Annual forages can be a great way to provide deferred grazing on permanent perennial pastures that may be in need of recovery time. Depending on commodity and livestock prices, annual forages may result in more economic return than grain crops, particularly on marginal crop ground.

Raising cattle is not a new concept to most of the world. Over the centuries new products and new ideas have been born that have advanced the ranching and farming industries.

In just the last couple of months, while providing bovine respiratory disease information to cattlemen, I was asked questions about use of intranasal vaccines. Because there are several types of these vaccines, and because of producer interest, I’ll try to address the most appropriate uses of these vaccines to prevent disease in cattle herds.

Hoop barns allow South Dakota and Minnesota producers to expand or revamp their feeding operations.

For young calves, most people use an esophageal feeder probe to administer colostrum or fluid. For older calves or adult cattle, a long flexible tube that goes into the nostril and down to the stomach is more appropriate.

For cattle producers in the western U.S., the ability to use public lands as a grazing tool remains extremely important. Holding a grazing permit from either the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the United States Forest Service (USFS) creates a common thread connecting most Western producers.

It has been estimated that we must double food production by the year 2050 due to population growth worldwide. There is also increased demand for animal proteins in diets of people worldwide. This demand must be met even though there is limited availability of arable land.

Since the settlement of the American West, pinyon and juniper trees have expanded across Utah’s Great Basin, crowding out native bunchgrasses and shrubs. Landscapes that were once high-desert prairies are now thick with thirsty trees.

Wine tastings are so over. The trendy thing now in California and Europe are dirt tastings, in which folks with seemingly too much money and not enough to do swirl a muddy concoction of dirt in a glass, hold it up to the light, stick their snoot in a soil slurry full of humus and then make sophisticated statements such as, “It’s a bit dusty, but I taste an echo of loam with just the right notes of compost. And was that a hint of clay on the mid-palate?”