Using Annual Forages To Beef Up Perennial Pastures

By Jim Gerrish: There has been a tremendous surge in the use of annual forages over the last several years. Part of this has been driven by the increased use of annual cover crops in mixed farming-livestock production systems. There has been a spillover of interest in putting annual forages into existing perennial pastures. I am pretty sure I have received more questions on that topic in the last two to three years than I had in the previous 20-30 years combined...

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Plants Don't Need Soil, But Soil Needs Plants

By Steve Kenyon: Did you know that a plant could grow without soil? In a crack in a rock on a mountainside, a spruce tree can grow. How does it grow and where does it get its nutrients?...

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Legumes Enrich Your Sward

By Karl Dallefeld: Legumes are an important part of the diversity of any pasture or cover crop and they bring far more to the table than simply nitrogen credits...

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Keeping Calves On Their Mommas Through The Winter May Make For Smarter Cows

By Heather Smith Thomas: Sims Cattle Company is a grass and cattle outfit run by Scott and April Sims and their son Shanon and his wife Melinda. Scott and Shanon are third and fourth generation, respectively, on this Wyoming ranch. Recently they have been making a lot of innovative changes in their operations. “We’d been taking our replacement heifers to Torrington, at lower elevation, putting them on silage to develop them through the winter, and then bring them back home for summer grazing. “We decided we’d try leaving the heifer calves on the cows for the winter, not weaning them until they are 10 months old...

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Heritage Pigs Put North Carolina Beef Grazier In The Clear

By William Winter: About ten years ago, when grass-fed cattle producer and entrepreneur, Pride Sasser, of the rural mountainous area of North Carolina first brought heirloom pigs to his state, everyone thought, “Man, that’s like hauling coal to Newcastle!” ...

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