Every now and then, a song comes along that just hits you right in the feels. “McArthur,” sung by Hardy, Eric Church, Morgan Wallen and Tim McGraw, is that song for me right now. It’s a gritty, story-driven piece that leans into legacy and land, with each voice stepping in as a different chapter in the life of a farm – and the family rooted in it.

Organic certification requires that land be free of prohibited substances for three years (36 months) before the harvest of an organic crop. A common strategy among agricultural producers in Idaho and other semiarid agricultural regions is to plant an alfalfa hay stand and keep it in production for three or more years after establishment.

Sometimes on a clear morning, I see a screen of smoke in the valley, and I know a rancher and his loyal wife are burning pasture, or a farmer is torching his irrigation ditches, maybe burning off stubble before working his ground. It’s a rite of spring, how it’s always been and how I hope it stays. Each time I send up a prayer for the safety of all involved and put in a request for a relatively windless day.

Beyond having resistance to root diseases, most of the criteria in variety selection has been based on the aboveground attributes such as forage yield and quality, leaf to stem ratio, fiber digestibility and resistance to foliar diseases and pests. Very seldom do alfalfa producers ask the question: what type of root system does the variety have below-ground?