Cattle producers have experienced an incredible rollercoaster of market prices with historic price increases in 2013 and 2014, followed by an equally unprecedented correction downward in 2015 and 2016.

Weeds and brush ruin harvested forage quality and reduce grazing capacity. The best way to manage unwanted plants in cultivated crops and improved pastures is to prevent them from occurring with a balanced fertilization program and timely applied treatments for insects and disease.

Word on the street says you gain experience just after you really need it, and you’re supposed to learn from past experiences in an effort to not repeat it. After 32 years in the managed grazing business, I’m not supposed to be surprised anymore.

A crop with all the benefits of alfalfa should be in a good position to compete well with other crops. But alfalfa has been losing ground to row crops in the U.S., with U.S. acreage down about 20 percent during the past two decades.

“Off with their heads!” is the trademark phrase of the Queen of Hearts, a vile and loathsome character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Whenever she was even slightly annoyed by one of her subjects, she would command this terrible fate for them. This is obviously not a good character trait, unless one applies the “off with their heads” philosophy to tall fescue. As it turns out, headless tall fescue is greatly beneficial to animal performance.

With the low hay prices of 2016, some producers may be thinking of trying to get into the organic hay market. Organic farming systems rely on practices such as cultural and biological pest management, and virtually prohibit synthetic chemicals in crop production and antibiotics or hormones in livestock production.

Given the tenor of the soil health buzz, however, one could not be blamed for assuming that with proper management, one could turn a compacted clay soil into something with the color, consistency and taste of chocolate cake, and the productivity of the Nile River Delta.

I don’t care who you are, standing at farm auctions has to rate in the top ten in a list of coldest jobs, especially when they’re auctioning all the household junk off first.