on the total number as well. Take a look at some of the new add-ons, and I think you will be impressed just as I have been.

Have a great spring planting season! •

ADAM VERNER

The author is a managing partner in Elite Ag LLC, Leesburg, Ga. He also is active in the family farm in Rutledge.

APV

Corn silage disconnects

EACH day, there is a new opportunity to learn and improve. Over the past few months, this has proven true for me as I’ve been learning from agronomy and animal nutrition thought leaders during presentations, podcasts, and webinars. The topic up for discussion has been the past two silage crops and the unique corn silage quality outcomes. To use the phrase coined by Corey Geiger in a recent Hoard’s Dairyman Herd It Here podcast episode, last year’s corn silage is a “tricky beast.”

With corn going in the ground for 2023, this topic should be in our rearview mirror at this point. However, what we’ve experienced and learned coming out of 2022 will have an impact on management practices and sampling programs for 2023. The notable agronomic and silage quality characteristics that have shown true for some in backto-back years include:

1. Growers continue to hit the 65% whole-plant moisture target.

2. Healthier plants are equating to green stalks right up to harvest for silage, and wetter stalks are hanging onto moisture.

3. The grain has been drier than the green plants would indicate, usually two-thirds to three-quarters milkline with advanced kernel maturity.

4. Laboratory analyses indicate that many samples have substantially lower starch digestibility.

Talking with Todd Schaumburg, an experienced agronomist, has me convinced that our silage harvest timing strategy should evolve in 2023. As noted above, we’ve been observing and speaking to less digestible starch in silage from a nutrition perspective. Schaumburg and his consulting team have helped further explain why this is showing up in silage analysis.

More advanced milkline

Year in and year out, their team notes tasseling date for growers and then begins intensely monitoring whole-plant moisture, targeting around 65% in the silo. In 2021 and 2022, with advanced seed genetics, crop protection, and agronomic practices, Schaumburg commented that

they were getting to 65% moisture in new ways, with healthier corn plants hanging onto moisture like never before. They found that drier kernels were needed to “soak up the moisture.”

During a recent webinar together, Schaumburg showed two striking pictures of corn at harvest. The first picture showcased healthy, green plants from soil to tassel. The second picture detailed the ears broken in half, showing advanced milkline and kernel maturity. The latter image stuck out to me. I won’t forget the set of ears in the back of his truck broken in half and

kernel maturity to your harvest timing checklist. With a solid game plan, your harvest timing will be excellent.

In the silo

Bringing this article from the field to the silo, there’s another disconnect in silage quality that’s shown up in feed analyses at feedout. In a review of the Rock River Laboratory silage quality database, moisture and starch trend together in silage. For example, 65% to 70% moisture silage will carry less starch than 55% to 60% moisture when averaging across the entire set of submitted samples. Yet, database averages can be misleading, and experience has shown that moisture and starch are sometimes disconnected.

Working with several dairies analyzing both silage moisture and quality numerous times per month, we’ve found that moisture and silage quality can disassociate in the silo. For example, in one case, silage moisture remained at 64% to 65% for several months while feeding out a large pile. At the same time, the feed analyses showed a 4 to 5 percentage unit improvement in starch content. This is enough starch to pull out a couple of pounds in supplemental corn grain, which is significant.

kernels at two-thirds to three-quarter milkline despite the green plants. Todd and I believe this situation will be more prevalent in years ahead. The assumption that 65% moisture corresponds to one-half milkline is going up in smoke, and strictly monitoring moisture to target your silage harvest is no longer adequate.

According to Schaumburg, we should key in on several items to optimize harvest timing in 2023. First, record the date that your cornfields tassel, then mark 45 days after that date and circle a week to 10-day window to begin monitoring moisture and kernel maturity. While 45 days post tasseling has been tried and true for time to silage maturity, this window could stretch out to 60 days with healthier plants and rainfall. Schaumburg’s team has noted that this is another disconnect that complicates harvest timing.

Next, monitor whole-plant moisture like we’ve done for years. Lastly, add

I’d long held the belief that starch content and moisture are connected in silage. While some farms use silage moisture test results as a proxy for nutritional changes and quality testing, I now advise caution with this approach. Keep in mind that the silage quality could just as easily drop at the same moisture. This is likely due to field-to-field variation in hybrids and growing conditions.

Take these newly recognized silage disconnects into account with your harvest and feeding plans. Don’t assume moisture forecasts quality. •

JOHN GOESER

The author is the director of nutrition research and innovation with Rock River Lab Inc, and adjunct assistant professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Dairy Science Department.

Kernel milkline is not necessarily a good indicator of whole-plant moisture.

Mike Rankin

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SOIL, ANIMAL, & HUMAN HEALTH

NORTHERN KENTUCKY

HOSTED BY:

PRE-CONGRESS TOURS

Central Grasslands

Join us in Covington, Kentucky as we welcome delegates to the United States for the XXV International Grassland Congress. This is the first time IGC will be in the US since 1981.

Tour ranches, native prairie hay meadows, and other grassland-centered agricultural productions in Texas, and Oklahoma. Additional stops include the Cesar Kleberg Wildlife Center, the National Weather Service Station, and more iconic sites.

Subtropical

Grassland for Soil, Animal and Human Health.

International Grassland Congress KENTUCKY,USA 2023

Northwest

Visit one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world with diverse climates, rich soils, and large-scale irrigation systems. See forage productions, dairy operations, and the growing wine industries of Oregon.

Northeast

This tour focuses on operations and venues across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Stops include a behind-the-scenes tour of Desert Farms, multiple agricultural research centers, and the 250-room, French Renaissance chateau Biltmore Estate.

Presentations highlight: Research on grassland ecology

• Forage production and utilization

• Livestock production systems

• Grassland sustainability and ecosystems

Explore the most historic area of the United States. The tour begins in Philadelphia, PA, and then moves on to Delaware, Washington D.C., and Virginia. Along with historic sites, the tour will also stop at New Holland and Wye Angus.

• Grassland policies and social issues

Sub-Themes

The event also hosts pre-congress tours of grasslands throughout the Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, and Pacific Northwest regions of the U.S.

Sub-Theme 1: Grassland Ecology

Sub-Theme 2: Grassland Production & Utilization

Sub-Theme 3: Livestock Production Systems

Sub-Theme 4: Grassland Sustainability, Innovations & Initiatives

Sub-Theme 5: Grassland Policies, Social Issues & Policies, Social Issues & Ecosystem Services

HOSTED BY:

For more information and registration scan the QR code with your mobile device or visit

For more information and registration scan the QR code with your mobile device or visit INTERNATIONALGRASSLANDS.ORG

INTERNATIONALGRASSLANDS.ORG

Eastern Kansas Grazing School

May 6 and 7, Bronson, Kan.

Details: ksfgc.org/upcoming-events/

Missouri Grazing Schools

May 8 to 10, Heritage, Mo.

Details: extension.missouri.edu/ programs/forage

Florida Beef Cattle Short Course

May 10 to 12, Gainesville, Fla.

Details: animal.ifas.ufl.edu/events/

Alfalfa and Small Grains

Field Day

May 11, University of California-Davis

Details: ucanr.edu/blogs/Alfalfa/

International Grassland Congress

May 14 to 19, Covington, Ky.

Details: internationalgrasslands.org

Four-State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference

June 7 and 8, Dubuque, Iowa

Details: fourstatedairy.org

Corn Silage and Forage Field Day

June 15, Tifton, Ga.

Details: georgiaforages.com

Wisconsin Farm Technology Days

July 18 to 20, Baraboo, Wis.

Details: wifarmtechdays.org

Farm Progress Show

August 29 to 31, Decatur, Ill.

Details: farmprogressshow.com

Grassfed Exchange Conference

September 11 to 13, Hershey, Pa.

Details: grassfedexchange.com

National Hay Assn. Convention

Sept. 20 to 23, Bowling Green, Ky.

Details: nationalhay.org

World Dairy Expo

World Forage Analysis

Superbowl

October 1 to 6, Madison, Wis.

Corn silage entries due July 12

Hay crop entries due Aug. 24

Details: bit.ly/HFG-WFAS

Western Alfalfa & Forage Symposium

December 12 to 14, Reno, Nev.

Details: calhaysymposium.com

Will hay prices move lower in 2023?

There are many reasons to believe that hay prices might retreat from the historical highs of the past two years. Meteorologists predict drought will be less of a concern in 2023 and the West is set up with more water than in previous years.

The demand for export hay was down

significantly through the first two months of 2023. Finally, input prices and the costs of alternative feeds are both trending downward.

The prices below are primarily from USDA hay market reports as of midApril. Prices are FOB barn/stack unless otherwise noted. •

For weekly updated hay prices, go to “USDA Hay Prices” at hayandforage.com

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This timothy producer takes fields nobody wants

This self-made western Idaho farmer was one of the first in the area to produce timothy hay for exporting. Most of it is grown on marginal land.

MANAGING EDITOR Michael C. Rankin

ART DIRECTOR Todd Garrett

EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Jennifer L. Yurs

ONLINE MANAGER Patti J. Hurtgen

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING John R. Mansavage

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W.D. HOARD & SONS

PRESIDENT Brian V. Knox

EDITORIAL OFFICE

28 Milwaukee Ave. West, Fort Atkinson, WI, 53538

WEBSITE www.hayandforage.com

EMAIL info@hayandforage.com

PHONE 920-563-5551

DEPARTMENTS

4 First Cut

8 The Pasture Walk

Can the South help curb the alfalfa trend line?

Well-respected plant breeder Joe Bouton explains why the South is a largely untapped region for successful alfalfa production.

Forage seeding tech has advanced

Air seeders have changed the way many row crops are planted. Now they are being used for small-seed forage crops, too.

MIDWEST CEREAL OPTION?

12 GETTING TO THE ROOT OF SOIL HEALTH

14 FORAGES CAN RAISE THE RESILIENCE BASELINE

16 ALFALFA FED IN PREPARTUM DAIRY DIETS

18 TWO WOMEN, EIGHT BALERS, AND A LOT OF TRUCKS

22 A UNIQUE ROAD TO BEEF-GRAZING SUCCESS

26 BUILD SILAGE PILES WITH REMOVAL RATES IN MIND

29 CORN SILAGE DISCONNECTS

Steve and Judy Freeman, along with their dog, Annie, are shown surveying their herd of South Poll cattle. Their Missouri farm rests in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. The former “city kids” have developed a top-notch grazing operation and currently run 180 brood cows on 900 grazeable acres, consisting mostly of tall fescue. Read more about this successful cow-calf operation beginning on Page 22.

Photo by Mike Rankin

Two women, eight balers, and a lot of trucks

by Mike Rankin

OREGON’S Willamette Valley marks the center of U.S. grass seed production. Once the grass seed is harvested, the remainder of the plant is left behind. This grass straw was once treated as a waste product, either burned in the field or removed and destroyed. Those days are over. Now, baled grass straw is a valued commodity for export.

Two women who own or manage three vertically integrated businesses that depend on the grass straw industry are Macey Wessels and Shelly Boshart Davis. Wessels spoke at Symposium 2023 last February, which is hosted by the Midwest Forage Association and Wisconsin Custom Operators.

Both women came from family farms when they first met at the Oregon State Capitol while stumping for agricultural interests. They quickly became friends. “We are complete opposites,” Wessels said. “Shelly

hates management and conflict but loves sales. I enjoy managing people. We talked about going into business together but didn’t know exactly what that would look like.”

After exploring several business models, Boshart Davis suggested the two women buy her family’s trucking and straw-baling business, which was owned by her parents, Stan and Lori, in Tangent, Ore. That transaction became a reality in 2018, and the two friends now have a financial or managing interest in three field-to-end user businesses. Soon after buying Boshart Trucking, Boshart Davis successfully won a seat in Oregon’s House of Representatives.

Boshart Trucking, which was started in 1983 with two semitrucks, now has a fleet of 35. The entity also does straw baling and employs 25 yearround workers along with 35 seasonal employees (mostly teenagers) during the summer harvest. In addition to straw, the company’s trucks haul many other agricultural and nonagricultural goods throughout the year.

BOSSCO Trading LLC was formed in 1999 as the marketing arm of the businesses after the brokerage that Boshart Trucking sold straw to went bankrupt. At that time, Boshart Davis went to Japan and South Korea to maintain the market for their grass straw. BOSSCO Trading LLC is managed by Boshart Davis but is still owned by her parents. It employs two full-time workers who are responsible for export sales and customer service.

Pressco LLC, formed in 2003, was the final piece to the puzzle that completed the loop of field to end user. It is still owned by Boshart Davis’ parents but managed by Wessels. The bale-pressing facility does custom pressing and has 10 to 12 full-time employees. Here, bales are sliced, compressed, bound, and shrink-wrapped into bundles for loading into export containers.

Extreme baling

Boshart Trucking bales approximately 20,000 acres of grass straw from 40 different growers. They work in about a 150-mile radius, and this all has to be accomplished in a sixweek period.

“There are four baling crews with each consisting of two Krone balers, two rakes, and a bale stacker,” Wessels explained. “Each crew has an adult crew chief and five seasonal workers who operate the equipment. Dense bales are important for the press to operate correctly. Bales are at least 1,000 pounds, but the average is closer to 1,200 pounds.”

The grass straw comes from fields where fescue, perennial ryegrass, annual ryegrass, or orchardgrass seed was harvested. Wessels said that they bale mostly during the day to ensure a dry product, and the crew chief constantly monitors bale moisture.

Electronic logging devices (ELDs) are in all of Boshart Trucking’s trucks, bale squeezes. This makes it possible to see where equipment is located at all times from the company’s offices.

“We operate with complete transparency for our growers,” Wessels said.

Boshart Trucking and BOSSCO

Boshart Trucking

Shelly Boshart Davis (left) and Macey Wessels (right) own and operate Boshart Trucking in Tangent, Ore. They also manage two other vertically integrated businesses.

Trading integrate to maintain this transparency from harvest timing to bale removal and through the entire sales process. Further, they provide updates on market conditions to their growers. The grass straw export market is in Japan and South Korea. “This is not a hay product,” Wessels explained. “We compete against lowgrade Australian hay and rice straw. The product is simply used in live -

stock rations to add fiber.”

Boshart Trucking moves about 25 to 50 containers per week to the port or container terminal for export for BOSSCO Trading. “We feel we have an advantage in traceability,” Wessels said. “We can trace any of our straw back from Korea and Japan to the field that it came from. Having control of the entire process has led to us having a really stable customer base.”

Wessels acknowledged that a lot of their business success depends on things out of their control. “Whether it’s a good grass straw year or not, we still have to cover 20,000 acres,” she said. “We also are directly impacted by the strength of the U.S. dollar and international shipping bottlenecks.”

Invest in employees

“Employees are our lifeblood,” Wessels asserted. “We invest in our employees through extensive training and education, and we encourage them to be involved in the community. We try to work around their schedules as much as possible. I would do anything for my employees, and I’d like to think they’d do anything for me.”

GROW MORE & YOUR ROI PROTEIN

Wessels and Boshart Davis feel it is important to invest their time and effort in youth workers, although it’s not always easy doing so. A lot of their seasonal labor are only 14 to 19 years old.

“We train them and require them to take safety classes for driving tractors and equipment,” Wessels said. “At 14 years old, they get their first job interview. Most of them don’t come off the farm. They quickly learn that one job impacts the next. A bad job of raking impacts the baler, a bad job of baling impacts the stacker, and a bad job of stacking impacts the squeeze operator who loads the trucks.”

Wessels said that hiring new and maintaining skilled full-time employees remains a challenge. “We hire people who we like and will fit into our environment,” she said. “We then train them ourselves for two years and eventually pay for their commercial driving license (CDL) and schooling.”

In concluding, Wessels said, “There is plenty of opportunity in agriculture for people who are willing to work hard and think outside the box.” For her and Boshart Davis, that thought process is grounded in life experiences. •

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Mike Rankin

Macey Wessels said their businesses value hard work, relationships, and community involvement.

Alfalfa is being used as a “tool” to form compatible mixtures with bermudagrass, enhance the nutritive value of grass hay, and reduce nitrogen fertilizer costs without harming grass persistence, thereby supporting yearround, high-quality forage production. Winter weather in the region is mild, grazing seasons are long, and Southern producers are fundamentally graziers. Using adaptive, grazing-tolerant varieties, along with embracing new research on grazing management, was an important step.

Those who do not want to harvest alfalfa often or worry about unpredictable rainy weather now practice targeted grazing with grazing-tolerant varieties. Persistent weed problems were overcome by the glyphosate resistant trait. Alfalfa as a component of wildlife management plots are common. Dairy farmers who planted corn crop after corn crop for silage on the same land are seeing lost productivity and

efforts directed for the South such as the “Alfagraze — Hay It or Graze It” program, and more recently, the “GotBermudagrass?” initiative increased seed sales and acreage substantially and demonstrated what can be done. Recent “Alfalfa in the South” workshops are also doing much to promote alfalfa use and are well attended by motivated producers.

Future opportunity

Harvested alfalfa acreage rose substantially after the 1930 Alfalfa Conference, reaching a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. Since that time, national acreage experienced a slow decline, losing almost half of that peak acreage. In fact, one of the main issues discussed during the 2022 World Alfalfa Congress held recently in San Diego was the continuing loss of U.S. alfalfa acreage, especially in the Western growing areas due to drought and water restrictions.

SOIL, ANIMAL, & HUMAN HEALTH

NORTHERN KENTUCKY

PRE-CONGRESS TOURS

Central Grasslands

Tour ranches, native prairie hay meadows, and other grassland-centered agricultural productions in Texas, and Oklahoma. Additional stops include the Cesar Kleberg Wildlife Center, the National Weather Service Station, and more iconic sites.

Subtropical

This tour focuses on operations and venues across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Stops include a behind-the-scenes tour of Desert Farms, multiple agricultural research centers, and the 250-room, French Renaissance chateau Biltmore Estate.

Sub-Themes

Sub-Theme 1: Grassland Ecology

Sub-Theme 2: Grassland Production & Utilization

Sub-Theme 3: Livestock Production Systems

Northwest

sive forage-livestock systems by serving unique and multiple uses, even in small acreages, and is being promoted as such. All it needs now is a boost from the seed industry. The industry’s past reluctance was understandable but is now a self-fulfilling prophecy. It looks like a lost opportunity.

The answer to the posed question above and this article’s title is: “Yes, it can, but the alfalfa seed industry will need to work with the current Southern mavens to employ better marketing and to take some financial risks in order to develop a Southern alfalfa market.” The outcome of any company doing that will enhance its market share and bottom line. •

The author is a professor emeritus with the University of Georgia in Athens and owner of

International Grassland Congress

KENTUCKY,USA 2023

MAY 14-19, 2023

Visit one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world with diverse climates, rich soils, and large-scale irrigation systems. See forage productions, dairy operations, and the growing wine industries of Oregon.

Northeast

Explore the most historic area of the United States. The tour begins in Philadelphia, PA, and then moves on to Delaware, Washington D.C., and Virginia. Along with historic sites, the tour will also stop at New Holland and Wye Angus.

Sub-Theme 4: Grassland Sustainability, Innovations & Initiatives

Sub-Theme 5: Grassland Policies, Social Issues & Policies, Social Issues & Ecosystem Services

For more information and registration scan the QR code with your mobile device or visit

INTERNATIONALGRASSLANDS.ORG

HOSTED BY:

JOE BOUTON